My current project is to recreate the clothing for a 9th century magyar woman. It is a challenging project to pursue, given that there have been no intact textiles recovered, little to no portraiture, very little in the way of contemporary description and the artwork in the archeological record doesn’t depict human beings. Publications are primarily in Hungarian, Russian or German, if they are available at all.
For this recreation, I will lean heavily on the following books:
- For accessories and ornamentation – The Ancient Hungarian Exhibition Catalogue edited by Istvan Fodor and published in Budapest in 1996. ISBN 963 9046 05 01
- For garment cut and construction – Die Gräber der Moscevaja Balka: Frühmittelalterliche Funde an der nordkaukasischen Seidenstrasse by Anna A. Ierusalimskaja. ISBN 3-925801-22-7
The outfit will consist of the following pieces:
- Skin layer – undertunic, pants, cloth socks
- Middle layer – cross-over kaftan,
- Outer layer – wool kaftan, felt booties, hat
- Accessories – glass bead necklace, silver twisted wire bracelets, braid ornaments
A little bit about me:
I have been reseaching conquest era magyar culture since 2003. My area of concentration is the year 872 when the Magyar people were living in “Eltekoz” the land between two rivers, thought to be south of Kiev in modern day Russia.
If you are interested in the origins of the Magyar as a people, this link is a good read.
Lara,
This is a super web site and I am so happy to find someone in the SCA that is into the same era and culture as me. I live in the Southron Gaard, Crescent Isles, Lochac, (Canterbury, New Zealand)
(Are you on Facebook? I am MCKA Natalia Yates please friend me and we can talk.)
Lara
Love your work. I have been an admirer of you and your site for some years, as I also have been trying my hand at early conquest magyar. Finding documentation has been a trial, but I put together a basic outfit based on what I read in Gyula Laszlo’s “The Magyar”, and whatever I could find in books or internet regarding magyar or other horseback cultures of the similar time period. Your photos on each piece of the outfit have inspired me to make some more of my own.
I am also from Lochac, but from the sub tropical St Florian de la Riviere (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia). Would you know of an alternate footwear to boots which would be more comfortable to wear during the hot summers here?