Viking age cleanliness

This meme are being circulated at the moment.

It has several statements:

“According to historians, Vikings were actually quite hygienic and cleaner than most Europeans of the time. They took baths at least once a week, changed their clothes rebury and cleaned their face and hands once a day”.

This is fairly common knowledge and many books about the Viking age often say this. One example is “The Vikings” by Else Roesdahl (1987).

Next it claims: “It I believed that The Vikings were the inventors of the comb, tweezers, and Shaving razors”

This is not true.  All these items are much older inventions.

If we start with the comb, that is clearly not a “Viking Invention”

Firstly the comb shown on the meme is the Vimose Comb. The Vimose Comb are from the bog Vimose on the Danish island of Funen. Its from around the year 150 ad, which is 600 years before the Viking age, so the meme contradict itself. https://natmus.dk/museer-og-slotte/nationalmuseet/undervisning-paa-nationalmuseet/undervisningsmaterialer/grundskolen/danmarks-oldtid/undervisningsrollespil/jernalder/genstande/kam-fra-vimose/ 

And a quick google search this article, where we read “Combs are among the oldest artifacts found by archaeologists, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating back to 5,000 years ago in Persia.” So that part of the meme are busted https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/06/27/a-stone-age-nit-comb-we-have-been-using-combs-for-at-least-5000-years /

Next we look at razors and tweezers

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica razors was invented already in the stone-age, where“clam shells, shark’s teeth, and sharpened flints were used as shaving implements”. Metal razors have been found in ancient Egypt, the article says: “Solid gold and copper razors have been found in Egyptian tombs of the 4th millennium bce.” https://www.britannica.com/technology/razor

Wikipedia article confirms what many other sites also says “Tweezers are known to have been used in predynastic Egypt.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweezers#History

So it seems that The Vikings wasn’t the inventors of the comb, tweezers, and Shaving razors.

Skriv et svar

Din e-mailadresse vil ikke blive publiceret. Krævede felter er markeret med *