An interesting item I stumbled on regarding Viking Age beads is the dissertation "Perler fra vikingtiden (Beads of the Viking Age)" by Megan Hickey.  This work specifically covers beads from Viking Age Britain.  You can download it for free here.

I highly recommend taking a look at this work as it discusses bead finds in context (grave vs production sites), and also details where they were found in situ in the case of graves.  Charts detail the number of finds along with things like color and decoration.  To give a snapshot of some of the data in the piece, it notes that 76.1% of beads from non-production sites were glass (10.4% were amber and all other types were significantly less).  59% of beads at non-production sites were undecorated, 22% decorated and 19% of the finds are unknown.  The percentage of undecorated vs. decorated is even higher at production sites.

Regarding color, blue undecorated beads are the most common, followed by yellow and green. It is interesting to note that all of the gold/silver foil type beads were found at one site, Kneep (which I discussed last week here ). 

The report also has a number of interesting tables, including one that breaks down graves by age and gender.  There are also discussions of some of the issues with excavations and also other uses of beads beyond necklaces.  There is even a comparison to trends in Scandinavia.

I was hoping to track down some of the finds that had a number of beads in conjunction with oval brooches, but, unfortunately, many of them were excavated well over 100 years ago.  I am still hoping to find some of these items located in museums, but I fret that I might just be stuck with some pretty terrible descriptions such as the one below from the 1800s.  (Are you kidding me???)

But, one of the things that the dissertation did for me was lead me to research several interesting graves.  The paper had no illustrations, though it had brief descriptions of the finds, so I decided to see what images I could track down some of them online (or in books at home). 

From a double burial (excavated in 1878) there were beads, as well as oval brooches, at Ballinaby.  One source notes that there were 12 beads, though the original documents only show drawings of a few. Also interesting in this grave is a flat chain of 4 strand silver wire.

Another mentioned in the dissertation is the Pagan Lady of Peel, a grave from the first half of the 10th Century.  This necklace had 71 beads, but was not worn in conjunction with oval brooches.  I plan to take a more in depth look at this particular grave soon, but for now, here is an image of the jewelry.

Saffron Waldon, Essex, has a fascinating necklace.  This is a mid-to-late 10th century item, that is discussed in a bit more detail in Jane Kershaw's book Viking Identities: Scandinavian Jewelry in England.  Kershaw mentions that the center pendant seen below is likely to be an Anglo Saxon item, while the others had Scandinavian origins.  The grave was excavated in 1877.  There were no oval brooches found in this grave but scholars in the mid-1960s believe that this represented a pagan burial of a Scandinavian immigrant. 

​I am still trying to track down an image of Pierowall, Grave 4, though I am not sure that one exists at this time.  The description of the grave from the Journal of the British Archaeological Association (1846) is as follows:​

I plan to talk more about the graves, and additional beads from this site later this week.  Grave 2 has been labeled a female grave, and 3 is considered male, but both have beads.  2 is particularly interesting as it not only contains no oval brooches but does have evidence of a belt.  (Grave one did have oval brooches as well as a solitary bead.)

Resources

​Anderson, Joseph.  "Notes on the contents of two Viking Graves in Islay", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume 14, 1878 (https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_014/14_051_094.pdf )

Crofton Crocker, T. "Antiquities discovered in Orkney and Ireland, compared", Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Volume 2, 1846.

Hickey, Megan.  "Perler fra vikingtiden (Beads of the Viking Age)", 2014. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/8571/
​
Kershaw, Jane. Viking Identities: Scandinavian Jewelry in England, Oxford University Press, 2013. (​https://amzn.to/2FRNteC)

Parsons, Adam, et. al.  Shadows in the Sand: Excavation of a Viking-Age Cemetery at Cumwhitton, Oxford Archaeology, 2014. 

​Location: Scotland - Kneep, Uig, Isle of Lewis
Date: 900-1000AD
Type of Find: Burial
Date of Excavation: 1979
Context: Beads were found in neck area, oval brooches (P51) were present
Beads: 44 glass beads (39 segmented, five unsegmented), yellow, blue, silver, gold.  Length varies between 9 - 13 mm.

​This excavation was begun by civil authorities (not archaeologists) as a bone was protruding from the sand in a public area.  There was, however, a great bit of detail involved, and between the information presented and later interviews, there was enough to logically reconstruct the burial.
 
One of the things that fascinates me with this particular find is that all of the beads are of the same type.  They have one to four segments, and have a simple color palette.  We do not know the original arrangement, unfortunately, but know that these items at least were worn together.  One other interesting item is that this paper notes that the beads were produced in long lengths and beads were snapped off as needed along the segmentations.  Based on the text, the metal glass beads are of two types, with one just having a metal coating on the glass and the other having a layer of clear glass encasing the metal.  The description of the process in this paper is a clunky, to say the least, but might be due to the lack of glass workers as part of the process (there is more in the way of experimental archaeology in that field now).
 
Personally, I have to wonder if it is truly gold encased the beads or if the glass merely had a reaction when laid over the silver that alters the color to gold (or perhaps it was amber colored glass laid over silver).  Even glass that has silver added to it (something done with spectacular modern color-shifting glasses), can produce fuming that will alter the color of adjacent glasses. 
 
In his blog entry, “Kaupang before the Coin”, Matthew Delvaux discusses the idea that the segmented beads were imported goods from the Middle East and proposes the idea that they possibly were a form of currency in the early Viking Age.
 

​As an aside, I need to note that I will probably be talking a great deal here about segmented beads as this particular item is found all over the Viking world.
 
This necklace is very simple, and when all strung together the necklace is 465mm long.  That length would make for a long swag between brooches, and the authors of the paper suggest possibly it was multiple strands.  It is also long enough to serve as a standard necklace as well. 
 
While reading about the Kneep necklace, I remembered a similar strand of beads from Birka and had to go back to look at that material to assuage my curiosity.  In Birka I, there is an image of a strand primarily comprised of segmented beads.  The caption for the photo has it listed as Grave 958.  However (and here goes some of my issues with the Birka material that I previously have mentioned), the descriptive text for that volume shows 958 as a male grave with a purse.  Grave 959 from that book seems to better fit the image attributed in the plates as 958.  
​

​The text describes the beads as being one carnelian, 5 dark blue made of glass (one triple segment, 4 double segment), 4 green glass beads (one 4 segments, one triple), 7 yellow glass beads (one triple segment, five double segment, one single).  These beads were found in conjunction with a pair of oval brooches (and the woman was decapitated, making for a rather gruesome interment).

My take on these finds is that sometimes smaller, and simpler, can be perfectly appropriate for a period impression.  Hopefully I can experiment further with crafting segmented beads myself!

Resources:
 
Arbman, Holger.  Birka I: Die Gräber, Tafeln, 1940.
 
Arbman, Holger.  Birka I: Die Gräber, Text, 1940.
 
Delvaux, Matthew.  “Kaupang before the Coin”, Text and Trowel, 2017.  https://textandtrowel.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/kaupang-before-the-coin/
 
Welander, R. D. E., et. al.  “A Viking Burial from Kneep, Uig, Isle of Lewis”, Proceedings of the Scoiety of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume 117, 1987.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_117/117_149_174.pdf
 
National Museum of Scotland: https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/collection-search-results/?item_id=369355
 
Unimus.no Fotoportal: http://www.unimus.no/foto/imageviewer.html#/?id=12462897&type=jpeg

​As you have seen, I am learning to work glass and make glass beads.  I am still relatively new, and have a great deal of work ahead of me to advance this skill and I will be sharing some of my continued experiments on this blog under the heading of Glass Experiments.
 
I also am starting another category for my posts titled Viking Bead Research.  I am reading anything I can find on period bead production, but even of more interest to me is the context of the bead finds that we do have.  Anyone who has looked at Viking Age costume research for any amount of time comes to understand some of the flaws inherent in this particular field of science.  The foremost of which is that textiles quite often rarely survive in the grave, and what does is frequently fragmented.  Further, many of the graves that we reference were excavated during a time when textiles were not of interest to the archaeologists.  Typically they were not well treated, or merely scraped off the far more interesting (to them) metal weapons or jewelry.  Other practices were not as scientific as they are today, which can result in mislabeling of items from graves (meaning that at this point in time we are not be completely sure what items really do belong to what graves in some cases, and this can particularly come into play with older excavation sites like Birka).
 
In many cases, even solid, decorative items such as beads, were not as well regarded as impressive weapon burials.  This is a case made very clear by archaeologist Matthew Delvaux  In his blog “Text and Trowel”.  After describing how a cemetery in Bornholm, Denmark was excavated at a pace of 156 graves in 13 days, he then states “Beads in particular suffered from Vedel’s treatment. He recorded colors and numbers for each grave but then threw all the beads that he thought were worth keeping into containers for shipment to the National Museum of Denmark. The curators in Copenhagen resorted the monochrome beads into strings for each grave—although it’s unlikely that many of these beads actually came from the graves that they’re now associated with—and then they strung  all the mixed polychrome and mosaic beads onto strings of their own .”
 
Quite simply, this means that the beads we see hanging in some museums, or that are attributed to some graves, were not likely worn like that during the Viking Age.  They might not clearly represent something one individual owned.  And this also makes me wonder how many cases are there where the large, impressive beads make the displays, while the smaller items were lost to inept scientific practices, causing us to think that it was most common to have a string of large, multicolored beads?
 
Another thing that we often see out of context in reenactment are strings of beads from hoards.  Were these items really all strung together, and worn by one person, in life?  Or are those beads an accumulation of wealth just like the varied bits of silver in the same cache.  Do these collection of beads in a hoard relate in any way to beads in graves from the nearest settlement?

My plan is to poke through a variety of finds and look at the beads in context of not only the practices of the period, but also comparing that to more recent finds, finds from settlements and workshops (which might have different types of beads than those we sometimes see on display), and to look at the beads in context.  Are they from a settlement, hoard or grave? Where were they in the grave (at the neck, laying loose in the grave, contained in a pouch)? Were they found in conjunction with other items of dress such as oval brooches?  What do the more recent finds (with better scientific practices) show us?
 
I hope to share some of my finds, as well as my thoughts, as I wind my way along this trail.  Hopefully others will find it as interesting as I do!

2018 was pretty much a crappy year.  I was ready for it to be totally over by the time March rolled around, and it only got worse from there.  Family health issues were surreal (to put it mildly), and the punches just kept on coming.  And then there are the cat issues (one diagnosed with stage 3 kidney disease, another with lymphoma and a third had knee surgery.  Add to all of that the incessant rain, and things just were a jumbled mess.

One of the few good things was getting Malik, our new F1 Savannah boy.  He is exceptionally social and is my constant shadow when I am home.  A new travel trailer also meant a few short trips to test things out (and to take the Savannah's camping).  That bit, at least, was good.

I put together a new class for Pennsic that covers a more basic approach to a Viking Age Norse woman's wardrobe than my Textiles and Dress class covers.  It seemed to go over well and I plan to teach it again.  That class also ended up leaving me with a ton of questions regarding our perception of Viking Age beads (and specifically brooch swag and necklaces) and down the research rabbit hole I went.

I also got back to the garage and got my glass studio cleaned up and I am now working like mad out there ever weekend.  Glass is unlike any other artistic material I have ever used.  When working with paints, the results for color are predictable (red and blue make purple).  That is not always the case with glass, as the chemical compounds that provide the coloration can produce interesting results, as can the amount of heat you use, the time it is heated, how much propane is in the flame, and a dozen other factors.  Heck, even the rod of glass can change color when inserted into the flame (or again when it is annealed).  It all makes for some pretty fantastic experiments (which is something I love doing anyways). 

So I am steadily working to improve my technique in making beads, with two goals in mind.  The first is to be better able to reproduce period bead types, and the second is for some more mundane artistic exploration with glass.  I am completely in love with this art (and have not yet set the garage on fire)!

Along with this hands-on practice, I am trying to read and take notes on my stash of period glass literature.  I have so many questions surrounding frequency of beads in graves (in relation to other aspects of the graves) that I hope to answer and compile into something useful.

Below are a few images of my revised studio set up, as well as some of my (non-period) experiments with glass.  Many of them are just my testing colors of glass that I have, and others are exploring techniques.  

The Holidays are upon us and I thought I would share some ideas of things the Viking Age reenactor in your life might enjoy as gifts (and, of course, the wonderful vendors from whom you can purchase these items).
​

Feed the Ravens is quite possibly my favorite vendor ever.  I love the exceptionally high quality leather work and pottery that they craft and the assortment of jewelry and tools that they carry.  They also often have unique items that one rarely sees elsewhere.  Currently in stock they have period blacksmith tools, brass chain for suspending tools from brooches, reindeer antler drop spindles (I have two of these that are my favorites for spinning flax), and jewelry!  They also have leather goods and pottery.  I recommend talking directly to Maggie or Scot about what they have now or perhaps to place a special order for the exact item that the Viking in your life has been coveting.  (And yes, I confess, this is my personal favorite vendor ever!)

Timeless Textiles sells EPiC wool yarn.  This is a 2/18 wool yarn, dyed dozens of wonderful colors, that is very smooth and quite strong.  I find that this works exceptionally well for both tablet weaving and for use on other types of looms.  Unlike some other brands of similarly sized yarn, this is a true worsted spin and does not have little flyaway hairs that will cause your warp to bind up.  They even sell a sample pack of swatches so that your favorite weaver can keep it on hand for project planning.  (And bonus, they also sell Bocken's linen thread in colors!  This is great for hand sewing.)
​

Historical Glassworks, this artisan carries glassware that represents numerous time periods and locations, from Roman, to Viking and into the Renaissance (and later)!  They also have a wonderful selection of handmade gifts that can appeal to those who are not interested in recreating the past.  Their holiday ornaments, candle sticks and glass bracelets immediately come to mind as beautiful items that many would enjoy.

Crafty Celts, well, what can I say beyond the fact that I have long been a fan of this vendor.  Do you need a new Knight's chain?  Celtic animal pendants or brooches?  Bracelets (that, honestly, look just as great outside of a historic setting as they do inside)?  Also, this is the vendor to hit up if your Secret Santa target is a fan of the History Channel's "The Vikings" as they supply much of the jewelry used in the show.

The Practical Viking is a really cool shop to visit at Pennsic.  They provide a great atmosphere and sometimes even have dyeing demos or other happenings in their booth.  They carry an assortment of items that appeal to Vikings such as hoods, legwraps, cool cookware and even adorable Viking dolls!

Oxbow Books is not a vendor of handcrafted items, but rather is a publisher of academic books.  They carry many of the volumes that help the us piece together the past.  Most reenactors that I know have a long list of books on their wishlists, so it might be worth seeing what they would love to read next and purchase that as a gift.  (Note that they also have a fantastic section of sale books that can be a real bargain.) 

I think anyone that has poked around my blog realizes that I love compiling data for archaeological finds.  I can spend months digging through all of my materials for instances of cord sewn to edges or looking for stripes and plaids in textiles.  I have dozens of excel sheets set up for any number of topics (from embroidery to tablet weaving to tapestry to width of hems) to collect information as I read because eventually I will have enough of the sources covered that I can publish some useful information on it here (or add it to one of my classes).

This week a friend told me she was urged to start a survey of a certain practice in period and here is the advice that I offered:

Define
To start, I recommend you sit down and work out the exact definition of the item is for your study. If you are doing embroidery, for example, what would qualify in terms of your survey? Would the stickerie metal work at Birka count? Would a single like of stem stitch across a hem count? Are you doing figurative motifs only or more simple as well? If you are doing tablet weaving, are you only counting metal brocade, or will it be all tablet weaving?  Do starting borders from a warp-weighted loom count or are you only collecting information on bands?

Timeframe
Next you need to define your time. Viking Age (by which definition)? Iron Age (which definition/culture)? A solid set of years (example 500-1000CE, or 100-1000CE, or just 9th and 10th century)?

Location (or Culture)
Then determine geography... British Isles, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, all of Europe? What do you do with pieces that might have been moved across borders. Do you count it based on likely origin or where it was found?  If the item you are studying is Saxon, are you looking at those items that were stolen and traded elsewhere, or just those within the British Isles.

Keep Notes
Once you have all that I highly recommend you start an excel sheet to keep a list of each item, making columns for the most relevant things (date of item, culture it originates from, stitch types, ground cloth, fibres used, colors, whatever, size of piece, whatever it is). Make sure you have a column there for the source of your data as well and keep a bibliography with it.   Sometimes I also keep a powerpoint for a category where I drop pictures and relevant data (and a note about the source) on each slide.  Later I can print these if necessary and shift through them to try to make sense of what I have.  (And beyond that, I made notes on the source documents themselves in Mendeley.com)

Context
And then there is the absolutely most important thing when it comes to a survey.... context. How was this thing used historically? Who used it? What was their status? Was it home goods, decoration or clothing? If you want to make resource that others can use as well and nothing is more valuable than that bit of information. An embroidery that was used as part of an ecclesiastical covering does would not be appropriate for lower class clothing.  Metal thread tablet weaving is very different in context than a starting border for a piece of cloth.  A coin repurposed as a pendant has a different significance than loose coins.  Context lets others know whether the item might or might not be applicable to the persona/kit they are building. 

Remember that you can always go back and change or add parameters to your survey later. For example, if you set your dates to 9th and 10th century and British Isles only then discover many examples in the 8th century that heavily relate to your initial material, you can expand on your original plan. You can also keep notes of things that might not fit the survey, but that are still relevant in some way and add them as peripheral evidence if that applies.

Another good one that complements my previous post regarding the role and rights of women in the Viking Age, "Polygyny, Concubinage, and the Social Lives of Women in Viking-Age Scandinavia":
​https://rafhladan.is/bitstream/handle/10802/15597/j.vms.5.114355.pdf?sequence=1

​And below is another in the series of Leszek Gardeła's videos:

There are a few topics that I have discussed at length with friends or online on forums, have only very briefly brought up here due to lack of time to properly dedicate to a decent response.  I finally think I need to share some information on one of the major hot points right now, that of the Viking Warrior woman.

I am going to start to say that I think that the authors of the paper that invoked a media frenzy last year did a very, very poor job in naming their study.  "A female Viking Warrior confirmed by genomics" took another look at a Birka grave that was given a "warrior burial" (Bj581).  The headline is misleading at best (and the paper does not really deal with some of the other issues that come up when looking at Birka).  

Part of the problem here is that there is an assumption that everything in a grave might have been something used by the interred while they were alive.  The reality is that we really don't know that, in many cases.  What we can say is that the items in a grave actually say something about those left behind.  It might be a case where a favorite tool was buried with the individual, but it could just as well be that the things put in the grave were displays of station or status.  It could be memorabilia from loved ones, reminders or keepsakes.  Remember too that there are cases of small children being buried with tools or weapons that they would have been too young to use.  Does that mean that a little girl was a master seamstress or that a young boy was also a warrior?

Further, I have seen people screeching that it is sexist to declare that Bj581 was NOT a warrior grave now that we see DNA evidence that the bones are female.  In actuality, I think that it is sexist to declare MALE graves with weapons were warriors without some other proof that they held that role in life (such as trauma to the skeleton).  There is this modern desire to prove female empowerment in a past that goes even beyond some of the ideas fed to us by Victorian fantasy (and the number of memes promoting the "equality" of men and women in Viking culture is further proof of this).  This sort of desire feeds the media frenzy that causes research papers like this to make international headlines.

An example of the above is a piece of research that came out a few years back.  The study confirmed that half of the graves from a site in England were female.  What was reported in the news was "50% of Viking Warriors were women".  In reality, half the very small sample - 13 graves - were determined to be female.  In this case, the report itself was not misleading, as it declares half of the MIGRANTS were female.  That is a very different thing than the (horrific) journalism that started plastering headlines about half of Vikings being women.  You can read more about the controversy in the two articles below (the original paper is here):

• www.themarysue.com/viking-warrior-women-disappointed/
• https://skepticalhumanities.com/2014/09/07/women-of-the-viking-age-kicked-ass-but-that-doesnt-mean-they-were-vikings

That aside, there are other issues that need to be looked at here.  Judith Jesch, Professor at the University of Nottingham and author of Women in the Viking Age, has a very detailed post on her thoughts about this grave and it (as well as some of the commentary under it) is worth a read. norseandviking.blogspot.com/2017/09/lets-debate-female-viking-warriors-yet.html

Beyond everything I have listed above, other issues come up regarding Bj581, including the fact that the original grave was excavated a long time ago and there have previously been issues with grave contents not being properly marked (meaning that the bones could possibly even belong to another grave).  Some of the issues with this are mentioned in this paper:  www.academia.edu/34564381/FEMALE_VIKING_REVISED

If you are interested in following some exceptional, current, research on the topic of warrior women in the Viking Age I recommend that you look up Dr. Leszek Gardeła, who is heading up an impressive project.  uni-bonn.academia.edu/LeszekGardela

The paper I consider most important in this field is his "Amazons of the North? Armed Females in Viking Archaeology and Medieval Literature".  I recommend that you get in touch with your local library and request this item via inter-library loan immediate.  It is a very comprehensive collection of evidence (iconography, archaeology, and textual) and discusses the possible drawbacks with each item and applies better context than you often see in battles waged online.  Again, if this topic is of serious interest to you, you really need to get a copy of this paper.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/books/9783110569483/9783110569483-024/9783110569483-024.xml?fbclid=IwAR25uqZ5Nno1I98RBiWIhWCOWlJp89phvWEBABqkWi0qlAzZ3TksZ3--UqM

Below is a video about Gardeła's project.  I very much look forward to the next in the series.

Edited to add:  I just read this paper and feel the need to include it in this discussion as well given that it addresses several of the things I mentioned above:  https://www.academia.edu/36569707/Vikings_History_and_the_Search_for_Ourselves_SASS_talk_May_2018?fbclid=IwAR0D05ECQueSuUbguXK-TlTiTOFcpUzeHLljOireHoBNksYyRuGUxVjX73o

Normally I have an idea and then I research the snot out of it and then I come to a conclusion and then post it here.  Right now I don't have time to hit the books, but a conversation this weekend with someone about the Hedeby dress made me start to think and I want to save these thoughts until I have time to look at the evidence in a new light.  (In fact, this might already be answered, but I just don't have time to dig right now. lol)

What I am wondering is was the dart in the Hedeby dress made before or after the application of the braid decoration.  In Hägg's Textilien und Tracht in Haithbu und Schleswig, she discusses the idea that the aprondress (fragments H14) had more than one life, that it was worn as an aprondress and then later reused and worn under layers (and under a belt at that time).  If that were true (though I am not sure how we can really tell that, but it definitely is fascinating to consider), then perhaps a woman of status had the garment for a time and then it was cast off and a servant or someone else wore it as a body layer under a dress to help retain warmth.  This led me to think about the weird external dart.  Can we tell from the evidence that this dart was created and then the braid was sewn over it, or, perhaps, did the original dress have the braid applied and at a later time, someone added that dart below it for some reason?

Yeah, I need to look at this all again, when I have more time than I do right now (because really, I don't have much time for anything at the moment)!

I have to admit that I am just a little obsessed.  I have a whole bin now of headcoverings, or textiles from which to craft them, at this point.  And I keep getting more.  I do want to know that up until this point that all of my purchases (and subsequent reviews) have been just from me finding things, buying them, trying them out and then talking about them.  None of those posts were sponsored in any way.  The review below, however, is sponsored because the shop owner offered me a deal I could not refuse ($1 for a linen scarf if I would review it).  So yes, this is a sponsored post.  I will note, however, that it is still honest and it is the same post I would make anyways, because that is just how I roll.

This particular scarf is from LinenWorld8 on Etsy.  I previously bought a couple of scarves there, which I reviewed earlier.  I choose a dark orange one because it is a color easily obtained with madder and the item I received well represents the color shown on the site.  It retailed for $23, and in my opinion, is well worth the cost.  It is 24"X74", which makes it a great width for my Viking Age veils.  With one scarf I could cut down the cloth and make a veil (24"X36") as well as a scarf and cap).  This is not quite long enough for me to tie up as a Slavic headdress, but I might asked the shop if they can craft these at this width, with some extra length as I think it would work well at Pennsic.

The edges for this one are completely unfinished (which I knew when I chose it, as it was shown in the photos).  I will either pull a few more weft threads out and tie off fringes, or more likely, just hem the item for use.

To compare this item to the linen scarves I previously purchased from this vendor, I have to say that this one, unlike the others, has an incredible drape, and is quite soft (even more soft than the burgundy one that is very similar to it).

The only gripe I even have is that in the initial add for the item it is mislabled as being twill.  I could see in the photos that it was tabby weave, so I purchased it (I need tabby for a Viking Age headcovering like this).  In all, I will absolutely be purchasing more items from this vendor!