The ‘shawl’ of the Bernuthsfeld man digitally documented

Documentation of the numerous technological details of the so-called ‘shawl’ worn by the Bernuthsfeld man (Photo: C. Peek, NIhK).

Mapping of the technological details in a photograph of the shoulder wrap (Photo: C. Peek, NIhK).

In September 2026, the temporary exhibition ‘REDBAD: the legendary king’, funded by the Germany–Netherlands Interreg VI programme, opened at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden. The exhibition also features the tunic of the Bernuthsfeld man, which had previously been extensively analysed at the NIhK as part of the research project ‘Quality and Sustainability around 700 AD: The Clothing of the Bernuthsfeld Man’, funded by the State of Lower Saxony.

In exchange for the tunic, a second clothing item belonging to the burial, namely the so-called ‘shoulder cloth’, has now arrived in Wilhelmshaven. Work on documenting the fabric’s surface began immediately upon its arrival. Using a digital microscope, every significant detail of the textile was photographed and subsequently mapped.

This work was carried out by Nadine Dopslaff, who completed a voluntary social year in the Department of Textilarchäologie und Gräberfeldanalyse at the NIhK from 2024 to 2025, before commencing her studies on the Bachelor’s degree programme in Conservation/Restoration/Excavation Techniques at HTW Berlin. She has now returned to Wilhelmshaven for this work and has once again actively supported the Institute’s research.

The documentation itself, together with the results obtained from the technological analyses, is to be published in full under an open-access licence in the course of the research project, so that it will be available to the general public in future.