Viking wool combs?

[aelfgifu]

Hey hive-mind, I want pics and references for viking era wool combs. Please help? I wanna make some... it seems like a fun project. I saw a pic of some in Nialla's spiffy book, and now I can't find any pics of extant ones.  

Comments

[gargoyal3.livejournal.com]

go search the swedish national museam (I have instructions on how to do that on my lj, somewhere under the Viking tag), and like others have said on fb, ask Caoiminn, she's zoezebra on lj, and zoe mcdonall on fb.

[gargoyal3.livejournal.com]

oops, zoe mcdonell, I mean.

[zoezebra.livejournal.com]

You have a couple of options depending on where geographically you were thinking of starting from:

Option A: There are iron tines recovered from Iron Age Finland and I have a photo of a recreation piece made based on the finds on display at the Finnish National Museum. These combs are a crafted from two ~6-8" pieces of wood at a perpendicular angle with a single layer of sharpened iron tines drilled in.

Option B: The other style is based on the Oseberg find which is constructed with the iron tines welted onto an iron backbone which is then set into a single piece of wood for the handle.

Basically how much metal work do you want to do?

Feel free to email me if you want images scanned: walkazon at hotmail dot com. FYI: The Tools for Textile Production from Birka and Hedeby by Eva Andersson mentions a lack of comb evidence from all the archeological sites involved in these digs (p 130).

[aelfgyfu.livejournal.com]

Well, I actually love metalwork, so I think I want to try to make versions of both! :-) Yes, sending you an email now, and thanks a bunch!!!

[pearl.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that there is some debate over the difference between a heckle for linen, and a wool comb, especially when you have only a few rows of iron teeth preserved?

(Which I'm guessing is why looking at the ID numbers mentioned in this thesis for a ullkam in the University museum database seems to pull up references to heckles.)

This monograph on flax (very big download!) there's one on page 32 of the PDF.

PS. Apparently this photo is from the Bergen museum:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnybo/2353875718/

[aelfgyfu.livejournal.com]

oooh, thanks! I wasn't really aware of the debate, having gotten into fiber geekery fairly recently. However, I think that I would like to make some versions of these items, whatever they actually were, to try to use (perhaps for both purposes?), so this is really helpful! Thanks again!

[doreen gunkel (from livejournal.com)]

I am doing a long term fiber based project that has a following page located at green land research/recreation project on FB. One of the things I need is help locating information on wool combs and linen? Heckles.

Any help offered will be rewarded! Please email me at dairine7644 at gmail dot com. I thank all of you in advance as it is nice to know I am not the only fiber junky out here....

Be well....Doreen