Project Part 1, Viking Age Textile Production, in the Fashioning the Viking Age project focused on the reconstruction of textile tools which were subsequently used to produce replicas of known, archaeological textile finds from Hedeby in Northern Germany. These textiles come in many different qualities, and
it is exactly this variation that the first part of the project aimed to explore. The present report documents the reconstruction process based on the analyses of the selected archaeological finds as well as the decisions and data relevant to produce tools and textiles. The process took almost two years, and besides the core project members, it involved several researchers with different skills, and craftspeople, whose invaluable knowledge and commitment has contributed to the finished result.
The aim of Project Part 1 was thus to make Viking Age textile production visible and tactile for a modern audience. As many archaeological textiles are often small, poorly preserved and visually far from their original appearance, they can be hard for non-textile experts to understand and decode. Further, many published archaeological textiles are not supplemented with photos, which makes visual identification even more difficult. Altogether, we lacked well-presented and visually understandable archaeological textile data that can be
used for outreach and educational purposes.