Textiles in a Viking Age hoard: Identifying ephemeral traces of textiles in metal corrosion products

Davis, Mary; Harris, Susanna

Textiles in a Viking Age hoard: Identifying ephemeral traces of textiles in metal corrosion products

Download

Name

Textiles_in_a_Viking_Hoard.pdf

Description

visibility:open

Size

53.87 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (CRC64NVME)

ZoH5FbhPFs8=

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Davis, Mary

Harris, Susanna

ORCID

Date published

January 17, 2023

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method and terminology to identify and describe textiles from ephemeral traces in metal corrosion products. Since the 1980s, mineralised textiles (positive and negative casts in Janaway’s terminology) have been an important source of archaeological evidence. A major issue now is the identification of textiles in metal corrosion products when only faint traces remain. These traces no longer appear like textiles and are vulnerable to misinterpretation. Confused with metal dendritic structures or the form of corrosion products themselves, they are often lost through handling or cleaned off through conservation practices. This loss is cumulatively significant. To remedy this issue, this paper defines and characterises the form and structure of ephemeral traces of archaeological textiles through examination of metal corrosion products on a Viking Age hoard from Scotland. It defines a new terminology to supplement Janaway: petal shapes, remnant textile surface, ghost textile surface. The analysis follows an investigative inquiry from assessment to laboratory analysis using a Dinolite portable digital microscope, optical light microscopy with Z stacking and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results allow the secure identification of textiles from previously unidentified corrosion features. The method has wide applicability to corroded archaeological metal objects and has the potential to significantly increase the identification of textiles associated with metals and transform current understanding of hoards.