Fløjstrup – A Viking Age Grave with Early Silk

In 1898 a female grave was excavated in Fløjstrupnear Randers in Denmark, dated to the first half of the ninthcentury. The dead woman had been buried in a stone cistunderneath a burial mound. Her grave goods consisted of two ovalbrooches, a key reused as a brooch, a spindle whorl, a clay vesseland an iron knife as well as small fragments of at least six differenttextiles, among others silk fragments. As the find has never beenfully published, this article aims to do so, including new fibre anddye analyses of the textiles, and in this way shed light on the oldestfind of silk in a Danish context.