Women's Set of Viking Winter Clothes based on Haithabu and Birka textile finds.

 

Haithabu in Denmark, or Hedeby in Schleswig-Holstein Germany in our modern times, was one
of the major ports of trading of this area. The textiles that were found here were from the 10th
century, the golden age of Haithabu. The Haithabu garment finds are especially interesting
because they show evidence of advanced tailoring techniques, where instead of just combining
geometric shapes several of the pieces found have been cut into shapes that closely follow the
body.

What is also interesting is that most of the textile finds at Haithabu come from the harbor
where scrap clothing was cut to pieces, soaked in tar and used as caulking in ships. Several ships
were found submerged in the harbor in modern times, and due to the tar protection and low
oxygen environment (below water) the textile fragment were remarkably well preserved. In
addition to the harbor finds, textile remains from the settlement and graveyard of Haithabu were
also analyzed, which proved additional information on what the Viking inhabitants of the town
were wearing.

The textile remains of the settlement and harbor are very similar, with the same garment
types and the proportion of weaves found roughly the same. The grave finds on the other hand
differ from this by generally having textiles of higher quality. These differences could indicate
that the content of the graves reflects beliefs and social standing, while the textiles from the
settlement and harbor may give a truer picture of what people were wearing every day.

Where the available Haithabu information is weak I supplemented my designs with
garment and textile information from Birka, a Viking trading town from around the same time in
nearby Sweden.
 

My entry at the 2016 Ice Dragon A&S Pentathlon Competition.

Now available to read and download from Academia.edu at:
https://www.academia.edu/31139188/Womens_Set_of_Viking_Winter_Clothes_based_on_Haithabu_and_Birka_textile_finds