Nowadays most plant textiles used for clothing and household are made of cotton and viscose. Before the 19th century however, plant textiles were mainly made from locally available raw materials, in Scandinavia these were: nettle, hemp and flax. It is generally believed that in Viking and early Middle Ages Scandinavia hemp was used only for coarse textiles (i.e. rope and sailcloth). Here we present an investigation of 10 Scandinavian plant fibre textiles from the Viking and Early Middle Ages, believed to be locally produced. Up till now they were all believed to be made of flax. We show that 4 textiles, including two pieces of the famous Överhogdal Viking wall-hanging are in fact made with hemp (in three cases hemp and flax are mixed). This indicates that hemp was important, not only for coarse but also for fine textile production in Viking and Early Middle Ages in Scandinavia.
A new type of deposit has been observed on the inside inner surface at glass exhibition cases for textiles. By thermogravimetric methods the main part of the coating has been shown to consist of wool fibers. The origin is the textile itself, and the fibers have been transported due to an electrostatic charge induced by polishing from the outside. Such damage can be avoided by grounding the boxes. The textile specimens have probably earlier been hanging on a church wall, which was presumably, in the normal fashion, whitewashed with a paint based on natural lime pigments with J. Thermal Anal. 25, 1982 7*
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