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Looking forward to exploring Medieval European Nalbinding with the Medieval Dress and Textiles Society soon. Registration details on the MEDATS site: https://www.medats.org.uk/events/medieval-european-nalbinding/

Beans and faces make up today's Nazca Nalbound Object of the Week. This 2nd cent CE tunic border piece is in the The Walters Art Museum. The central band has beans worked out of the upper edge and fully haired faces hanging below. The “hair” fringe is in very nice condition. The height including fringe is 5 inches.

Today's Nalbound Object of the Week is another Egyptian sock, but this one is a bit unusual in that it is primarily made of linen.* It does have some dark blue/green and yellow wool on it. Some incorporated in the fabric of the sock (toe & heel edge) and some fragments carried along two rows of the midfoot in what looks like added embellishment. The image is of the sole of the sock and shows the wedge heel very nicely.

For today’s Nalbound Object of the Week we get a two for one special. The left sock was in Berlin, but has been lost since WWII. Its likely mate is in Ludwigsbourg. The two socks were both bought from the same dealer in 1890 and listed as presumably from Akhmim, Egypt. They are also extremely similar in size, shaping, color, stitch choice and density and one is for the left and the other for the right foot. We are very lucky that photos were taken before the left sock was lost. But if you happen to find it, I'd be happy to hear it.

Continuing with the theme of African nalbinding, this week's Nalbound Object of the Week is another Congalese Prestige Cape dating to pre-1853. Made from raffia palm fiber, the stitch has often been mistaken for sprang as the stitch doesn't just intralace with previous stitches, it interlinks with them before crossing to form a new loop. The British Museum has included some lovely detailed photos in their online catalog, so I was able to zoom in and highlight the path of the loops. And yes, that is a knot you see connecting the new length.

This week's Nalbound Object of the Week is a lovely red hat with a blue and yellow silk patterned wrap around its point/tassel from 11th-13th century CE Arsinoë/Krokodilopolis, Egypt. It's one of the few artifacts that include more than one type of nalbinding. If you happen to be in Berlin this week, you can catch it on display in the last week of the Auf unbetretenen Wegen exhibition.

This week's Nalbound Object of the Week is another Nazca Viscacha figure from the Early Intermediate Period (c.100 BCE-650 CE)

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For today's Nalbound Object of the Week we have some true figural work out of Peru. This time it's a singular effigy figure, not a border of figures. And, it's a viscacha, which are so adorable!

As the holidays gear up, I find myself thinking of stockings...*

Today's Nalbound Object of the Week is hat/cap from the Cliff-Dweller culture in what is now Northeastern Arizona. Interestingly enough we drove right past the site this was found during our trip around the Four Corners region in Aug/Sept. The shoe-socks from this region are more well known and hats in general are less well known in the worldwide nalbound corpus, so I am happy to be able to include this cap in the series. If you want to see a color picture of the hat, follow the link to the museum catalog in my post.

If you are interested in the early blue & white knitted socks found in Egypt, there is exciting news. The Museum der Kulturen Basel has recently put their collection online, which includes quite a few examples of blue & white socks (or fragments thereof).