Germanic prince from Matejovce part 2

After seeing a mildly disappointing garment reconstruction (part 1) in the museum in my hometown, Poprad, Slovakia, I decided to invest a little time and research the actual tablet woven band that was discovered in the Germanic prince's tomb.

What do we know?

The answer on basic parameters lies in paper by Stolcova and Zink: ''Fragments of a tablet-woven textile were examined on plank R174 laying on the floor of the grave. It was made with ca. nine four-holed tablets with 3S-3Z-3S threading (Fig. 6a). (...) So far, all textiles appear to be woollen (Fig. 6), which may be due to the acidic environment in the grave. Moreover, in some cases the fibre was identified as very fine sheep/goat wool.''

Now we know the band was probably woollen, what was the tablet slant and judging by the included lo-fi photograph, it was 9-10 mm wide.

What to do with it?

When we are left with this little information on pattern itself, it is tempting to get overly creative. I decided to play it the safe way and go for simple stripes, even though a monochrome weave would be just as good. We know that the Germanic prince resting in the burial chamber was wealthy and that at least one layer of his clothes was dyed red. We can safely assume this could be a suitable colour.

Now we can confidently reach out for weaving supplies. Nine tablets, 36 threads.

Sources:

Štolcová, T. – Schaarschmidt, D. – Mitschke, S. 2014: Textile finds from a chieftain’s Grave. Preliminary report from Poprad-Matejovce, Slovakia.

Štolcová, T. – Zink, G. 2013: Early Migration Period Textile and Leather Finds from the Chieftain’s Grave in Poprad-Matejovce: Discovery, Retrieval and New Results of the Laboratory Examination.