First experimental evidence of hop fibres in historical textiles

Abstract

Hop (Humulus lupulus) has been used in Scandinavia since at least the ninth century AD, as documented through archaeological findings and written, historical records. The written records are mainly focused on the use of cone-shaped flowers for beer brewing and medical purposes, but there are also records, for example, from the famous Swedish botanist Carl von Linne, who mentions the use of hop fibres for textile production. However, until now no experimental investigations have been published on the use of hop fibres in cultural heritage objects. A major reason for this has been the lack of a suitable characterization method. Hop is a bast fibre, just as flax and hemp and bast fibres cannot be distinguished from each other by simple optical inspection. Recently a new identification method for hop fibres was published by the authors of this article. Here we apply the new method in an investigation of two Swedish cultural heritage objects: (i) a woman’s garment from the nineteenth century, which was labelled as having an upper section made from coarse linen and a bottom section made of hemp and hop and (ii) a textile fragment from an eighteenth-century textile sample book, which was labelled as being made from hop. We show that the woman’s garment is made with hop and hemp fibres and the textile fragment from the textile sample book is made with hop. Our work provides the first direct proof that hop fibres were used for textiles in the past.

Traditional manufacture of hemp and hop textiles: Why botany and agronomy matter

“…To date, only a few historic bast fibre textiles have been properly analysed with conclusive laboratory methods, and research continues. Distinguishing between hemp and hop fibres is especially difficult because of their close botanical relationships Skoglund et al 2020) and the same holds true with differentiating between their pollens in archaeological data (Clarke and Merlin 2013:66).…”

Identifying Late Iron Age textile plant fibre materials with microscopy and X-ray methods — a study on finds from Ravattula Ristimäki (Kaarina, Finland)

“…Several researchers have helped advance the methodology for identifying bast fibres. An article by Bergfjord and Holst (2010) contributed greatly to the modern development of identification methods for bast fibres, and work has been further carried out by various researchers (e.g., Suomela et al 2018Suomela et al , 2020Haugan and Holst 2013;Lukešová et al 2017;Lukešová and Holst 2020;Rast-Eicher 2016;Skoglund et al 2019Skoglund et al , 2020Waudby 2017;Paterson et al 2017). Reliable results demand the combining of different methods to best observe the various aspects of fibre morphology.…”

Textiles for circular fashion. Part 2, From renewable carbon to fibres

“…In Europe, the main plants grown for fibre production in the past were hemp, flax, nettle, and hop (Skoglund et al 2020). Flax and hemp are described in chapter 2 as conventional textile fibres; hop and nettle are described here as alternative (or forgotten) sources of fibres for textiles.…”

“…Nonetheless, there are records that mention the use of hop fibres for textile production (Skoglund et al 2020).…”