Reproduction of the Animal Motif Tablet Woven Band from Evebø

For this year's Arts and Sciences Faire in the Kingdom of Trimaris, I chose to make a reproduction of the famous Evebø band. This was by far the most difficult and most fun weaving project I've worked on thus far.  There was a huge amount fo research, reading, and translation involved and I am very pleased with the results. This was the first time I enteres an A/S competition at the Kingdom level (second time overall), so I was not expecting to do as well as I did. This was meant to be entered as an Artificer level, but doe to some clerical snafus which went unnoticed due to fatigue, it was entered at the Masterwork level. I was very surprised to have scored very well, earning the Laurel's Acclaim, and this project was selected as one of the Gulf Wars entries for our Kingdom. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend Gulf Wars XXV, but some members of the Kingdom were gracious enough to take the entry on my behalf.

Below follows an excerpt of my report. The full thing is very long, but if you would like to see a full copy, please contact me directly and I would be more than happy to share.

1.     Summary and Inspiration

It is almost certain that any historical tablet weaver will at some point come across the famed band from Evebø, and immediately become enthralled by it. This was certainly the case with me. I cannot remember exactly when I first came across this band, but I know that ever since I have had the urge to weave it. There are few extant tablet woven pieces which more readily capture the imagination of the weaver. Originating from the municipality of Gloppen in the Fjordlands of West Central Norway, this band was almost miraculously preserved in excellent condition throughout the centuries, even as the vast majority of the garments associated with it rotted away to just a few caked-together scraps. The original artisan was both a master of her craft, and a person with a vivid imagination. The band is strewn with motifs of fanciful creatures having little resemblance to any in our world, which ignite the imagination. Were these creatures drawn from myths and tales of Migration Period Scandinavia? Were they simply the product of a vivid imagination? These are questions which are impossible to answer, but which give some insight as to the context of the creation of this amazing piece.

The story of what became commonly known as the Evebø animal band begins in Migration Period Norway, somewhere between the 5^th and 10^th centuries C.E [1, 4]. It was then when a burial cairn was raised for a man who, judging from the grave goods and the size of the mound in comparison to others in the area, was a local Jarl or Chieftain. The burial mound was significantly larger than the others surrounding it, which is what caught the attention of a local farmer in the spring of 1889. This farmer decided to dig up the burial mound, and once he realized it contained many items of archeological interest, contacted the local authorities. The government official who surveyed the find had the good sense to attempt to preserve it. He had sheets of metal pushed under the ground containing the burial site and thus was able to transport it with all grave goods in situ to Bergen [1]. It was in Bergen where Gabriel Gustafson was able to “excavate” the grave goods. Gustafson would later go on to work on the famous Oseberg Ship find, the most well preserved of its kind, which is now housed in its own dedicated museum [7, 8]. What Gustafson found was that the grave belonged to a single man who was of high status in his society [1]. He was buried lying on a bearskin and covered in linen. He was weaving several layers of clothing, including an inner tunic, and outer tunic, and a cloak. It was later discovered by Bente Magnus, working in the late 1970s, that the man was also wearing a pair of checkered trousers [1].

2.     Style of the Original Band

It is the Chieftain’s outer tunic which concerns us in the present work. The tunic was made from a fine wool yarn, possibly a brownish-yellow or brownish-green in color [1]. Unfortunately, the fragments of the tunic are too deteriorated to exactly make out the color. The largest of these fragments has an exquisite tablet woven band with motifs of fanciful animals and creatures attached to one edge. It is this tablet woven band which is the focus of the current work.  There is a smaller fragment with a second piece of this band, but it is much smaller and far less well preserved.  I have reconstructed both fragments in order to appear as they do in the present day at Bergen Museum, as catalog number B4590 [9, 10]. The largest fragment of the reconstructed band is a more faithful representation of the original due to that fragment’s much better preservation through the centuries.

Analysis of the positioning of the fragments shows that this band was located around the neck of the Chieftain’s outer tunic [1, 2]. Along the middle of this fragment of the tunic is a seam, skillfully stitched with buttonhole stitches to prevent unraveling of the fabric [2, 3]. The fragment is approximately 20cm long and 2.5cm wide [9, Figure 3]. The band appears to have a background which is dark green and a pattern of a brownish-yellow [9, Figure 11]. The band is woven in the double faced 3/1 broken twill technique [4]. There are five creatures woven on this fragment, which I will name to avoid confusion. Note that these names constitute only a modern interpretation of the motifs and are not representative of the intent of the original weaver.

Figure 1: Motifs from fragment 1. Images courtesy of University Museum of Bergen.

The figure which I have nicknamed “the crocodile” is nearly intact, with only a tiny portion of the snout being at a frayed edge of the fragment.  In the center of the band there are three perfectly preserved creatures which I have nicknamed “the shrew”, “the centipede”, and “the serpent” respectively. At the far end of the band, opposite “the crocodile” is a mysterious motif which is partially and abruptly cut off. I have nicknamed this creature “the elephant”.

There exists also a smaller fragment of this tablet woven band, but it is not very well preserved [Figure 12]. What can be made out is a motif of a backwards facing “dragon” and an unidentifiable partial creature, where only a small bit can be discerned. Since this smaller fragment is not displayed at the University Museum of Bergen as with the larger piece, only blurry black and white images from before any restoration work was done are available. I have also attempted to recreate this piece, but the available information is scarce.

One of the most unique things about the Evebø band, which speaks volumes as to the skill and planning that went into its construction, is the structure of the background weave. The twining of the threads throughout the background show that the turning sequence was not the basic 2-forward 2-back of the 3/1 twill technique, but rather a more complex form of the technique was chosen in order to keep the diagonal bands formed by the twining of the threads matching the direction of the twining of the creatures that form the pattern [Figure 2]. Such a careful construction would only be apparent under very close scrutiny by someone very familiar with the techniques of tablet weaving. That such care was taken in the construction of the band shows that the original artisan was not only a master of her craft, but one with extreme care for even the smallest detail. It is in the study of details such as this that that awe for this band goes from the realm of the merely aesthetic into an appreciation for incredible craftsmanship.

3.     Reconstruction

The purpose of the present work is to create as faithful a reconstruction of the original band, without making any unnecessary conjectures as to what may have been in the portions of the band that are now lost to the wear of time. I have thus only reconstructed the portions of the band which were preserved and are currently housed in the University Museum of Bergen. I have made no attempt to extend the band to fill in the missing pieces. However, I do plan in the future to make a full reconstruction of the garment, which will require a significant amount of conjecture.

I began the present reconstruction by researching modern reproductions of the Evebø band. The first case I came across was the reconstruction by Amalie von Brisache of the Kingdon of Lohac. The reconstruction is based on the pattern by Maikki Karisto of Finland, but has some dissimilarities with the original band [11].  I eventually came upon the reconstruction by Randi Stoltz, which very closely adheres to the original piece. I began with her pattern, and modified it to more easily lend itself to my style of weaving.

As in the case of the original band, I wove the band in a double faced 3/1 broken twill technique, taking care to maintain the scale of the motifs as close as possible to the original.  My reconstruction maintains a scale very close to the original, although slightly elongated. A test piece was woven first to ascertain the width of the band that would maintain the original scale, given the wool yarn I was working with. This width turned out to be 2.7cm, which is only 2mm wider than the original. The slight elongation of the motif could be reduced by using a thinner weft thread.

Care was taken to maintain the relationship between the twining of the background and the shapes of the animal motifs, as was done by the original weaver. A comparison of the background twining in the original to the present work is shown in Figure 2. Note that the structure of the band, rather than following the straight diagonals of the basic 3/1-twill technique, changes direction in order to exactly match the twining direction of the woven creatures.

Figure 2: Comparison of the weave structure created by the background twining in the original band (top) and the present reconstruction (bottom).

Another interesting feature of the Evebø band is the transition region between “the shrew” and “the centipede”, located at the center of the larger fragment of the band. In this region the structure of the weave changes from being a 3/1 twill and instead becomes a section of plain weave, although still double faced.  The twining of the warp threads also changer from all-S to alternating S and Z. This change in threading direction leads to a series of zig-zag lines in the pattern.  In order to achieve this change in weave structure, the original artisan would’ve had to manipulate the tablets such that the twining changed on alternate tablets, plus allow some tablets to idle in order to change the weave structure.  In the present work, the change in twining was achieved by flipping every other tablet along the vertical axis, thus changing them from S to Z threading. Tablets were also allowed to idle right before the transition region such that the structure of the weave changed appropriately [Figure 3].

Figure 3: The red arrow points to the location in the change in weave structure at the transition region. The change from smooth diagonals to a zig-zag pattern is a product of the change in twining direction for the tablets