Nuts about knots?
As part of my PhD placement, I’m extremely fortunate to have spent some time learning from Gitte Hansen and exploring a small sample of the incredible finds from Borgund.
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Concentrating on leather knots from 11thcentury shoemaking production has taken up a large part of my time (so far). I have never explored knots before, in fact to be honest I do not think I have spent much time ever considering them before this week – how this has changed!
We started by examining over 30 artefacts, each with at least one knot present. Noticing common styles we highlighted 17 different varieties. These varieties were categorised into groups and then identified using 'The Ashley Book of Knots' (Ashley 1944) which contains 3854 different knots! For any potential fastenings and toggles we referred to 'Archaeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times until 1800: Stepping Through Time' (Goubitz 2001, which has some amazing detailed examples.
Our final step was to recreate the 17 different varieties. We did this in various materials including string and leather. This collection can now be used as a sample record of the knots, but also for some teaching aids, where education groups can recreate early medieval leather knots from shoe production, and get one step closer to the archaeology.
This is the reason why I love archaeology – exploring everyday items made centuries ago by ordinary people. I will never look at knots in the same way again….