The growing importance of re-enactment for the popularization of history and archaeology also had played its role. Also, the rapprochement between East and West of Europe in various fields, including historical sciences, has contributed to a better understanding of the era of interest. The new perspectives and discoveries both in the field and the office have been reflected by exhibitions and new publications.
On three pillars – photos, new publications and the Internet – I constructed Volume III of the Viking and Slavic Ornamental Design which you are now holding. So here it is – a new set of 266 so new, and so ancient, patterns. As always, chosen from among the historical artefacts of various categories. This time, large groups of designs come from the same places. The first of them is Dublin, which we visited in 2014 on the occasion of the festival organized there to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf and we admired the wonderful creations of Celtic culture and the influence upon it from the Vikings. The collection of beautifully decorated wooden objects is especially characteristic of the Irish capital and the local ornamental style. The second group is constituted by patterns taken from the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. Thematically, and you will find there a large amount of ornamentation in the Borre style. This time, we also drew a lot of material from textiles, ranging from decorations on the famous outfit from the chamber tomb in Mammen, the embroidered and woven patterns from Oseberg and the subsequent embroidery of Russia. Additionally, two very well-known weather vanes provided a certain amount of ornaments.
As always, we present two-dimensional graphics in black and white, enabling the broadest adaptive possibilities and – where possible – almost any selection of colours. Also the logic of the system has not changed, focusing on functionality instead of grouping ornaments in terms of place of origin, the category of monument, the style, dating or borne symbolism.
