Here's a little bit more about the Egtved project - which is sort-of-half finished now. Sort-of-half because there are the men's garments to be finished, and they might be more than half the complete work time altogether. I strongly suspect that, actually. (I also should probably get them their own tag, as it's not Egtved but Trindhøj, and it would be a little weird to list them under Egtved.)

So... the blouse is finished, and with that, the whole set of garments is ready to be photographed for a final documentation, then packed up and sent off to the museum. It's been very interesting to sew that blouse, and it's also interesting to wear (because of course I tried it on...)

I had gotten all ready to cut the piece, with the measurements taken off the Egtved documentation, and then that nagging feeling got the better of me, and I cut and sewed a mock-up first, using the original measurements. Turns out it was a good thing I did, because the Egtved girl was just that: a girl, aged 16 to 18 years according to estimates from her dental status. Meaning that she was not so tall, and also must have been quite slender, appropriate to her age. 

She's estimated to have been 160 cm tall, and I am 163 cm. I can just fit into the mock-up blouse, though it takes a bit of wiggling to get in, and it's not wide enough to comfortably fit me, especially since my breast circumference is a bit more than the approximately 86 or so cm the original has. (It will squeeze in, as breasts are squishy to a good extent, but it's not really fitting well that way.)

That means the piece would not be wearable or try-on-able for a lot of people... and comparing it to the two other finds of similar blouses, the one from Egtved is by far the smallest. The other two have about 98 cm circumference in the torso part. So after checking back with the museum, we decided on using the Skrydstrup measurements as basis for the piece, making it large enough to fit a German size 42, approximately. I stayed with the slit-like neck opening, though.

The wool is somewhere between soft and scratchy to me, and that is also how the fabric feels when worn on the skin. When I was younger, I used to wear wool sweaters from Iceland on bare skin, though I might be somewhat, um, hardened against scratchy stuff. I'm also quite able to ignore a bit of scratchy feeling. What I'm not able to ignore is a neck opening that is close to the front of my neck, I find that really uncomfortable and irritating, so that would be one reason for me, personally, to not wanting to wear the blouse for an extended amount of time. (Or, if it were mine, I'd just make the neck opening a little bit deeper in the front.)

Sewing the garment was an interesting experience. The seams, according to documentation by Hald and Broholm, were about 1 cm wide, with the two layers of fabric simply overlapping and whip-stitched together from both sides. Now we only have a few threads per cm here, about 3 to maybe 4... which is not much to anchor stitching. 

I solved this problem by stitching through the threads of the fabric instead of between them, which was easy to do with these large and relatively soft yarns. Made like this, the seams feel reliably sturdy. 

Sewing the blouse was overall also the part that took least time - spinning the yarns, weaving the fabric, weaving the skirt, these all took a lot longer than the actual cutting (not much) and stitching.

Overall, I'm rather happy with all of this - even though, like always, there are quite a few compromises that had to be made...

I may or I may not be sitting here dressed in the Bronze Age women's clothing - trying it out (or on) before it goes on its happy journey to its final work place. I may also have taken a quick mirror-selfie before sitting down here to write this blog...

I may also have managed to resurrect the Textile Forum website, and wait for all the mails to go out (there's a restriction on how many mails can be sent in a given time, to avoid spamming and hogging of resources that you have not paid for, so sending out a few hundred mails takes a bit of time). 

  Just in case you're wondering, by the way: I managed to kill the Forum website by clicking the wrong button at the most inopportune moment ppossible to do so. Which removed the database (not good!) and some of the files. Resurrection was mostly a question of finding the correct set of files (that matched the re-uploaded database) and getting them back into their proper place.

Now things are running again, though it still does not look pretty - the site still suffers from template issues, which have been unresolved due to the need of getting a new one anyways, with the switch to Joomla 4. Which is on my schedule to do once the mails are all sent out, and then, hopefully, things will be easier to look at again, and the photos will also come back.

For now, though, the most important, and most urgent, bit was to get the date and time for the next Forum online. Which will be November 7-13, and we'll be in Mayen, Germany, at the Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology again. Our focus topic will be making yarns and threads: "Simple, Special, Spun or Spliced: Yarns, Threads, and Their Making". You can find out more about it on the website of the Forum.

You're due an update on the Egtved skirt, I think - this has been finished a bit ago, but I haven't gotten around to posting a picture of it for you. So, finally, here you go: 

It is a really, really interesting garment. Where the skirt is double-layered (which is most of the way around), it's covering everything rather well. Especially close to the waistband, where the strings are fixed, there's not much see-through effect even when moving, so if worn on the hips (as is usually postulated for this find), the relevant bits of the female anatomy would be covered well and quite securely. When moving, as in lifting the legs, the front is still covered well, but you can see the leg at the sides, where the strings then fall apart - quite similar to a skirt with a high leg slit.

This kind of garment thus does play with the concepts of covered and uncovered, but it's not necessarily very see-through, or very daring. Also - this was a bog find, and there may have been additional linen clothing items worn that did not survive due to soil conditions. 

There's one last knot for me to make, and then hide the ends of that string (it's the one keeping the rings at the bottom together, and I wanted to be able to adjust that just in case it should be necessary), and then it's completely finished. I haven't added up the work hours yet, but it was a lot, even using more modern tools as a shortcut at some places.

Also, even though I tried very hard to match the thread type and thicknesses of the original, I ended up with more cords than the original garment had. Textile reconstructions are bitches!

Making the twisted cords and finishing them off with the rings are definitely the most time-consuming parts in making such a garment. The weaving itself was, in comparison, rather quick once I had established a workflow. A simple tool for measuring off and temporarily holding the wefts/cord threads was all that was needed in addition to the heddles for opening and closing the shed. Oh, and one of my feet to hold the tool and hold one of the loops from the previous shed on a toe. That was making it extra fun to weave.

...but wait, there's more!

Florence commented on the post about Herjolfsnaes 42 (with some issues thanks to the blog software, it seems it is very non-mathematic-symbol-friendly):

I agree that if a person is buried wearing a garment does not prove that they also wore it in life - just that their family or community deemed it proper for them to be buried in them. And then, as you mentioned, there are the Greenland finds, where the corpses were wrapped in the garments and are not wearing them, so that's another thing altogether.

My point is: Proving a negative empirically can only be done on a large amount of data. Women never wearing short garments: Sure thing, loads of pictorial evidence for that. Women not wearing garments with a riding slit: Also loads of pictorial evidence, including the pictures of women riding astride. Now, women never wearing long gowns with a closed (as in sewn shut) middle gore: I cannot tell from a picture if there is a closed middle gore or not, could you give me a few examples?
In extant garments, we only have a few examples where we are quite sure those were worn by a woman. So, out of less than 5, none have a middle gore. But that's not a lot of data.

(Granted, I'm a physicist, a sample size of n=5 tells you nothing in my field)

I don't even know an extant long garment with a closed middle gore that is a associated with a person/corpse of any gender.

..

First of all - yes, that is not a lot of data I am working on. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of data to work on, and I completely agree that a sample size of five or less is very, very scant. 

When I looked for garment evidence for my thesis, I got about 175 items altogether, from most of Europe (with limited things from Finland, and next to nothing from Eastern Europe) and for the timespan of 500 to 1500. I tried to include extant pieces that could give information on how something was tailored, so no pieces that have just a piece of seam or hem. There's probably some more that I missed, and in the years since, some more pieces have been found (Lengberg for instance), but I'd surmise that we haven't gotten up to significantly above 200 items.

Garment finds are really, really rare.

And now for the really juicy bit... is it possible to tell from the medieval images whether there's a middle gore sewn in, or not?

There is, to my eyes, a subtle difference between how folds in women's dresses and in men's tunics are shown. It's really subtle, though, and it took me a while to sort of put my finger on it. The difference gets less pronounced when the dress is wider, and it's not visible if the dress is tucked up into the belt as to fall in different folds.

What I have only seen shown on women's dresses in artwork is the V- or U-shape of folds in the front part of the dress. These can both be seen on my dress reconstructions of St Elizabeth's and St Clare's dress, here:

You can see the U-form of the folds on the left dress, and a more subtle version of the folds running together in the front on the right. In comparison, the folds on the Herjolfsnes 42 look like this:

The folds are running straight downwards to outwards here. 

So how does this compare to medieval images? Here's one example:

On the men's tunics, the folds go straight down. On the women's dresses, the folds run towards the middle. At least that is how it looks to me - and yes, I will say again: the difference is subtle. Similar fall of folds can be seen on the other folios of the Maciejowski. (I'd like to go and hunt for more similar things in other manuscripts now, but unfortunately I'm running out of time for today.)

On many of the images that we have, it's not possible to tell how the folds run, or if there is a distinct difference between the male and female dress. Female dresses are often tucked up into the belt (not just drawn up, but a side fold of the dress taken up and stuffed in), and that will severely change how the fabric drapes and hide any "natural" front folds. Quite often, some mantle or cloak also hide what goes on in the front, for both men and women.

So in conclusion... I would not call what I see on the images as hard evidence, but to me, this impression of a subtle difference between how the women's dresses fall and drape, and how the men's tunics, especially those longer than knee-length fall and drape, is a very strong hint towards a different cut, and I would interpret that as the middle gore for the men's garments and no middle gore for the women.

What's your impression? Can you see a difference?

Here's a comparison of a mockup tunic with slits cut in, with and without middle gores around those slits: 

Well, the horse is missing from those images (due to lack of handy horses around here), but you can see that the slit functions, of course, in both instances - with and without a middle gore. However, the version with gores remains much more "closed" even in the riding position. Especially noticeable in the view on the back, where the slit is not visible even in this leg position.

The whole issue gets properly interesting, though, when you are standing normally:

As you can see, the tunic does not close properly at the back if there's no middle gore inserted. This is standing position; the slit issue gets worse, and more noticeable, once the wearer starts to move - when walking or running, the slit will gap open, unless you insert the middle gore.

So that's something you'd definitely want to do for your coverage. Not only to avoid flashing your undies, but also because the slit, staying open, will make things rather drafty in cooler weather!

What you can also see in those standing position pictures is that the fall of the tunic changes with the insertion of the gores. This is significant because riding slits are closely related to riding, which means horses, which is an expensive and status-y thing to have not just today, but also in the Middle Ages. Owning a horse that is used for riding is not something everyone can afford.

Consequently, if you're wearing a tunic with riding slits, that indicates that you have a certain amount of wealth, being a horse-rider. If that changes the fall of your tunic... it's not a big thing to insert a middle gore, with or without slit, leading to the same fall of the tunic regardless of being a horse-rider or not. So that could be an explanation for the middle gore to be found in men's tunics, whether slitted or not, but not in women's dresses. 

From the archaeological record, I know of no garment that is certainly associated with a woman with middle gores set in. There's piecings for panels in some of the later dresses (like the Golden Gown of Queen Margaret) that sit in the center front, but they do not change the fall and drape of the garment away from the straighter, more slender silhouette in the front. The fall-changing middle gore is never present. There's also no example of a slit tunic without a middle gore. 

To me, this makes perfect sense - you do not need a riding slit in a woman's dress (the bunch-up problem is solved differently, if the woman does ride a horse), but you want the slender look that is easier to achieve with a straight front and back panel in your dress. In men's garments, if you cut in a slit, you definitely need the gore to cover up the unmentionables; that changes the tunic to give it a different fall and drape. That, in turn, may have been associated with a "manly" look, or with higher status, or both, and said associations probably led to the universal adoption of the middle gore in men's garments.

I wrote: 

You need middle gores in the front and back to keep a riding slit closed when not in use (and there are no riding slits without gores in any archaeological find).

In the archaeological record, we have men's tunics both with and without a riding slit. What they have in common is the middle gore set into the front and the back.

The gore on its own would not provide enough room to sit astride a horse without the fabric riding up the legs, at least not in most cases. The Moselund tunic, for instance, is rather long, so it would have to be very, very wide for that to work. If you look at artwork from the Middle Ages, you will notice that the existence of the slit is made clear, but it's always "closed", as in there is no underwear shown. 

The way we are shown that there is indeed a riding slit is rather ingenious: There is a vertical line, and because that is usually rather inconspicuous, often the edges of the lower part of the slit are shown turned outwards, with the lining of the garment clearly visible contrasting with the outer fabric. This is the case in the image above, where a fur lining is shown. The two men next to this man have simpler slit tunics, but you can also clearly tell they are slitted: the corners at the bottom of the slit overlap, and are slightly mis-aligned. The same goes for the green garment worn underneath the red fur-lined one on Main Guy. 

A riding slit, for it to work properly, also has to be long enough. A lot of the modern interpretations in Living History have a slit cut in, but it does not reach up far enough - it has to come up to about crotch level, front and back, if you want to avoid bunching of the tunic. That, of course, is a problem if you do not have the middle gores set in, because a simple slit will inevitably stay open (especially if you hem the edges, which is the smart thing to do) and thus, if it's cut up far enough, expose your underwear. Which, back in time as today, was not something you'd usually go for.

I've made the mistake of doing a bit too much doom-scrolling in the past few days, including this morning. There's still war in the Ukraine, there's still really high Covid numbers in Germany, and there's still a lot of bullshitty stuff happening regarding energy and preservation of nature and sustainability here as well. It makes me feel sad, and helpless, and more sad, and that is not a very good thing. 

The little cat, however, is determined to brighten up my day by snuggling up to me on the desk, purring loudly, and I have the Vienna trip and presentation to look forward to. There's hot tea sent by a friend (well, not in its hot brewed state, obviously, but the tea bags), and finally a little light rain outside. While sunshine is nice too, the rain is much needed and appreciated, even if it means there will be fewer bees and bumblebees around today. 

I hope you have your own doom-scrolling under control, and enough nice things to brighten up your day. Maybe some links can also help? Here you go.

• A German company is developing something like a cross between a pedelec bike and a tiny car - it seats up to two people, no driving license needed, and it has solar panels on the roof to help with battery capacity. Here's an article on Heise, and here's the manufacturer's website (both in German only).
• The virtual convention "Flights of Foundry" is taking place on April 8-10. You can join in from anywhere in the world, for free.
• It's a well-known fact that some plants thrive next to each other, and one of the prime examples are the Three Sisters. I tried a sort-of-doing-this last year, planting beans next to sunflowers (though with rather limited success - neither beans nor sunflowers usually thrive here, due to the rather poor soil in the garden bed I put them in). Here's an article about current projects on this on The Conversation.
• In case I have not linked that before - the world's oldest pants were found a while ago, and have been analysed, and there's a nice article (with pictures) about them here.

And now I will return to getting something resembling work done...