more research

I was listening to my audio book of Richard Rutt's History of Hand Knitting while spinning and found an interesting line.  So I looked it up in my book version on the shelf (I know such a nerd) and saw references to wire knitting.  I assumed they were referring to the "viking wire weaving" I'd seen in the SCA so I thought, finally some historical references to back the claims up.  I'd been skeptical about the origins of it so I looked up the items I could in reference to this craft.  No luck.  The references are not the "viking wire weaving" that seems so prevalent in the SCA and I'm still waiting to see the evidence.

The items in question that you may be curious about referred to the Birka digs.  In Inga Hagg's book she has beautiful pictures of the finds and none of them are the jewellry cording that is the SCAdianism item.  There's a pdf available if you search Inga Hagg called "Fornvannen 1971".  I'd found the snippet of the book a while back when searching for Rus costuming info and I'm still translating the text.  The appliqued metal designs that is believed to be on a caftan-like coat are beautiful and I saw some replicas at "Viking U Like" at Pennsic.  I had a discussion with him about them and I think he was happy to have an intelligent conversation with another person who knew their stuff :-)

Next was some viking relics at Croy and Ballinaby in Scotland.  The Trewiddle hoard in Cornwall and some irish finds at Tara and Clonmacnoise.  It makes reference to Byzantine examples but I can't find anything with such a wide search word.  Finally, the Ardagh chalice in Dublin where the underside has some metal braidwork designs applied to it.

If anyone finds anything,  Please, let me know.  I'd hate to think that the SCA is promoting (unintentionally, but wrongly) another SCAdianism that is not historical.

Addendum:  the word trichinopoly is applied to the "wire knitting" and I tried this search as well.  Apparently that's the name of a city and when combined with weaving that brings up the wire weaving but still no historical images.  There are claims of examples but nothing concrete or specific.  There are plenty of twisted metal jewellry examples.

On a more positive note, I've added to my collection of bling.  I'm working towards some accurate Irish costuming and came across a ring pin at Pennsic.  Happy, happy, joy, joy...

The penannular brooches are much better known and I have some of those but I thought the earlier ring pin would be a nice alternative and I can show people different options in early period costuming.