Category Archives: Jewelry

Wire Weaving – Not as Simple as it Seems: Part 5 – Consistency & Significance

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So last time we were discussing a particular set of authors, who were describing the structure of a Wire Woven Silver Scourge. They also listed several other artifacts. I raised the questions: Were they consistent in the use of the word Trichinopoly? And is ANY of this significant anyway?

As many college advisers in graduate school will tell you, it is important to find the original sources for the referenced chains. Not the articles that reference the discovery, but the actual reports with line drawings and pictures. Or, better yet, current high quality pictures of the artifacts themselves. The farther that you are from the original source of information the more likely that mistakes have entered into the record. In the ensuing 140 years since the finds, England has been involved in two major World Wars including the second World War which is known to have destroyed many items. It is possible that some of these pieces may have vanished or been destroyed.

The first artifact that the author mentioned was the Tara Brooch. I checked all of my research books looking for a picture that was good enough to discern which form of wire weaving was used. No luck.

I went online. The Tara Brooch is held by the National Museum of Ireland. They show poor quality pictures that focus completely on the elaborate gold work of the brooch. The chain on the brooch looks like a rat’s tail in most of the pictures – just a dark silhouette with almost no detail. I had always thought it was done in the Nahlbinding style of wire weaving, but I have no good proof.

The Great Hoard from Croy was next on my list. According to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, this hoard was located in 1875 and 1876. The first portion of the hoard is described as containing ” part of a band of knitted silver wire”, and all of the hoard is held by the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. J A Graham-Campbell’s main concern was whether the chain is of Scandinavian origin or not. He states, “The chain is manufactured in the Trichinopoly technique (Wilson and Blunt 1961, 93) and represents the possible Norse element in this hoard since similar chains have been found in the hoard from Cuerdale, Lancashire (Hawkins 1847, fig 84), deposited c AD 903, in the hoard from Skaill, Orkney (VA II, fig 60), deposited c AD 950, in the 9th-century Ballinaby grave 2, Islay (VA II, fig 18), and in the Inchkenneth hoard, deposited c AD1000; but the presence of such a chain, in the form of a scourge, in the hoard from Trewhiddle, Cornwall (Wilson and Blunt 1961, 84, 92-3, pixxvi, a), deposited c AD 875, raises the possibility that such chains found in insular contexts might be of Anglo-Saxon manufacture.”

The class teacher at Gulf War did not have a handout. We were permitted to use our phones to copy some not-great-photos of pictures of some of these pieces. The big problem is that all of the pictures are reproduced from drawings that were made of the pieces in the 1800’s. Are they accurate, or not? If they are accurate it appears that the chain from Inch Kenneth, Ballinaby, Skaill, Croy, and Garron Point are all made in the “Anglo- Saxon” fashion (knit rather than Nahlbinding).

But what if they are not accurate, or are inconsistent in their accuracy? I did try to locate the actual pieces of the hoards. The Cuerdale Hoard went to more than 170 locations including the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and the National Museums in Liverpool. I viewed all 184 of the pictures of the Cuerdale Hoard that were available from the British Museum. It was all hack silver, bar stock and bracelets. A review of the Cuerdale pieces at the Ashmolean revealed about 40 pieces of silver – all hack silver, bar stock and bracelets. The National Museums, Liverpool are in the process of digitizing their artifacts and have nothing useful about the Cuerdale hoard online except a discussion of the over 800 coins from this hoard that they have in their numismatic collection. Dead End!

I finally found a picture of the chain from the Great Hoard of Croy online.  The description states that it is made in the Trichinopoly technique using a continuous wire. I have to admit, it does look to be knit, but the resolution of the picture is just NOT good enough to be certain.

But is any of this significant? I guess we will have to talk about that next time!

English: Tara Brooch

English: Tara Brooch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Wire Weaving – Not as Simple an Issue as it Seems -Part 4 – Wire Weaving and Trichinopoly: Are they the same?

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So when I took that class at Gulf War, I was immediately excited when I saw the information that the teacher was presenting. Sad to say I actually remembered having run across it a couple of years earlier, while looking for something else. It was one of those things that I planned to “get back to”. I tried to explain to the teacher how important her information was and that she could use fiber terms to help her students to understand the structures that she was discussing. Her response – I don’t do fiber. OK. But a LOT of people do – more than the number of people who do metal. This is why I require my apprentices to have an open mind towards at least understanding the basic technology of crafts other than their own.

Back in 1774 a hoard was located in an old tin mine. Known as the Trewhiddle Hoard. It had some very unusual and unique metal items, including what is believed to be the oldest surviving Christian ceremonial scourge. The scourge was made of silver wire. The Reverand Philip Rashleigh managed to acquire most of the find and wrote a report on it in 1788, which was published in the Society of Antiquaries journal, Archaeologia, IX, 187. As was typical of many of the discoveries that occurred during this timeframe, a considerable portion of the original find has disappeared. Fortunately, the scourge has survived and is in the British Museum.

The original report by Rashleigh does not shed any light on the structure of the scourge, being a simple listing of the items that were found. The decision to call the technique Trichinopoly is lost somewhere in my archives. I thought that I had discovered the gentle’s name, but I can’t currently locate it. Supposedly the story was that being stationed at some point in Trichinopoly, India, a British Colonial Administrative District, the individual in question recognized the technique as something that he had seen in India, and gave the technique a name.

In 1961 D.M Wilson and C.E. Blunt published an article, again in Archaeologia (Jan 1961, Vol. 98) titled, The Trewhiddle Hoard. And they detailed the structure of the scourge wire.

Trewhiddle Hoard Scourge FOrmI have to admit, this brief excerpt makes my head hurt. Looking at the picture the structure of the scourge is obviously knit. The author’s description of the “circular plaiting” as tatting is incorrect. According to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary tatting is: a delicate handmade lace formed usually by looping and knotting with a single cotton thread and a small shuttle. My Mother used to make tatted doilies, I know what it looks like. Interestingly enough, their description of the spool knitting that the children were doing is correct at least as far as the structure of the “plaiting” is concerned. I decided to investigate the individual finds that are mentioned to try to determine if they were being consistent in the use of the word Trichinopoly, or not.

Next time: Consistent or Not, and Why is ANY of this Significant?

Wire Weaving – Not as Simple an Issue as it Seems – Weaving, Nahlbinding, and Knitting

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Last time we discussed three basic forms of chains – simple linked chains, loop in loop chains, and wire weaving. The reason that I needed to discuss those things was because we need to start looking objectively at the words we are using to describe a craft. And this time we are supposed to talk about Weaving, Nahlbinding, and Knitting.

Why? Because our ultimate topic is Wire Weaving.

If we enforce the idea of the name of a process being correct, based on the definitions of the words in that name, we need to look at each word separately. The chains that we have looked at all use wire, but the way in which that wire is used is dramatically different.

According to the name of the chain we are supposed to be talking about a type of weaving. Dictionary.com gives this definition of weaving: ” to form or construct something, as fabric, by interlacing threads, yarns, strips, etc. ” OK, I have to admit that my personal definition tends more towards the warp and weft theory of fabric construction, but if we use their definition, we are OK.

As always, being a crafty geek I don’t do just metal work, I also spend a lot of time doing fiber things, and one of those things that I tried was Nahlbinding. Now one of the first things that you will notice about this craft is that no one seems to be able to agree on how the name of the technique should be spelled. Why is that? Because every Scandinavian language has their own word for the technique, and they are each slightly different.

But getting back to the basics of the technique… guess what? The pattern that is used for the classic “Viking Wire Weaving” is the same as the Coptic stitch in Nahlbinding.

I had also been involved for a long time with the study of Nahlbinding vs. Knitting, and the arguments about which came first and where they both originated. So discovering that the Vikings were using the same technique for working in both wire and fiber was not really particularly shocking to me.

Craftspeople in less technologically isolated cultures (the crafts are often done in semi-home workshops, rather than in technology parks and factories) would have been more likely to be exposed to the techniques that were used in crafts other than their own. The Egyptians were using the “Viking Wire Weaving” technique long before there was such a thing as Vikings. And they were also using the technique of Nahlbinding to make socks before there were Vikings. This pair of socks owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum is an excellent example of that. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O107787/pair-of-socks-unknown/

Another unfortunate name for wire weaving is Knit Chain. But at least to Knitters, knitting means something very specific. The graphic below shows the structure of a simple knit piece, a very different structure from Nahlbinding.

Knit structureJust in case you have forgotten, this is the structure of Nahlbinding.

wire weaving

So obviously, Wire Weaving, or Viking Wire Weaving, is NOT a knit chain.

Next time: Wire Weaving and Trichinopoly: Are they the same?