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Iron Age Celtic Studies

A new journey.

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Celtic Textiles Project - Narrow Stripes on a Light Ground

9/1/2022

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As I am working making sharable info about these Durrnberg textiles, I am clearly seeing "types" of cloth. Most of the textiles are solid colored fabrics, but there are clusters of other types that show up. One of the most common ones are wool tabby textiles with a light colored base fabric and blue (or blue-green) and red (or red-brown) narrow stripes.  There are at least 21 textiles from the site that are a light background with narrow stripes.  At least five of those (potentially more) are bands.

Here are two examples, one was definitely a woven band in this type of cloth and the other might have been. Were these sashes worn at the waist or some other type of functional strap? We don't really know, but I would be comfortable wearing such a thing as a sash/belt. The narrower one (with less stripes) has only one selvedge intact, so we cannot be sure if it was a fragment of a larger cloth or if it was a narrow sash. My recreated image assumes mirroring of the pattern. It would be approximately 2.5 inches wide. The other was definitely a woven band and was about 4.6 inches wide. Both appear to be densely woven and at least somewhat sturdy.

These were probably woven on a warp-weighted loom, but modernly could be reproduced on a floor loom, or even a rigid heddle loom if you use two heddles for double the thread count.

We see a number of woven bands like this at both Dürrnberg and Hallstatt. If you are not a weaver you could hem a length of cloth to simulate the effect (and in fact, in the much, much later Martres de Veyre find there is a long sash that was sewn out of cloth, rather than being woven in the appropriate width from the outset). This might be a great way to use up excess cloth in your stash!

My eventual plan is to group the patterned textiles from both Hallstatt and Durrnberg and do diagrams with a scale for each and share that as a sort of "buying guide" that one can use to help shop for early, early period textiles.
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Ugly Skirts and Fugly Beads

9/20/2020

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Last summer I put together the first of my Ugly Skirts for Bronze and Iron Age wear.  It's not actually "ugly", though it kinda is, by design.  Let me put it mildly that the Huldremose Skirt is NOT a flattering thing by modern standards if made to historic specs.  

Ugly or not, I love it.  And it lead to another, and another.  All in effort to experiment with some very early clothing ideas that I have.  (Eventually, I will post about the Ugly Skirts to date.)

I also have a fascination with Fugly Beads, because seriously, there was some bizarre stuff in early finds!  

I also realized that I want to have a space online where people can discuss and share early continental Celtic finds.  I have learned that too many people think of "Celtic" as being synonymous for Irish and Scottish (and they also tend to some how think all of the latter is 17th century and beyond, lol) and that most discussion groups revolve around the isles (and periodocity of kilts, ugh).

Ugly Skirts and Fugly Beads (name is likely to change at some point), caters to those interested in Central and Northern Europe from the Bronze Age till approximately year 1 BCEish.  The jewelry finds from these periods are AMAZING, and we have textiles here!  Lots of them compared to some places!  Gaul is welcome too, as well as the Eastern Hallstatt region, but the idea is to focus on the early Celtic, Germanic and Nordic cultures that get little air time in the SCA.  If these things are your geek, please come join us!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1619238801586051

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It's quiet out there

3/9/2020

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I have been following the Kern Schoolhouse find in Switzerland for sometime and asked on a SCA group on FB for Celtic (and other early period studies) if anyone knew if the data was yet published or had additional info besides the obvious (the press releases, the City of Zurich page, anything that ran in main stream media), and there was silence.

This is a very different, and less populated, world than that of Viking reenactment.  Post a question like that on a Viking group and you would likely a number of people who have either already pulled the article, or who know the exact publication date and have it on order, or whom at least know who the authors of the pending project are (so they can stalk them until publication).  Kelticos used to be the go-to place for information, but it seems that forum is less updated than it was back-in-the-day (at least on the types of material culture in which I am most interested).  It is also blocked from my lunchtime-research due to being an insecure site.  Sigh.

The silence on the subject was still was surprising to me.  In a way it is a little frustrating (though absolutely no one's fault), but also a little exciting to dive into a less populated pool.  

​But back to Kern: 

City of Zurich (this has the links for the dig photos as well as the artifacts): www.stadt-zuerich.ch/hbd/de/index/ueber_das_departement/medien/medienmitteilungen/2019/juli/190705a.html

The initial media release on the project: www.stadt-zuerich.ch/hbd/de/index/ueber_das_departement/medien/medienmitteilungen/2017/170505a.html

The Smithsonian piece is here:  www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/iron-age-celtic-woman-was-buried-hollowed-out-tree-trunk-180972773/

LiveScience:  www.livescience.com/66056-iron-age-celtic-woman-burial.html

There are a number of other news articles on this find, but I am excitedly waiting for the in-depth analysis of the textiles!

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    Iron Age Celtic Studies

    My first interest in historic costume and culture was for all things Celtic.  I knew so little about it three decades ago, but have been slowly piecing together things and am starting to build up a persona for the Iron Age in Central Europe.

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