Lønne Hede – an Early Roman Iron Age burial site with well-preserved textiles

Abstract

In 1969 a female burial from the Early Roman Iron Age with exceptionally well preserved textiles was excavated in Lønne Hede in Southwest Jutland, Denmark. At the time, the find drew a great deal of attention and since then, the Lønne Hede Maiden and her blue and red dress have been copied and displayed in museums and textbooks as the female costume of the Scandinavian Iron Age. This article shows that the interpretation of both her costume and her hairstyle is debatable.
In 1995 further excavations were carried out revealing a cemetery with both cremation graves from the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age and inhumation graves from the Early Iron Age, as well as an older settlement with long houses, a smithy, and votive deposits from the Early Pre-Roman Iron Age. The burials are not rich graves, with the Lønne Hede Maiden with her pieces of silver jewellery as the exception. However, the Lønne Hede site is remarkable due to the well preserved, boldly coloured textiles and the exceptional preservation of elaborately styled hair, both of which are the focus of this article.
Analyses show that the women of Lønne Hede were dressed in a combination of tubular dresses, skirts, and shawls often woven in plain 2/2 twill or as tabbies. The textiles were made from fine wool, light and soft to the touch and coloured blue, yellow and red in stripes and sometimes checkered. The hairstyles were both elegant and elaborate, with the Lønne Hede Maidens hairstyle as the most exquisite with bands of three-stranded braids and extensions sewn together with a woollen thread. The overview of needles from the
period reveal that needles from Beckmann’s group 1, shape 3 is immanently suited to this purpose, and a re-evaluation of this type of “hair-pin” is suggested.
The relatively poor graves of Lønne Hede clearly show a village with knowledge of the outside world, as both dresses and hairstyles show inspiration from Roman fashion. The find forces us to re-evaluate the so-called poor graves and to recognise the bold and vibrant coloured everyday costumes of the farmers of Early Iron Age Scandinavia.