Emily Chan
During excavations in an English town that took place over the course of 20 years, an array of medieval artifacts, including some Viking combs, were unearthed by archaeologists.
The collection has finally been compiled with considerable care and consists of 1,341 bone and antler objects, as well as 2,400 fragments of waste.
The materials were dug up between 1974 and 1994 in Ipswich, a historic town located in Suffolk, England.
Details of the findings were recently published in a book written by Ian Riddler and Nicola Trzaska-Nartowski. Most of the objects date back between the seventh and 12th centuries.
“The range of objects is extraordinary and unique in the U.K. There are several items that indicate links abroad, particularly northern France, Frisia (what we now know as parts of the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark), and southern Scandinavia,” Riddler and Trzaska-Nartowski said.
The bone and antler objects include more than 500 tools used for textile production, such as needles and spindle whorls. The remaining artifacts consisted of 60 dress pins, brooch molds, spoons, flutes, gaming pieces, strap-ends, a whalebone fishing float, and a sword grip.
The hoard of treasures also featured a set of about 440 Viking combs, which pointed toward the presence of Vikings in Ipswich during the late ninth century.
Thirteen of them have roots in Scandinavia and date back to sometime around A.D. 870 to 925. They were made during the Viking Age, a period that occurred between the late eighth and 11th centuries. The discovery of the combs is of particular significance.
“The Ipswich Scandinavian comb collection is small in a sense at 13 items, but it is still the largest assemblage from England, beating both York and London. Only Dublin has more combs of this type in the British Isles,” Riddler said.
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