The Valkyries’ Loom

The Valkyries’ Loom
Author: Michèle Hayeur Smith
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2023-01-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813072778

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Using textiles to understand gender and economy in Norse societies In The Valkyries’ Loom, Michèle Hayeur Smith examines Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in the ninth century AD. While previous researchers have overlooked textiles as insignificant artifacts, Hayeur Smith is the first to use them to understand gender and economy in Norse societies of the North Atlantic.  This groundbreaking study is based on the author’s systematic comparative analysis of the vast textile collections in Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, materials that are largely unknown even to archaeologists and span 1,000 years. Through these garments and fragments, Hayeur Smith provides new insights into how the women of these island nations influenced international trade by producing cloth (vaðmál); how they shaped the development of national identities by creating clothing; and how they helped their communities survive climate change by reengineering clothes during the Little Ice Age. She supplements her analysis by revealing societal attitudes about weaving through the poem “Darraðarljoð” from Njál’s Saga, in which the Valkyries—Óðin’s female warrior spirits—produce the cloth of history and decide the fates of men and nations.  Bringing Norse women and their labor to the forefront of research, Hayeur Smith establishes the foundation for a gendered archaeology of the North Atlantic that has never been attempted before. This monumental and innovative work contributes to global discussions about the hidden roles of women in past societies in preserving tradition and guiding change.

The Valkyries' Loom

The Valkyries' Loom
Author: Michèle Hayeur Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021
Genre: Textile fabrics
ISBN: 9780813058771

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In 'The Valkyries' Loom', Michle Hayeur Smith examines Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in the ninth century AD. While previous researchers have overlooked textiles as insignificant artifacts, Hayeur Smith is the first to use them to understand gender and economy in Norse societies of the North Atlantic. This groundbreaking study is based on the author's systematic comparative analysis of the vast textile collections in Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, materials that are largely unknown even to archaeologists and span 1,000 years.

The Book of Looms

The Book of Looms
Author: Eric Broudy
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 184
Release: 1993
Genre: Handlooms
ISBN: 9780874516494

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A heavily illustrated classic on the evolution of the handloom is now reissued in a handy paper edition.

Pattern Weaving

Pattern Weaving
Author: Rabbit Goody
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 0811748847

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Basic steps needed to weave luxurious fabrics on a foot-treadle handloom.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
Author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1995-09-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0393285588

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"A fascinating history of…[a craft] that preceded and made possible civilization itself." —New York Times Book Review New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies. Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women. Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture. Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods—methods she herself helped to fashion. In a "brilliantly original book" (Katha Pollitt, Washington Post Book World), she argues that women were a powerful economic force in the ancient world, with their own industry: fabric.

Mummies Of Urumchi

Mummies Of Urumchi
Author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2000-05-02
Genre: Design
ISBN: 9780393320190

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An absorbing exploration of the mysterious, perfectly preserved Caucasian mummies of western China--an informative unveiling of an ancient and exotic world. 16 pp. of color photos. 50 drawings. Author lectures.

Valkyrie

Valkyrie
Author: Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350137103

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LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war – to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings. The women in these stories take full part in the power struggles and upheavals in their communities, for better or worse. Drawing on the latest historical and archaeological evidence, Valkyrie introduces readers to the dramatic and fascinating texts recorded in medieval Iceland, a culture able to imagine women in all kinds of roles carrying power, not just in this world, but pulling the strings in the other-world, too. In the process, this fascinating book uncovers the reality behind the myths and legends to reveal the dynamic, diverse lives of Viking women.

Woven Into the Earth

Woven Into the Earth
Author: Else Østergård
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2004
Genre: Design
ISBN:

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One of the century's most spectacular archaeological finds occurred in 1921, a year before Howard Carter stumbled upon Tutankhamun's tomb, when Poul Norlund recovered dozens of garments from a graveyard in the Norse settlement of Herjolfsnaes, Greenland. Preserved intact for centuries by the permafrost, these mediaeval garments display remarkable similarities to western European costumes of the time. Previously, such costumes were known only from contemporary illustrations, and the Greenland finds provided the world with a close look at how ordinary Europeans dressed in the Middle Ages. Fortunately for Norlund's team, wood has always been extremely scarce in Greenland, and instead of caskets, many of the bodies were found swaddled in multiple layers of cast off clothing. When he wrote about the excavation later, Norlund also described how occasional thaws had permitted crowberry and dwarf willow to establish themselves in the top layers of soil. Their roots grew through coffins, clothing and corpses alike, binding them together in a vast network of thin fibers - as if, he wrote, the finds had been literally sewn in the earth. Eighty years of technical advances and subsequent excavations have greatly added to our understanding of the Herjolfsnaes discoveries. Woven into the Earth recounts the dramatic story of Norlund's excavation in the context of other Norse textile finds in Greenland. It then describes what the finds tell us about the materials and methods used in making the clothes. The weaving and sewing techniques detailed here are surprisingly sophisticated, and one can only admire the talent of the women who employed them, especially considering the harsh conditions they worked under. While Woven into the Earth will be invaluable to students of medieval archaeology, Norse society and textile history, both lay readers and scholars are sure to find the book's dig narratives and glimpses of life among the last Vikings fascinating.

Viking Clothing

Viking Clothing
Author: Thor Ewing
Publisher:
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2006
Genre: Design
ISBN:

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Contrary to popular myth, the Vikings had a reputation for neatness and their fashions were copied far beyond the realms of Scandinavia. Those who could afford to displayed a love of fine clothes made from silks, from lightweight worsteds in subtly woven twills, and from the finest of linens. This accessible new book is the first to tackle the question of what the Vikings wore, drawing on evidence from art and archaeology, literature, and linguistics to arrive at a fresh understanding of the nature of Viking clothing, covering rich and poor, men and women across Scandinavia. It includes an overview of Viking textiles and dyeing, and an exploration of cloth production and clothing in the context of Viking society as a whole, as well as a detailed consideration of both male and female outfits and a new interpretation of the suspended dress.

Making Textiles in pre-Roman and Roman Times

Making Textiles in pre-Roman and Roman Times
Author: Margarita Gleba
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1842177672

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Textile production is an economic necessity that has confronted all societies in the past. While most textiles were manufactured at a household level, valued textiles were traded over long distances and these trade networks were influenced by raw material supply, labour skills, costs, as well as by regional traditions. This was true in the Mediterranean regions and Making Textiles in pre-Roman and Roman times explores the abundant archaeological and written evidence to understand the typological and geographical diversity of textile commodities. Beginning in the Iron Age, the volume examines the foundations of the textile trade in Italy and the emergence of specialist textile production in Austria, the impact of new Roman markets on regional traditions and the role that gender played in the production of textiles. Trade networks from far beyond the frontiers of the Empire are traced, whilst the role of specialized merchants dealing in particular types of garment and the influence of Roman collegia on how textiles were produced and distributed are explored. Of these collegia, that of the fullers appears to have been particularly influential at a local level and how cloth was cleaned and treated is examined in detail, using archaeological evidence from Pompeii and provincial contexts to understand the processes behind this area of the textile trade.