The Nalbound Object of the Week this week is a small fragment of vegetal fiber found in Chile. The fragment has two types of Loop & Twist, both Z-crossed.
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The shape of the cuff of this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week never really fit with the 10th century dating assigned to it when it was found in the late 19th century. Recent radiocarbon dating reveals that the mitten from Iceland is dated to between the late 15th to early 17th centuries CE which makes much more sense given its shaping. As more research is conducted on nalbinding, we begin to get a clearer picture of its usage, distribution, and dating.
Arnheiðarstöðum Iceland mitten Þjms. 3405 back on display after I examined it. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker – 1 Sept 2022
Object: Iceland Mitten
Description: The mitten is densely nalbound of a two ply yarn made of wool fibers of two colors and crimps. Overall the mitten is currently a lovely reddish brown, but close examination shows that there are some darker smoother fibers intermittently mixed with lighter brown crimpier fibers bringing to mind the two coated sheep of Iceland. There is some damage to the cuff and a bit near the base of the pinky finger, but overall the mitten is in good condition. The thumb is rather large in comparison to the size of the fingers and lays flat with an extremely neatly worked connection. It is worked from the tip to the cuff. The direction of work spirals in an S slant fashion which gives the appearance of a right to left working direction when observing the current exterior. However, the stitch itself belies the thought that it might have been worked left handed and more likely it has been turned inside out leaving the technical front currently inside.
Dated to: Recently radiocarbon dated to 1480-1640 CE.1 The original dating of the 10th century had been estimated when the mitten was found in the late 19th century and was based on jewelry found nearby.2
Find location: The mitten was found in 1889 when they were digging to build a new house at the farm at Arnheiðarstaðir in the east of Fljótsdalshérað, Iceland.3
Material: Wool4 Two-ply with a diameter of just under 1/8th inch (3mm).5
Stitch(es) used: Oslo F1, F1 UO/UOO6 (Stitch determination by Margrethe Hald. Confirmed by Anne Marie Decker during her examination of the mitten on 1 September 2022)
Gauge: 6 stitches to the inch. 1 and 3/4 rows to the inch.7
Pálsson, Pálmi. 4. Tveir hanzkar in “Um myndir af gripum í forngripa-safninu.” Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags10. Reykjavik 1895. pgs. 34-35.
Rimstad, Charlotte, Ulla Mannering, Joe Wallace Walser III, and Susanne Mueller. “ICELANDIC MITTENS” Oral Presentation at the European Association of Archaeologists 29th EAA Annual Meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 30 August – 2 September 2023 https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA2023/Programme.aspx?Program=3 click on the Abstract Book (30 Aug) link to find the abstract.
Photographs:
Arnheiðarstöðum Iceland mitten Þjms. 3405 Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker – 24 Jan 2019Display including the Arnheiðarstöðum Iceland mitten Þjms. 3405 Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker – 24 Jan 2019 Anne Marie Decker’s hand comparing size with the Arnheiðarstöðum Iceland mitten Þjms. 3405 Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker – 24 Jan 2019Tip of Arnheiðarstöðum Iceland mitten Þjms. 3405 and thumb. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker – 24 Jan 2019Arnheiðarstöðum Iceland mitten Þjms. 3405 taken from above to better show the damage to the outer edge. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker – 24 Jan 2019Photos taken when I first saw the mitten on display in January 2019.
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The museum made the decision to post the recent radiocarbon dating in the online catalog entry for the mitten https://sarpur.is/Adfang.aspx?AdfangID=323304 Accessed 27 May 2024. The online catalog entry also contains a link to the testing laboratory’s Report of Radiocarbon Dating Analyses: https://sarpur.is/Uploads/Files/2290209.pdf (Accessed 23 June 2024). The dating was presented in the Icelandic Mittens presentation given by Charlotte Rimstad et. al. at the European Association of Archaeologists 29th annual meeting in Belfast in 2023 which was apparently not recorded, but the dating is noted in the Abstract for the presentation (pg. 1079 of linked pdf). Apparently an article will be forthcoming in an issue of the Norwegian Textile Review this summer or fall. ↩︎
Hald, Margrethe. “Vötturin fra Arnheidar-Stödum” in Arbok Hins islenzka fornleifafélags, 50. årgang, 1949-1950, Island, pgs. 73-78 ↩︎
I’ve been hoping to find Sámi nalbinding as there is so much nalbinding in the region, but finding Sámi specific nalbinding has been a bit of a challenge. Today’s Nalbound Object of the Week is a Skolt Sámi hat collected in 1933 that was brought to my attention by Ingela Lindberg Anderson after her trip to the National Museum of Denmark. As she was trying to find more information about some of the objects she had seen on display, she ran across this hat in the online catalog.
Skolt Sámi hat ObjectId 19278 Item number K.782 Photo credit: Mads Kildegaard Nielsen – Nationalmuseet, Danmark CC-BY-SA
Object: Skolt Sámi hat
Description: A light brown, natural colored, nalbound hat. The National Museum of Denmark provides the following measurements: Largest measurement 22 cm, Diameter 18 cm, Height 18 cm.1
Dated to: collected in 1933
Find location: The museum lists the location as “Samer – Suonikylä. Petsamo Lapps, Finland.”2 This reflects the terminology of 1933 when the hat was collected. This region of the larger Sápmi is no longer within the borders of Finland as it was ceded to Russia in the Second World War.3
Stitch(es) used: According to Margrethe Hald, the hat is worked in Långaryd stitch5, UOOOO/UUUUOO F1. However, the surface texture does not match that stitch determination. Further research should follow the Ethical Guidelines for Research Involving the Sámi People in Finland.
Inventory number: ObjectId 19278 Item number K.782
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Peru and Egypt have both excellent preservation characteristics and extensive excavation histories, so I often return to these locations for nalbound artifacts. However, for this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week, I’d like to explore an item that reflects a different tradition. While we don’t know much about archeological examples, the Arabian Peninsula has evidence of a very strong traditional usage of nalbinding. زرابيل zarbool,1 or sand socks and camel muzzles2 seem to be the predominant items made with nalbinding there. This particular pair of Omani Sand Socks, I had the pleasure of seeing while they were on display in the Socks & Stockings exhibition at the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, Netherlands in 2019.
Omani Sand Socks as on display in the Socks & Stockings exhibition at the Textile Research Centre, Leiden in October 2019. Photo: Anne Marie Decker
Object: Sand socks زرابيل
Description: The socks are worked from the toe up in alternating stripes of white and black. The stripes are two rows deep and the color is carried from one row up to the next color change. The heel is a wedge heel. There is a slit in the ankle with ties at the top to close it. The bottom showing in this image shows the pads that are worked onto the sock starting from the mid-foot and sewn down on three sides. The socks are 12.6 inches long by 5.5 inches wide (32 cm long by 14 cm wide3).
Heel and toe pads sewn on TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019Close up of the slit reversals TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019The black yarn being carried across the white rows to the next black row TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019Gauge is 2 – 2.5 rows to the inch depending on where it was measured. TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019
Acknowledgements: My thanks to Diana Lankhof and Lies van de Wege for making it possible for me to visit the Socks & Stockings exhibition at TRC. My timing was soo very tight and they graciously arranged to open an hour early so that I could have time to examine the nalbound sand socks and see the displays.
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The Arabic term for camel muzzles or mouth coverings is possibly transliterated as lisama or lasama according to this video brought to my attention by Susan Elizabeth Aiken: https://youtu.be/YcKxQ0sGpr4?si=G5uO28Y9AR1lD9RY Accessed 7 June 2024 ↩︎
In 2019, my mother and I were able to travel to Leicester for a chance to see this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week; a small child’s sock from 3rd-5th century CE Antinoë/Antinoupolis. It was one of nearly a dozen found during John de Monins Johnson‘s excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund1 in the 1913-14 season.
Leicester sock L.A63.1914.0.0 Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019
Object: Leicester child’s sock
Description: Small child’s left split toed sock in many colors: green, red, purple, yellow, and blue. Comparables can be seen in my Charting the Nalbinding of the Nile presentation from 2019. At 9:39 in the recording linked in https://nalbound.com/2019/04/06/charting-the-nalbinding-of-the-nile /
Note: At the time of the excavations, the socks were presumed to be knitted as the differences between the crossed knitting and cross-knit nalbinding techniques had not yet been described.
Dated to: 300-500 CE2 (possibly earlier around the 3rd-4th centuries based on the radiocarbon dating of other socks found during the same excavation3)
Find location: Excavated from a rubbish pit at Sheikh Abada (ancient Antinoopolis), Egypt4
Leicester Museum and Art Gallery does not have an online catalog. The sock is noted in their Collections Development Policy 2019-2024, section 3.5.2. “Although intended to be a representative selection, it includes at least one rarity, a Coptic knitted sock from Antinoe, the only example in this country outside of London.” This unfortunately reflects out of date information; the technique having been recognized as nalbinding, not knitting, in the last quarter of the last century and several examples from the same excavation are located in Britain, but outside of London. This does not, however, in any way negate its rarity and importance.
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Köstner, Barbara. “Roman and Late Roman nalbinding socks from Egypt: Bringing ‘Egyptian fashion’ to the North” in Excavating, analysing, reconstructing Textiles of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries: Proceeding of the 9th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley’ Antwerp, 27-29 November 2015, edited by Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid. Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo Publishers, 2017. ISBN 978 94 014 4399 9.
Pritchard, Frances. “A survey of textiles in the UK from the 1913-14 Egypt Exploration Fund season at Antinoupolis” in Drawing the Threads Together: Textiles and Footwear of the 1st Millenium AD from Egypt. Proceedings of the 7th Meeting of the Study Group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley”, Antwerp, 7-9 October 2011, edited by Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid, 34-55. Tielt: Lannoo, 2013. ISBN 9789401410830.
Rutt, Richard. A History of Hand Knitting. London: B T Batsford Ltd, 1987 ISBN 0713451181
Anne Marie Decker taking pictures of the Leicester sock. Photo credit: Ruth Decker 2019 The display misidentifies it as a knit sock, likely due to old catalog data. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019
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British Museum EA53913 was radiocarbon dated to between 100-350 CE. EA53913 was radiocarbon dated to 200-400 CE. ACO Tx2497 in the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels was dated to 240-400 CE. See De Moor, Antoine, Cäcilia Fluck, M. Van Strydonck, and M. Boudin. “Radiocarbon dating of Late Roman woolen socks from Egypt,” In Textiles, tools and techniques of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries. Proceedings of the 8th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley,’ Antwerp, 4-6 October 2013,] ed. Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid, p. 131-136. Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2015. ISBN 9789401432405. ↩︎
Another type of nalbound objects we see quite frequently in museums are wig caps from Inca era Peru. Thus, this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week is an Inca wig cap. The skull cap portion is made using S-crossed Simple Looping.
Object: Inca Wig Cap
Description: A light colored skull cap with a narrower dark brown and a larger brown stripe around it with around 120 braids hanging from the lower edge. These 3 strand braids have multicolored, red, green, blue, white, brown, wrappings on their bottom half. Overall dimensions are 37 x 9 7/16 in. (94 x 24 cm).
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For today’s Nalbound Object of the Week I must tell you of the surprise I got the day I was examining the medieval Nidaros Stocking. That same day, Niina-Hannele Nuutinen brought my attention to a mid-15th century knee-length stocking from Helgeandsholmen in Stockholm, Sweden. Excavated between 1978-1980, it was recently sent to Stockholm’s Archaeological Collection from the Statens Historiska Museet. While ankle length socks are well represented, knee-length nalbound stockings are rare in the archaeological record.
Mid-15th century CE nalbound knee-length stocking. UP0717-78 HELGEANDS 21539, 21542, & 22691 Stockholm stadsmuseet collection Photo credit: Medeltidsmuseet – used with permission
Object: Helgeandsholmen stocking
Description: “The thickness suggests that it was used as a lining inside a boot. On closer inspection, it can be seen that the stocking consists of three parts and that it has been folded together several times before being pierced by something – hence the light spots and the many holes and depressions. The lower end of the sock also has tar on it, indicating that it has probably been reused as a tar swab.”1
Dated to: mid-15th century CE, “mitten av 1400-talet.”2
Find location: At the turn of 2024, Stockholm’s archaeological collections received textiles from the excavation on Helgeandsholmen (1978-1980) from the Statens Historiska Museet. This previously unknown nalbound sock was among the textiles.3
Ingela Andersson Lindberg had the opportunity to examine the stocking on May 21st this year and has graciously coordinated with the museum to allow me to share these photos with you.
The other side of UP0717-78 HELGEANDS 21539, 21542, & 22691 Stockholm stadsmuseet collections Photo credit: Ingela Andersson Lindberg – used with permissionA close-up of the foot of UP0717-78 HELGEANDS 21539, 21542, & 22691 Stockholm stadsmuseet collections Photo credit: Ingela Andersson Lindberg – used with permission
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The Nazca were masters of figural nalbinding. Today’s Nalbound Object of the Week is a fragment of a brightly colored band with birds alternating with flowers coming out of it and flowers growing out of both sides as well. I had the honor of examining this one in person in October of 2019.
Description: Starting with a red band worked in the round that is approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide, with the tails and wings of the bird integral on both sides, the breast, head, and beaks of the birds are worked out of the center of one side. There is a flower worked out of the center of the band for each bird to sip from between each bird. Flowers also extend from both sides of the band making the total width just under 3 inches (just under 8 cm) on average. Putting the pieces together, I measured the central band as 37 cm long.1
Material: 2 ply Z-spun S-plied Camelid wool.4 Further investigation may reveal that some of the yarns or plies of yarns come from other sources as they do not have the same texture as the majority.
Stitch(es) used: Z-crossed Cross-knit Looping5 (specific crossing determined by Anne Marie Decker during examination in October 2019)
Gauge: Approximately 19 stitches to the inch and 28 rows to the inch (approx 8 stitches and 11 rows per cm)
The fragment in the British Museum may have been part of a larger piece similar to this 2nd century BCE Nazca Border Fragment Accession Number: 31.20.1 Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain
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For this Nalbound Object of the Week, we look to the Pech people of Northeastern Honduras. Now in the Ethnographic collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, we find this lovely open worked nalbound bag in alternating light and darker brown stripes.
Description: The bag starts at the base in the lighter brown and is worked for three rows with some increases visible. Followed by two rows of the darker brown and then three, three, three, and two alternating. The bag is recorded as being 19 5/16 inches high by 14 15/16 inches wide with a thickness of 1 5/16 inches (49 x 38 x 3.4cm). The opening shows no signs of decreasing the row height or otherwise finishing the mouth of the bag. The fabric builds in an clockwise S type spiral implying it was likely worked with the fabric suspended above while being worked.
Dated to: No date provided.1 The bag is part of the Ethnographic collections, so possibly collected sometime within the last one hundred and fifty years.
Find location (Continent, current country, original culture): Plaintain River, Honduras3
Material: The online catalog only describes the material as fiber.4 It may possibly Maguey (Agave sisalana f. armata) or Aechmea as both are noted as being used by the Pech to make bags.5
Stitch(es) used: B2 U/OU as read from the technical front of the work with crosses up. (Stitch determination by Anne Marie Decker based on .TIFF photograph provided by the museum for research purposes.) Given that the clockwise S type spiral direction of work reads right to left in that orientation combined with the B2 connection, this bag was likely worked with the fabric above the hands instead of suspended below. (If worked dependent (unlikely), then this would likely be indicative of being worked left-handed.) So in working, with the fabric suspended and growing down, the direction of work would read left to right, as is most frequent and the stitch would be worked as F2 O/UO crosses down.
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Sometimes nalbinding is combined with other techniques to make a artifact. My sincere thanks to Niina-Hannele Nuutinen for bringing this particular artifact to my attention. Generally the four-cornered hats of the Wari, from 8th-10th c. Peru, are knotted. This one is knotted with pile sides, but the top is Simple Looping. So this week’s Nalbound Object of the week is actually only partially nalbound.
1983.497.7 Wari four-cornered hat with Simple Looping top. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain CC0
Object: Wari Four-cornered Hat with Simple Looping top
Description: A four-cornered brightly colored hat made with knotted pile in a lozenge pattern. The four corners have colored tassels. The top is Simple Looping worked in four differently colored bands from the sides of the hat to the top. The hat is 5 1/2 inches high and 5 3/4 inches wide (14 × 14.6 cm).1
Find location: The Wari culture was centered in the central Peruvian highland valley of Ayacucho. Wari pile hats with provenance come from the south or central coast of Peru.3 The exact provenance of this hat is unspecified.
Stitch(es) used: Larkshead Knotting with supplementary pile sides5 with Z-crossed Simple Looping, F1 O, in for the top (Top stitch determination by Anne Marie Decker from photographs)
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