Making clothes and preparing food were the primary tasks for Viking women, though richer families had servants and slaves to help. Most clothes were made of wool but flax (from which linen is made) was grown in Southern Scandinavia.
Decorated bone plaques have been found in many women's graves in Norway but are rare elsewhere; they might have been used with the round glass smoothers as 'ironing' boards - to remove creases in the linen.
This fragment, decorated in a typical Norse style, seems likely to be a cut down piece of a bone 'ironing' board. It was found on a beach in Berneray (off the North coast of North Uist) in 1992 by Miss Rona Womersley. It was claimed as Treasure Trove and allocated to the Hunterian Museum, a reward being paid to the finder (A.1993.1)
The heavy smoother is of black glass with clear signs of abrasion both on the Dome-shaped upper surface and on the flat, ring-shaped lower surface. Orkney (B.1914.861).
The single-sided combs used by the Vikings were fairly standardised throughout their areas of settlement. Made of several pieces of bone and antler riveted together, they are often termed 'composite combs'. Thin rectangles were cut for the tooth plates and these were then riveted between two curved backing plates. The teeth were then cut (saw marks always appear on the backing plates) and, finally, some decoration might be added.
These white, weathered fragments of Viking combs were found in the sand dunes at Balevullin, Tiree, probably in 1912. (A.1965.631; B.1914.499/1)
This bone comb, of typical Viking form, was found during the excavation of Dun Mor Vaul, and Iron Age broch on Tiree in 1962. It lay in the mural gallery, above the Iron age levels, and was deposited when the broch was in ruins. Close by were several flint fragments, three tiny bronze hollow studs, some rusty iron fragments and a large bovine lower jaw. The latter may have been intended to provide raw material for tooth plates of similar combs. (B.1914.499)
