Category: Fragment – unknown

Today’s Nalbound Object of the Week is the Dublin fragment E190:7430. It is a purple nalbound fragment that is not large enough to give any indication of its original size, form, or function. It was found outside a house dated to the 10th century in the excavations of Viking Age Dublin carried out by the National Museum of Ireland from 1962 to 1981. Frances Pritchard had the opportunity to examine the textiles found and published an article in 1992 entitled “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” which includes most of what is known about this fragment (including the only published photograph). ¹

Object: Dublin fragment

Description: Original size unknown. Current size unknown, but the photo published in Frances Pritchard’s article is scaled 2:1.² That published photo does not show the complete fragment, so the complete dimensions cannot be calculated. It is the only nalbound example found amongst the hundreds of wool textiles and a good number of silk textiles found during the excavations.³

Color: Dye analysis by Penelope Walton indicates it was dyed with lichen purple⁴

Dated to: The excavations date to Viking Age Dublin, c. 917 to 1169 CE.

Find location: Dublin, Ireland. It was recovered from outside a house dated to the 10th century⁵ during the excavations of the Wood Quay, Fishamble street (in the mid 1970’s). See section 15.7 of https://web.archive.org/web/20220701165436/https://www.heritagecouncil.ie/unpublished_excavations/section15.html ⁶

Material: Two-ply Z/S-ply⁷ wool yarn.⁸ Diameter calculates to approximately 1-1.5 mm based on the photograph and scale.

Gauge: Row height calculates to roughly 0.75 cm and there are approximately 3.5-4 stitches to the cm based on the photograph and scale. It’s a fairly open worked binding.

Stitch(es) used: The stitch used has not been formally determined by examination as the fragment is currently inaccessible.⁹ My examination of the photo available leads me to believe that it is the stitch colloquially referred to as half-York, but could better be called Dublin stitch: F2 U/OO.

Further research is indicated. At the time of Frances Pritchard’s article, it was thought that nalbinding was only usual in Scandinavian and Baltic countries of the time and thus probable it was made by a Scandinavian settler, much like the Coppergate Sock found in York.¹⁰ Of the other known Viking Era finds in Scandinavia, none use York family style intralacing. The York family style intralacing is found in similar stitches in Egypt, France, Spain, and Greece so far. Thus the nalbound artifacts in the Isles may have more in common with the nalbinding of Southern Europe/North Africa than of Scandinavia.

Inventory number: E190:7430

Current location: National Museum of Ireland, current location in their collections is unknown.¹¹

Link to museum catalog or other data: The National Museum of Ireland does not have online catalog information for this artifact.

Some sources in which more information can be found:

Pritchard, Frances. “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” in Archaeological Textiles in Northern Europe Report from the 4th NESAT Symposium 1. – 5. May 1990 Copenhagen, edited by Lise Bender Jorgensen & Elisabeth Munksgaard, Tidens Tand, Nr. 5, 1992, pages 93-104. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, 1992. ISBN 87-89730-04-6.

Wallace, Patrick F. Viking Dublin: The Wood Quay Excavations. Irish Academic Press, 2016. ISBN 978-07165-3314-6. (A brief mention of the fragment is found on page 263.)

Photographs: There are no photos in the National Museum of Ireland’s Image Library for this reference or reg number.¹² The only known image is the partial one published in Frances Pritchard’s article.

Documenting attempts to determine the stitch variant used:

In 2016, Katherine Walsh, posted to the Nalbinding Facebook group asking if anyone knew which stitch was used to make this fragment.¹³ Her initial thought was maybe Oslo, but she wasn’t sure. At the time, I suggested Loop & Twist with a carried thread and connecting around the post instead of in between stitches as the fragment shows a very distinctly vertical wale, not the diagonal more commonly found in Loop & Twist. Not long after this, I realized that it was not Loop & Twist, but U/OO F2 instead.

Katherine provided several samples testing out the theory which she later appears to have developed into a small handout entitled “Nalbinding in Fishamble Street.”¹⁴

In April 2019, Kathrine posted in the Léine Medieval Crafters Facebook Group showing some further experimentation including the back side of her theoretical construction which clearly shows the “purl” effect of the F2B connection.¹⁵ This type of connection to the previous row is sometimes referred to as encircled.¹⁶

The Loop & Twist theory unfortunately does not seem to have quite the correct angles to match the image of the Dublin fragment.

Further experimentation led me to believe that the Dublin fragment is most likely U/OO F2. It’s the F2 connection that causes the vertical stacking on the intraconnections. If it is U/OO F2, that is actually quite interesting as it is very similar to the York¹⁷ stitch (UU/OOO F2), only off by one loop, which is, in and of itself, and as a family style of intralacing, unusual in the Scandinavian corpus.

Debbie Bradley Lauf seems to have independently come to a similar conclusion. She has noted that a scarf she finished looks similar to the structure of the Dublin fragment. I think the resemblance would be greatly enhanced by working with a two-ply yarn and working in the round instead of flat, but you can see her scarf here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/permalink/3444789742238522/ Sept. 1, 2020.

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1. Page 102 of Frances Pritchard’s “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” in Archaeological Textiles in Northern Europe Report from the 4th NESAT Symposium 1. – 5. May 1990 Copenhagen, edited by Lise Bender Jorgensen & Elisabeth Munksgaard, Tidens Tand, Nr. 5, 1992, pages 93-104. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, 1992. ISBN 87-89730-04-6 contains the photo attributed to Jon Bailey, Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. ↩︎
2. Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
3. Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
4. Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
5. Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
6. See also: https://www.heritagecouncil.ie/projects/significant-unpublished-irish-excavations-1930-1997 and https://www.heritagecouncil.ie/content/files/unpublished_excavations_republic_ireland_1930_1997_2mb.pdf ↩︎
7. Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
8. Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 93 ↩︎
9. Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
10. Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
11. In August of 2019, Emma Boast commented, on another Facebook post inquiring about the Dublin fragment, that she had reached out to the National Museum of Ireland and was “was told they don’t currently know where it is within the collections.” [Emma Boast writing as Bruni Bear at the time, in the comments of: https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/posts/2583805478336957/]. Confirmed with Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
12. Personal correspondence with the Image Library Officer dated 18 March 2024. ↩︎
13. The Nalbinding Facebook group is Private. You will need to join the group in order to view the post. https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/?post_id=1214342911949894 ↩︎
14. Snapshots of portions of her handout appear on Facebook as early as:
    a. April 11, 2019 https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/?post_id=2345924742125033 or https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/?post_id=2345924742125033&cft[0]=AZVpoDGde8Fs6dr1F2nqBI6ZvilTVkdNPUsiUfzIii2dv4n5fQwhO9xkNS4mQ6JvCZoqUgzzxsewcTfqrDZff0_OXq8lwT5XNRzkSFl6_yZLgvnwS5LIypeq2WRhClrBnvDDim-X5JnW_vr54Tptf7hGXoR3iYBLEmfUmyWManoRqTerRbsFg_j1stdMM_LG0xU&tn=%2CO%2CP-R
    b. April 14, 2019 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1415884025355290/?post_id=2394166970860319
    c. Aug 29, 2019 https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/?post_id=2583805478336957 or https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/?post_id=2583805478336957&cft[0]=AZVwou8VAPwlNdeuVuyFDmahQm1Z2RszGVjm3boRL2-k1aknYYaew9L8xy9BZ3TSUcKqvKhe8Ds7CDY6xn3hFwNSxBlshob1ukSZQp9zDvmxSr2Gt6Q2Ogh7G7Ikum-RJY2zxuq1rBJ-mXfrxzxq8gPZ0aXFidbxokNYNd5eM98SkWVQHP69wt4kzplYGn5cX4U&tn=%2CO%2CP-R. See also Emma Boast’s post on Nidavellnir https://www.facebook.com/nidavellnir/posts/2869934593036566 ↩︎
15. In April 2019, Kathrine Walsh posted in the Léine Medieval Crafters Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1415884025355290/posts/2394166970860319/ ↩︎
16. Primarily demonstrated with Cross-knit Looping, see Looping: 9. Encircled Looping on pages 17 & 18 of Seiler-Baldinger, Annemarie. Textiles A Classification of Techniques. Washington: Smithsonian Inst, 1994. ISBN 1-56098-509-7, Encircled isn’t a stitch per se, but a method of connection to the adjacent row. ↩︎
17. The York stitch is also known as the Coppergate stitch or the Jorvik stitch. See my prior post on the Coppergate sock at https://nalbound.com/2024/01/30/now-coppergate-york-jorvik-sock-small-find-13517-patreon-sponsored/ ↩︎