Birka Grave BJ 886 – Background

(Post started in July of 2022)

A while back I decided to make an interpretation of the contents of the Birka grave BJ 886. In this post, I will share the background material that I have on the grave, which I will base my interpretation on.

The grave is a chamber grave from the 10th century, containing the remains of a wealthy man. There are remnants of a kaftan, a hat, a wallet, a sword and shield, and a game board.

Type B hat

The grave has remnants of a hat that is interpreted as a type B hat (Hägg, 1983, p. 214). A type B hat is a rounded hat with silver posament going around the circumference of the head.

In grave BJ 886, the posament is of type P3, which means that it is braided. The image below shows the P3 posament from the grave.

According to Geijer, the posament was found in double rows around the head (Geijer, 1938, p. 169).

Flechtschnur aus Silber, P3, in doppelten Reihen um den Kopf.

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Braided cord of silver, P3, in double rows around the head.

The braid is made with five strands, as shown in the diagram below (Geijer, 1938, p. 100).

Geijer suggests that the braid was possibly attached to the hat from BJ 886 in a similar way as the bands of BJ 798 (Geijer, 1938, p. 146).

In two of the other graves with silver bands around the head, the posament was attached to silk bands. In one of these cases, the braid concealed a seam connecting two pieces of cloth (Geijer, 1938, p. 146).

An der Unterseite von zweien der letzteren (710 und 944) sind dünne Seidenreste erhalten, die zeigen, dass wir es hier mit mützenartigen Kopfbedeckungen zu tun haben. Die Silberborte P II (Grab 944) verbarg eine Naht, die zwei am Rand abgerundete Stoffstücke verband, und um das schmäler zulaufende Ende der Borte liegt der Stoff zusammengerafft — wahrscheinlich ungefähr beim Ohr.

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On the underside of two of the latter (710 and 944) thin remains of silk have been preserved, showing that we are dealing here with cap-like headgear. The silver braid P II (grave 944) concealed a seam connecting two pieces of cloth with rounded edges, and the cloth lies gathered around the tapered end of the braid — probably around the ear.

Caftan

The caftan is thought to be a “klappenrock”, a kind of caftan borrowed from the orient, where one front piece of the caftan is diagonally overlapping the other. The overlap was held in place by a penannular brooch in the bottom corner (Hägg, 1983, p. 208), which would have been found around the hip or knee in the grave. This is very much the case in BJ 886, where the brooch below was found at the hip.

In addition to the brooch, the caftan may have been held together by a silk girdle, decorated with silver posament. This is somewhat unclear, as Hägg is somewhat vague as to which caftans this applies to:

Kaftaner med denna typ av praktornament fanns i en rad mansgravar. Fem av dem var knäppta framtill, tre gånger fanns dessutom läderbälten med beslag (jfr Jansson 1978). De övriga kaftanerna, ett tiotal, har hållits samman med en gördel av textilt material (oftast siden) med rikt utformade ändstycken — Arbmans “Gürtelenden” .

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Caftans with this type of rich ornamentaion were found in a number of male graves. Five of them were closed at the front, three times there were also a leather belt with fittings (compare Jansson 1978). The other caftans, around ten, were kept closed with a girdle of textile material (often silk) with richly decorated end pieces – Arbman’s “Gürtelenden”.

One of the ornaments that belongs to the caftan is a silk border covered in St6, which is silver wire sewn in eyelet stitch. Geijer states that there are seven rows of silver stitches on the 10mm wide border. However, looking at the pictures of the material, I can only count six. The length of the fragments amount to about 75cm (Geijer, 1938, p. 111). It may have been sewn on silk of type S4, which is a normal double twill (Geijer, 1938, p. 184).

In addition, posaments of type P9 and P8 were found on the chest (Geijer, 1938, p. 169).

Glass bead

Another interesting thing is that there is a single, white, glass bead in the grave. It’s not mentioned in Birka I - Die Gräben, but it is catalogued with the grave at the National History Museum. What the purpose of the bead was is unclear, but a guess could be that it acted as a button of sorts for a serk or kirtle.

Other

In addition, there are also a number of other items – swords, shield buckles, an ice pick, remnants of a board game, a coin struck for Isma’il ibn Ahmad, and some animal remains. For now however, I’m mostly interested in propan- I mean garb and garb accessories. Weaponry, games and animal sacrifices will have to wait, and so I won’t dig into it right now. That said, I do want to strike the coins found in the grave, and the sword is… quite gorgeous.

Conclusion

So, this is the grave I’m exploring. The top priorities with the project are making the type B hat and the klappenrock, as there’s a lot of fun to be had with these. There’s both the making of the garments, but also the making of the posament and figuring out how they were placed on the garment. It’s also very useful to have a hat and a caftan, of course.

My plan is to dive deeper into each of the separate garments in their own posts as I’m making them. In conjunction with this project, I will also be creating some items from other graves, most notably a leather belt and a belt bag. While there’s not evidence of these items in the grave itself, I need them for the sake of practicality. Both belt and bag will be recreated from other 10th C male graves from Birka, to keep with the theme.

References