Looking for help with sources/research for US group.

[Vinlander]

Good day everyone,

I am in the process of starting a group in Pennsylvania, USA, which we would like to portray people from 10th Century Birka and surrounding areas.

All the people in our group come from the reenacting world (WWII, WWI, US Civil War, Etc) but we are pretty much brand new to the Viking era and really want to do right by this impression as we will be one of the only groups in our area that does such an impression.

Basically, I am looking for historical research on things like clothing styles (I have a bit but could never have enough to satiate my curiosity), foods for all different classes of people, common occupations (types of traders as well, as I know that there would have been many)

Really any and all information would be deeply appreciated.

I am also interested in finding people who make period stuff for kit such as pouches, clothing, and etc. Plenty of weaponsmiths around here who can forge us anything we need, but very few historically accurate Viking age clothing suppliers to my knowledge.

Again, any and all help would be deeply appreciated!

Thanks,
Vinlander

[Lillith]

I realize this is old, but I thought I might shed some light on why you may not have gotten any answers.

What you are asking for are very specific things, things that unfortunately nobody knows at the moment. We do not know what the people in Birka actually wore and exactly how it looked, because there are only tiny fragments of garments preserved. What you will have to do, and in fact what anyone interested in the era will have to do, is to look at what little there is and draw their own conclusions. Based on things like the placement of jewelry in the tombs and the few fragments that remain and on the highly stylized contemporary depictions of people we can build a vague idea, though. Especially belts and bags that sometimes had a lot of little metal findings on them are easier to guess than things like garments.

It would be lovely if we had something like the Bocksten man for the best years of Birka, but we don’t.

For now all we have are some plausible guesses and some less plausible guesses and that’s it.