Textile traces
Sometime in the late 19th century, the remains of an elite individual that had been excavated from the Viking Age burial mound at Bjerringhøj, Denmark, in 1868 were lost. According to a recent paper in Antiquity, Charlotte Rimstad of the National Museum of Denmark and other researchers were investigating Viking Age textiles in the museum’s collection, when they found human remains among textile fragments from a burial in Slotsbjergby that were unlike the other finds in the grave. The textiles attached to the bones did match textile fragments found at Bjerringhøj, though, indicating that this was the long-lost Viking. Radiocarbon dating placing the fragments in the late 10th century AD supports this identification.
Bjerringhøj was already renowned for having more silk than any other Viking Age burial, but the newly rediscovered textile fragments shed further light on Viking clothing: the person buried at Bjerringhøj wore long trousers with finely decorated padded cuffs.
