When archaeologists open a Viking-age grave, one find is almost always there: a comb. The comb was the most personal thing in the North – and a masterpiece of craft. Made of antler, artfully assembled, often from far away. A look at the comb-makers, their material and a modern test that brought a surprise to light.
Combs are among the most common finds of the Viking Age. Almost everyone carried one, often in its own case on the belt. For, unlike the cliché of the “unwashed barbarian” would have it: the Northmen groomed themselves. The English chronicler John of Wallingford even complained that the Danes combed their hair and bathed on Saturdays – and were thereby dangerously attractive to English women.
A Viking-age comb is no simple piece of horn. It is a composite comb: assembled from several plates and tooth-strips, riveted and decorated. That required skill – the comb-maker was a specialist. In the trading towns of Ribe, Haithabu and York (Coppergate) whole workshops full of antler waste were found, a sign of serial production.
The material was antler, not bone – it is more elastic and does not break so easily. And here it gets exciting: a modern method, protein analysis (ZooMS), has shown that many combs from Haithabu are made of reindeer antler. But there were no reindeer in Denmark – the antler had to be imported from Norway. A plain comb thus becomes proof of far-reaching trade into the high north.
A plain comb, tested in the laboratory, suddenly revealed its origin: reindeer antler from the far north – traded over hundreds of kilometres. Description after ZooMS analyses of Viking-age combs (including Haithabu)
The comb shows what made the North: from a plain raw material, through patience and skill, came something beautiful and useful. Exactly this attitude we carry into our work to this day. What the rest of the craft looked like is shown in our piece on the Mästermyr tool chest.
Antler combs (composite combs of plates, tooth-strips and rivets) are among the most common finds of the Viking Age; comb-making was a specialised craft with workshops and production waste in Ribe, Haithabu and York. Antler (not bone) was the preferred material. Protein analyses (ZooMS) show that many Haithabu combs are of reindeer antler – not native to Denmark, thus imported from Norway (long-distance trade). Combs, ear-spoons and tweezers attest personal grooming.
The “dirty, unkempt Viking” is a cliché: combs, tweezers and John of Wallingford's complaint show the opposite. But beware of numbers – “almost everyone had a comb” is plausible, yet the find surplus in trading towns skews the picture. What is certain are the craft, the reindeer-antler result and the grooming kit; how universal this was remains interpretation.
The Mästermyr tool chest · Viking hairstyles & beards · Viking clothing & fashion · Hnefatafl – Viking chess · Dyeing – the colours of the Vikings.