The "Ice Prince" is the burial of a two-year-old boy from the early Middle Ages, dubbed like that because the burial was lifted en bloc - and to keep the layers and items and fragile textile remains from moving and getting damaged, it was frozen with liquid nitrogen first.

There's a podcast in German about this, where Tracy Niepold (my wonderful colleague and conspirator in so many textile ventures) is interviewed about her work on this exceptional find. You can listen to the episode here.

There's an exhibition in Kalkriese in the Varusschlacht-Museum called "Dressed - Rom Macht Mode. It's running until November 24, 2024, and looks at dress and textiles in Roman times. The exhibition includes a lot of hands-on as well as the possibilty to try on garments.

If you're interested, there's more information on the (German) webpage of the museum. 

I'm off on the "Neu verflechten" conference, where I will be presenting (together with Tracy Niepold) once more about the Shiny Dead Cow Guts, also known as membrane thread project. This time, the title is so long that it almost feels like it's half a presentation by itself:

I'm always vaguely amused when titles (or subtitles) end up rather long. I don't mind them at all, since it's usually quite descriptive and so you know what awaits you - but it seems to be a thing especially in archaeology context. When I was studying, we had to fill out forms to get our "Schein" for attending something, and you'd usually run out of space because stuff was so wordy. It started already with trying to fit "Archäologie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit" on the rather short line for what you are studying, and went on to cramming "Very long and rather descriptive title with mention of the timespan in words or if it's in numbers then something else making it really long" into the part of the form that wanted you to state the name of the course. Good times! (And no wonder we'd internally all write "AMANZ".)

As I'll be on the conference for the next two days, too, there will be no blogging until next week!

If you're looking for an excuse for a trip to Switzerland, the exhibition at the Abegg-Stiftung might be just the thing for you. Their special exhibition "The Deceived Eye – Textile Effects and their Simulation" will be shown until 10 November 2024.

The illusionistic depiction of textiles was an expression of consummate artistry even in ancient painting. The same can be said of weaving, tapestry, and embroidery, in which other textiles are simulated with great skill. Examples from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries vividly illustrate their artful play of materials, techniques and the viewer's expectations. 

You can find out more about the exhibition and the opening times on the website about it.

If you're feeling up to a creative challenge, EXARC is running a logo competition for their website and graphics re-design. So if you're feeling creative, you might want to give it a go:

 The prize is a one-year free membership in EXARC, and submission deadline is July 15, 2024. I am very curious to see what the new logo will be, as it's quite a wishlist on the info page about the competition for the new logo to fulfil...

I have a disgustingly large number of unsorted images, and while I also have a goal of doing a little bit about that regularly (though not daily), it's still a disgustingly large number. I can't even say if it does get better, as there's the occasional influx of images... but the last few days, I think I did have less incoming pictures than those getting sorted.

Among them that were sorted was this one: 

...and yes, that's exactly what I could use now. Not getting my own ears massaged (I think feline ears are much better suited for that), but hanging somewhere, chilling. There was bits and bobs of this and that getting done today, that kind of work day where in the end you feel like nothing has happenend though there was something to do all the time.

Fortunately the weekend is almost upon us, and I am looking forward to that. I hope you'll have a nice one too!

After a few logistical issues that had to be solved, I'm absolutely thrilled that we finally have a date, place, and focus topic for the ETF 2024. Hooray! We will indeed be in Mayen again, and it will run from November 4 to November 10. Our focus topic will be "Edges and Embroidery".

The European Textile Forum started in 2009, and from the start on, it was intended to connect practical and theoretical aspects of textile research. There've also been quite a few archaeological experiments throughout the years - and I'm already looking forward to find out what we will be up to this year in November!

You can find out more about our Forum 2024 on the Call for Papers page, and you can register for the Forum week here.

And now I'll go and celebrate a little more that things have been solved, and the Forum will happen in November!