Textile Database from Bankgatan, Norway (2019-2022)

Archaeological textiles from the site of Bankgatan, Norway. Material is comparative data for the project, Borgund Kaupang Project, run through the University of Bergen Norway. This data will only be available upon completion of the project in 2025, and is the property of the Norwegian State. This material belongs to the cultural patrimony of Norway, and must first be uploaded on Norway's National Antiquities database before being made available here. This scientific investigation will employ a mixed methodology to document and analyze textile collections from rural and urban, North Atlantic and European contexts. Accelerated mass spectometry (AMS), dye and material analyses, strontium isotope analyses, and X-Ray Fluorescence will be employed to further characterize North Atlantic collections and compare them to previously collected data assemblages. Strontium isotope analyses and portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) data of archaeological samples and modern wool will be carried out in order to map isotopic signatures geographically and provide insight into the movements of textiles and the compounds used in their production across long distances, such as to North America, northern Europe and Eurasia. Bringing together analyses ranging in scale from trans-continental trade to assessments of individual women's handiwork and to their products' elemental and isotopic signatures, this project has transformative potential to provide an engendered, interdisciplinary perspective on trade, women, and the emergence of early globalized economies in the North.