The Norse Greenlands suddenky and enigmatically disappeared from South-Western Greenland where they had for almost 500 years until c. 1450. Fortunately, however, the Greenlandic soil has preserved a unique cultural heritage from the norse setlers, and woven into the earth contains a complete catalogue of norse textile finds from the 28 sites excavated by Danish archaeologists in the past 200 years. The book tells the exciting story of one of the 20th century's mosy spectacular archaeological finds: the excavation of the Herjolfnæs graveyard in 1921 where- becourse wood has always been extremely scarse in Greenland - bodies had been buried in multiple layers of cast off clothing instead of coffins. The occasional thaws had permitted crowberry and dwarf willows to establish themselves in the top layers of soil. Their roots grew through clothing and corpses alike, binding them toghether in a vast network of fibres - as if the finds had literally been woven into the earth.
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