A new theory on the costumes of the Oseberg Queen and her attendant

With Comments

This is a translation of a part of the chapter "Hva var textilerne vært brugt til?" (' 'What were the textiles used for?') by A S Ingstad from the book

Oseberg Dronningens grav

1992, Arne Emil Christensen, Anne Stine Ingstad, Bjørn Myhre

ISBN 82-516-1423-6

The book is a coffee-table type book about the ship-burial of a wealthy (perhaps royal) woman from the Vestfold area to the south-west of modern-day Oslo. The mound was discovered in 1903, and the archaeological dig was begun properly in 1904, by Gabriel Gustafson. The ship and all of its contents were found to be in an incredibly well-preserved state after more than 1000 years in the ground. The grave was the final resting place of two women, the younger of whom was the 'queen' quickly identified with queen Åsa, Halvdan Svarte's mother. Based on the style of ornamentation, the grave is dated to sometime between 835 and 850, with a preferred date of 835.

The nature of the book is such that while the writers are all considered great authorities in their fields, there are several chapters where they speculate quite freely as to the purpose and background of what was found in the rich grave. This chapter I have translated is one of those speculative ones, where Ingstad pushes a new theory of upper-class clothing in the area at the time. While the theory is extremely interesting, it is just that - a theory, so don't rush out and quote this as gospel. However, bearing this in mind, I would like to try to recreate the speculated outfit at some point.

I'd like to thank Thyra Haraldsdottir of Ildhafn and Lady Pagan of Southron Gaard for their help when I was wrestling with the technical terms in Norwegian. Also I am deeply indebted to Mistress Thora Sharptooth for her commentary and additional documentation.

Any errors in the translation that are still there are solely my responsibility.

A bibliography is included at the end of the article, for those minded to do some more digging around.


The clothing

I will now attempt to find out how much the material can tell us about the clothes the two women were wearing on their last journey. We don't have much to go on, but we know that one of them must have ranked higher on the social scale, and we must therefore expect that her clothes reflected that and the royal furnishings of her grave.

Among the textiles in the material we can make out a few especially fine fragments that, based on the quality and not least on the beautiful red colour that some of them still retain, must be considered luxury goods. Several of them have seams or embroidery or other characteristics that suggest they originate from the clothing the dead woman or women were buried in.

Garment I. It is mostly the clumps and flakes of varying sizes where several textiles are layered, that have been most helpful when it comes to determining what textiles belonged to garment I and garment II. In the first, which must have been the queen's dress, there are often red fragments and remains of the finest fabrics in the material of the clumps. In the other garment there is often blue fragments and remains of fabrics of somewhat lesser quality. These fabrics are never mixed, as far as I have been able to ascertain.

Among the fragments of garment I we especially notice the beautiful red, tabby material reminiscent of wool-muslin. Since this material is sewn together with another fine tabby which was also red, it is clear that these two belong together. It seems as if the muslin-like fabric was appliqued on the other fabric, since it has a simple hem and is square. These two fabrics are among the finest of the material. Along the seam joining the two fragments there is tiny embroidery. Other fragments of the same fabric also have embroidery along the edges and seams. One of them is sewn to a silk fabric. The embroidery is always on this tabby. [1]

These embroideries and silk pieces would not be so important if we did not have the rich textile material from Birka in Uppland, Sweden, to compare them to. In fourteen of the graves there were found silk- and tabletweaving fragments. They are often decorated with small embroidery, similar to the embroidery in our material, and like them are placed in the edges of seams and tabletweaving.

The decorative trimmings found in some of the graves at Birka, were by Agnes Geijer in her time connected with a caftan-like garment that she felt belonged to the male costume since the largest and most numerous of these trims were found in double graves. Inga Hägg has later re-evaluated the textile material of Birka, and she feels that decorative braid and embroidery, that are also present in single female graves, must belong to a tunic-like garment that belonged to the female costume[2]. From the placement of the braid in the Birka graves she has concluded that this tunic had been comparatively closefitting, and that silk ribbon and tabletwoven braid was placed[3] on the chest all the way down to the waist and out to the side of the body. It is also obvious that these decorations were sewn to another material, which formed the base of the garment. This was generally made of wool. The tunic of the female graves in Birka could also be without this kind of luxurious decoration. This close fitting garment with all the fine decoration seems to have long, fairly tight sleeves with tabletwoven cuffs. There must have been a slit at the neck, which was held closed with a fastener[4] which was pulled through a loop[5]. Such a loop was found in our material, on a fragment of one of the two red fabrics we feel must belong to the queen's costume, see illustration on p. 194.[Picture 1]

Picture 1 

The tunic is considered to have been a short garment. Inga Hägg has arrived at this conclusion based on the positioning in one grave, where a tabletwoven braid was drawn at the knees, probably to mark the lower edge of the garment[6].

When we compare our material with the material from the graves in Birka, it is reasonable to suppose that our fragments, enriched with embroidery or combined with silk or wool fabric of different qualities, are pieces of a tunic-like garment similar to the tunic identified in the Birka costume[7].

In the Oseberg material there are a number of silk strips that once were attached to another fabric, which we unfortunately no longer know. These strips have lengthwise stitch holes. There are also a number of strips of wool, of the tabby woven, now faded fabric mentioned above, and which all the embroideries are sewn onto. One of these strips is cut in an oval shape and may be interpreted as the facing of a neck opening. I have already mentioned the little loop sewn onto a fragment of the same material, which may have functioned as a closing loop of a neck slit (ill. on page 194 [Picture 1]). It seems natural that all these fragments belong to a tunic of the kind present in the Birka material. It is possible that the tabby with all the embroidery was the main material of this tunic.

Inga Hägg seems to have identified another tunic like garment in the Birka material. It must have been worn over the oval brooches, since fragments of it were preserved on the outside of the brooches. This garment, the 'caftan' was open in front, unlike the closed tunic. Otherwise they are similar. The caftan could have luxurious trimmings, but might also be simple without any decoration.

The tunic and caftan were the garments forming the European female costume during this time. In Birka it seems as though they have formed part of a costume which was a mixture of this and the Viking age traditional female costume, where the oval brooches formed an important part[8].

If we assume that the female costume of the Oseberg grave looked like the Birka costume, we ought to find remains of a caftan in our material. There is strong argument that one of the pretty, red, lozenge twill fabrics could come from such a garment. What is important here, is that this fabric was found in context with the tabbies that in my opinion come from a tunic. The fragments are however too small to allow for certainty. On a small fabric flake there is a strip of the finest of the tabbies, the muslin like one. It is placed over a fragment of lozenge twill, and seems to have been appliqued onto it. On the other side of the flake is a fragment of the same tabby with muslin effect, over a black cake that covers most of this side. Further, there are two instances of pieces of the red lozenge twill fabric sewn together. It would seem as though they are a couple, but we don't know what they were or where they possibly belonged on the garment. On several fragments the two red fabrics - the tabby and the lozenge twill - are found on the same flake, which would seem to indicate that they were in close contact.

Picture 2

It seems we can identify a tunic made up of one of the red tabbies, appliqued with the pretty, red muslin-like fabric and strips of silk[9]. Over this the queen may have worn a caftan of one of the fairly fine, red lozenge twills, see above picture, appliqued with strips of the muslin like tabby, and possibly silk strips. If this garment was open in front, as the Birka caftan evidently was, our fragments give no indication thereof. Nor do we know anything about the shape or length of the caftan. The Birka tunic and caftan were identified as short garments. This assumption was based on the fact that a tabletwoven braid in a male grave[10] is drawn at the knees of the body. It seems to mark the lower edge of the garment. It occurs to me that a female tunic need not have been the same length. To the contrary, contemporary pictures of female garments of the Viking age always seem to be full length, often with a train. On a small silver plaque from Tuna in Alsike, Uppland, a matronly woman is pictured wearing a long garment with braid at knee height, while the skirt is long and trailing. We are not certain this represents a tunic, since the woman is wearing a shawl which covers the top half of the garment.

Despite the similarities we seem to have found with the Birka costume, it is not exactly the same garment that was worn by the Oseberg queen. In the Oseberg material there are no oval brooches, almost obligatory in Birka and which make up the typical set of jewellery for the apron dress, which was the most common female garment during the Viking age. It is possible that these brooches were removed by the grave robbers, but it is really incomprehensible that the robbers would have bothered to remove such simple brooches, if they were not in this case made of nobler metal. In Birka the apron dress was worn over the shirt and tunic, but under the caftan[11].

What did the Oseberg queen's dress look like? On the so called tapestries there are pictured many female figures, but they all wear a shawl covering the part of the costume which is vital to our understanding of what kind of costume it was. A consequence of this is that the female figures on the tapestries have always been considered to wear the typical Viking age costume, where the oval brooches had a natural place.

Picture 3 

There is however one female figure on the tapestries who is not wearing a shawl, and where we can see the upper body, namely the over dimensioned woman illustrated on the next page [Picture 3], leaning against a horse. It is likely that she represents a goddess, probably Frøya. She is wearing a tight, full length skirt. The upper body garment is another colour, basically a faded red. This too is tight fitting, with long, tight sleeves. Around her waist she is wearing a wide, patterned belt. It is possible that we have here the Viking age costume of the higher social classes. This costume seems strangely modern, but with a shawl over it, it would probably look just like the other costumes of these tapestries. Bjørn Hougen was of the opinion that the tapestries were home made, possibly woven by the Oseberg queen herself and her servants. We must assume that the women who wove them were representing something they were familiar with. It is thus likely or at least possible that the female figures we find on the tapestries are wearing the continental female costume worn in higher circles in Europe at this time. From the continent this fashion could have spread north along the trade routes, and it is perhaps not so surprising that it seems to be in the wealthier female graves - in merchant areas - in the Nordic countries, that we don't find oval brooches in the grave finds[12]. Oval brooches are otherwise obligatory with the common apron dress, where they keep the dress up.

There is nothing to suggest that the finer of the lozenge twills, the red mohair fabric reminiscent of silk, comes from garments the queen was buried in. It is never found in context with the other fine, red fabrics in clumps or flakes. This we would have expected if this fabric belonged to her costume. Fragments of the fabric are found both in the chamber and in the shaft dug by the robbers. It is possible that it was placed in one of the chests placed in the chamber, which were plundered by the robbers. On the 18th of August 1904, Gustafson writes in his diary: "The upper chest in the north eastern part of the chamber has apparently been plundered. It was found in the upper edge of the upper break, extending about an inch over the cut edges of the roof planks. When opened it only contained a whole, fairly long comb and a fragment of another comb, some leather and also some especially finely patterned fabric remains, which were placed on the actual broken bottom of the chest." There is reason to believe that the material described here as 'finely patterned' is indeed the fine lozenge twill we are thinking of, since the tapestries are described as 'figured'. It must therefore have been a woven pattern which was especially fine. It is easy then, to think it this one, which is the finest of the woollen fabrics in the material, and was seemingly placed in a chest. Perhaps it was a shawl that the queen only wore on special occasions[13]. For a shawl it would have been particularly suited. Shawls were apparently both elegant and costly in the higher circles of Europe in Carolingian times. Often fine oriental fabrics were used for shawls. We hear how Charlemagne's daughters and wife adorned themselves for the festivities connected to the victory over the Avars in 795: "The daughter Gisela wore a soft shawl woven with purple threads, while the other daughter - Rohaid - had a silk shawl around her shoulders."

There are also indications that the Oseberg queen wore a linen veil on her head. It is imprinted, as we have seen in the illustration 205, on a flake of down and is soumakh woven[14], to make it an open weave. I have earlier mentioned how this veil rested on something which might have been a pillow case in pattern weave. Since it is made of linen, there is reason to believe it was worn by the nobler of the two women. There was also a similar veil, made of wool. (Fig. 209). This probably belonged to the other woman.

A number of fine tabletwoven braids may have been used as belts for the costume. From some illustrations of female costumes in Apocalypse de Valenciennes of the 9th century it is evident that in those days a belt belonged to the continental female costumes. It was tied loosely around the waist over the over tunic or caftan.

Garment II. Since the oval brooches are not evident in this grave, we have no advance indication of what kind of costume the second woman wore on her last journey. We are none the less fortunate in that there are a number of fragments that must come from clothes, since several of them have seams and other indications that they were used. It is important that none of the textiles we consider part of this costume are found in context with the other fragments originating in garment I.

The first fragments we notice here are two blue pieces. They obviously belong to a garment made up of two blue fabrics. One is a lozenge twill, the other a diagonal twill - both of wool. They are pictured here in illustration 207. As we can see, the lozenge twill is appliqued onto the twill on one piece, and they are reversed on the other. It is not possible to determine which fabric formed the base of the garment. The seams are turned, and the seam allowance sewn down with whip stitch. Where on the garment these fragments belong, is also impossible to determine. It is not even possible to determine what type of garment we are looking at. The only thing we can say, is that the blue colour which comes from woad, suggests that this woman also ranked high on the social scale. Seeds of this plant (Isatus tinctoria) were found in a box on the Oseberg ship. It is therefore possible that it was grown in Slagen at this time. In the Nordic countries woad was known and used as a dyeplant early on. Two fragments from the elder iron-age are dyed with this plant, one a fragment from Vong in Denmark and the bone-cloth from Daugbjerg in Denmark.

In the Eddasong - Rigstula - it says in the description of the noble woman's - Jarl's mother's - dress, that it was dyed blue, something that seems to be a status symbol (The younger Edda: Rigstula). Many of the finest fabrics in Birka were likely blue. This alone would suggest that also the second woman in the Oseberg mound must have had a relatively high social status. Both these fabrics belong however to the group that was seemingly home woven.

There are also some other fragments in the material, that appear to have been in contact with one of the bodies. Some of them are covered with a black crust on one side, which could come from a vegetable fibre fabric or a decaying body. It is a naturally coloured twill in a lozenge pattern.

As mentioned there are some applications shaped as animals etc. These were probably blue. It is likely they were appliqued onto this garment, but where it is not possible to determine. The fabric in the applications is one of the fine tabbies, which are likely to be Irish, but the figures are square and clumsily executed.


End notes

[1]  From an earlier chapter on the textiles;

"Embroidery is evident on two-three fragments of the tabby material that once was red. It consists of quite small stitching executed in silk and wool, or exclusively in wool. It seems to have been placed on the edge of a seam or an appliqued silk- or wool fragment. The embroideries are done in differing techniques. It could be a stemstitch or backstitch, in some cases it's executed with several threads winding around each other."

Tiny fragment of embroidery over a seam. Oseberg Ship Burial.

I will eventually get around to translating that chapter too, which has much technical information on the fabrics and their construction, as well as how they were embroidered and appliqued.

[2] Hägg, 1983, p349:

"The archaeological approach to the subject of dress has brought forward some additional results. It is now possible to prove by the stratigraphical and other evidence exemplified here that women's dress included two further garments: one tunic worn under the skirt and one long jacket worn over it. The mantle, on the other hand, does not seem to have been in frequent use. The base material in the tunic was wool or linen, and sometimes its front had applications of silk and tablet-woven bands. "

[3] This statement is very ambiguous. 'Dekket', the original word here, usually means 'covered'. But it may also be interpreted as 'placed on'. If 'covered' is implied, a whole set of problems arises with documentation for that statement. If not, and the weaker 'placed on' is implied, then there is support for the statement in some texts.

Hägg 1986, p.65;

"Especially characteristic of the under- and overtunic [the tunic and caftan respectively] is the rich ornamentation with silk bands, embroidery, and braided bands[tabletweaving], as well as passements of gold and silver wire. In men's and women's costumes, the bands go along edges, over seams, around the neck and sleeves, and sometimes even along the lower hem. These ornaments were primarily on the front of the garment. This is particularly evident in the excavations of women's graves where they never appear on the fragments of cloth from the back side."

Thora Sharptooth;

"So far I have not been able to locate any instance of Hägg mentioning bands going down to the waist on women's garments. She does make reference (Hägg 1986) to a couple of men's tunics dating to the mid-tenth century that have such decoration, for example, this comment on a specific and atypical man's grave at Birka:"

'In the rich grave 944 was a tunic worn under a caftan. The tunic was of linen. From the shoulder to the calves it was decorated with strips of silk and tablet-woven silver-brocaded bands (coded B 6-7). The sleeves were long and had tablet-woven bands along their length and around the armhole seam (Birka III Taf. 28:3).' (p. 69)

"And again, there's the unique tunic decoration from Grave 735 that several of the coffee-table Viking books picked up on and used incorrectly on their depictions of caftans. It's a series of horizontal strips of brocaded tablet-weaving appliqued to a square of samite that was then applied to the front of a blue-green wool tunic. From what I've been able to tell based on scale, it must have covered most of the front of the tunic. However, I have not seen anything from a woman's grave that is equivalent."

I've chosen to assume that Ingstad did not mean 'covered' in this instance. This may or may not be correct. It certainly makes for an interesting point of discussion.

[4]  The word in the original, spenne, is a generic word meaning roughly a device, not originally part of the garment, used to fasten an opening. It could be a brooch, a clasp, a pin or a toggle. Based on the article by Hägg, I'd be inclined to translate it brooch or clasp, but as Ingstad is slightly ambiguous, I've chosen fastener, which is equally ambiguous.

[5] Hägg 1983, p 334, speaking of the 'caftan';

"In contrast to the buttoned front of the men's caftan, the front edges of the women's were kept apart by the brooch. As should be expected with this type of garment, wedges and joints in the preserved fragments show that it must have been fitted to the body. It may also have had sleeves, as in the plan in Figure 17.25 where the skeleton has silver bands around the wristbones."

[6] Mistress Thora Sharptooth comments;

"Okay, I can't find anything on this in the sources, either. Maybe this is something Ingstad and Hägg chatted about over coffee at one of the NESAT meetings or something, but there's no trail in the literature that I can detect."

The only mention I've found of any such conclusion is from Hägg, 1983, p 334;

"The length, finally, of the 'caftan', is probably indicated by the hem decorations in tomb Bj. 905, where however, the sex of the skeleton is not known."

[7] Mistress Thora Sharptooth;

"The tunic layer from Birka with which she is citing this parallel is an overgarment worn layered over a chemise--a garment that also seems to have been worn more in the tenth century than in the first half of the ninth. Hägg has a particularly instructive chart on p. 61 of the 1986 chapter that cites the relative occurrences of different garment layers. Only four such tunics have been identified from ninth-century Birka, but 19 from tenth-century."

[8] Hägg 1986, pp.64f;

"These two garments(mantle and overtunic) have direct counterparts in men's garb, and at Hedeby (Hägg 1984b, p.42-63 and 171-180); but also, interestingly, in the traditional Frankish court garb. This Frankish garb (which in its own way is based on Byzantine garb) consisted of a linen chemise, an undertunic, and an overtunic with front slit closed by a brooch. The overtunic of the Birka costume, which apparently could be made of wool or linen (compare Table 8:7), was not buttoned in front, but was closed by a brooch, in the manner of the Frankish Queen Arnegund."

[9] Mistress Thora Sharptooth;

"Ingstad has left out consideration of the apron-dress as a candidate for the red lozenge twill fabric. An apron dress would also be found in close contact with the red tabby tunic. Apron-dresses could be lined with a second fabric and/or have silk bands appliqued at the top, as Hägg (1986, p.62) notes:"

'In one case, grave 973, the skirt was of lozenge twill with a lining and loops of rep-woven wool (see Birka III Table 5:7 and 6:6). Often the upper edge was finished with a woollen band (graves 511, 954, 563, 973, and 1084), or with a narrow band of silk (graves 464, 834, 835, and 1090).'

"Also, and perhaps more telling, lozenge twill was a weave typical of the apron-dress, as Hägg (1984, p. 169) notes:"

'The preferred cloth for women's skirts, both at Birka and in the Norwegian graves mentioned above (Vernes, Sandanger, and Kaupang), is diamond twill.'

[10] See point 6

[11] As Mistress Thora Sharptooth points out, Ingstad may be a bit hasty to dismiss the apron dress as a candidate for the Oseberg Queen's outfit based on the lack of fasteners. While it is true that there are no oval brooches in the grave, there is in fact no jewellery at all in the grave. If there were brooches they were likely stolen along with anything else valuable. The shipburial was plundered not long after the grave was closed, and while the existing grave is full of incredible finds of furniture, textiles, and everyday objects, every last scrap of jewellery was removed. From an earlier chapter;

"Early on it was clear that the grave had been plundered in ancient times, as were so many other mounds. The robbers had dug their way in from the south with a broad shaft, cutting down the fore stem on their way, and got into the chamber behind the mast through a large hole in the roof. In the chamber they removed what they were interested in, and ruined much in the process. Remains of the artefacts from the chamber and bones from the buried were found spread amongst the infill in the robbers' shaft. [...] We can expect that some of the most valuable things in the chamber were removed. In such a grave we would expect to find a rich array of jewellery, perhaps drinking vessels of silver or other items of noble metals. All such is gone."

Thora Sharptooth;

"Without a sense of scale in Ingstad's photo it's hard to judge, but the inside diameter of the loop pictured on page 194[Picture 1] looks kind of large for the sort of loop that would hold a brooch.

To me it looks much more likely to have been part of the suspension for an apron-dress."

[...]

"Again, this loop is much larger than those on the Birka caftans, which Hägg (1983) describes as 'two small loops through which the brooch-pin has been inserted,' (1983, p.334), and again (1986, p.63) as 'two tiny loops affixed into the front opening of the garment.'"

The 'loop fragment' is however part of a body of strips and fragments in the same material, one of which is oval and would fit around a neck opening, at least according to Ingstad. While it is possible that the same material was used to edge both tunic/caftan and the apron-dress, I would be inclined to suspect that the loop belonged to a caftan (because of the size of the loop) with an oval neck line at the back.

[12] Hägg (1984, p. 169);

"we also know that the bronze brooches that are used to fasten the Tragerrock (= apron-dress) are found only in the richest graves."

Thora Sharptooth;

"Furthermore, apparently some people theorize [sic] that the apron-dress might have been a high-status (or at least, a married-person's) garment. Hägg suggests (1974, p. 107 (exact page number unclear in my translation)):"

''There are numerous examples of the shift worn alone, under a shawl. Commonly, but not exclusively, this is the case in children's graves. Moszynski reports (1936, section 416) that it was customary in slavic areas, as well as among the eastern and western Finns, that children and young women wore the shift alone, and not until their marriage did they also wear an overdress (= apron-dress, in this context). Various representations of women in Swedish Viking-Age art give support to similar custom...'

[13] Thora Sharptooth;

"More special than a burial? Seriously, though, archaeological evidence for the iconographically-ubiquitous (bet you never saw those two words hyphenated together before!) woman's cloak is unusual in the Viking Age, although not uncommon beforehand. This from Hägg (1986, p.62):"

'As I said previously, it is difficult to find evidence for the existence of the cloak in women's graves (Hägg 1974 p.59). Still, we can't take this as a firm argument against its existence.'

[14] From the preceding chapter;

"Soumakh or 'slyngesmett' is a technique comparatively little known in the Nordic area. The weaving is done by a weft thread being twisted around each warp thread in a way reminiscent of stocking stitch. They are then reversed by another row. In this way a fabric is produced which is similar to a tabby with a ribbed effect. It is also known as 'oriental soumakh'."

Oriental Soumakh (wool fragment found in the Oseberg Ship burial)


Bibliography

Agnes Geijer, 1938, Die Textilfunde aus den Graben. Birka: Untersuchungen und Studien, III. Stockholm, Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien.

Agnes Geijer, 1983. The textile finds from Birka, pp 80-99 in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe; Essays in Memory of Prof. E.M. Carus-Wilson, ed. N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting. Pasold studies in Textile History 2. London, Heinemann Educational Books/The Pasold Research Fund Ltd.

Inga Hägg, 1974, Kvinnodräkten i Birka: Livplaggens Rekonstruktion på grundval av det Arkaeologiska materialet. Pp 106-110. Uppsala, Archaeological Institute. (German summary translated for Thora Sharptooth by Mistress Marieke van de Dal).

Inga Hägg, 1982, Einige Beobachtungen uber die Birkatracht, pp in Textilsymposium Neumunster: Archaeologishe Textilfunde 6.5. - 8.5.1981 ed Lise Bender Jørgensen and Klaus Tidow. Neumunster; Textilmuseum Neumunster (Translation again for Thora Sharptooth by Marieke van de Dal.)

Inga Hägg, 1983, Viking women's dress at Birka: A reconstruction by Archaeological methods. Pp 316-350 in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Prof. E.M. Carus-Wilson, ed. N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting. Pasold studies in Textile History 2. London, Heinemann Educational Books/The Pasold Research Fund Ltd.

Inga Hägg, 1984. Textilfunde aus dem Hafen von Haithabu. Berichte uber die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu, Bericht 20. Neumunster, Karl Wacholz Verlag. (Translation Marieke van de Dal for Thora Sharptooth).

Anne Stine Ingstad, 1982, The functional textiles from the Oseberg Ship. "Pp. 85-96 in Textilsymposium Neumunster: Archaeologishe Textilfunde 6.5. - 8.5.1981 ed Lise Bender Jørgensen and Klaus Tidow. Neumunster; Textilmuseum Neumunster (Translation again for Thora Sharptooth by Marieke van de Dal.)