Sources for Doing Research

Sources for Researching Your Project:

The Internet is full of wonderful sources these days and finding excellent information directly from museums and professional journals is no longer as difficult as it once was. Below are some links to some favorite sources – obviously heavily weighted to my personal interests – but that may be useful in starting your research.

 

General Sources

• The Met and their free online publications
• Academia.edu – Academia has many fascinating papers available for free download
• JSTOR – JSTOR is an online database of academic articles. Subscriptions to download articles can be pricey, but there is an option for FREE access to read-only articles.
• Google Scholar – Did you know you can run a Google search for Viking things without seeing tons of links to football games and kitchen equipment? Google Scholar filters to just the academic content and has useful options like ordering by publication date!
• ORB – Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
• Learning Historical Research – a wonderful and thoughtful guide to doing original research. Aimed at college students and those doing professional research, but excellent if you really want to get your nerd on.
• Archaeological Data Service – FREE online access to many relevant journals, including Medieval Archaeology,  Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, other journals, grey literature, theses, and much, much more.
• Digital Public Library of America – online access to resources from across the US.
• OpenDOAR – Directory of Open Access Repositories – A search tool for open-access databases of information – you can search by topic if you are not positive what you are looking for.
• Medieval Digital Resources – a plethora of links to peer-reviewed digital materials for the study of the Middle Ages. 

 

Specific Cultures

Pictish

• See resources in the Pictish Roundhouse

Later Scottish

• St Margaret’s Gospel Book – a facsimile edition for free online!

Anglo-Saxon

• Searchable Sutton Hoo – Searchable text of the most important publication on the Sutton Hoo burial – full text is NOT available, but many academic libraries have it. Really neat contemporary photos from the dig are also here. 
• Complete Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Poetry
• St Cuthbert’s Gospel 
• Project Woruldhord – educational resources for the study of the Anglo-Saxons and Old English
• Anglo-Saxon Glass – Catalogue of Anglo Saxon Glass in the British Museum – a research publication available online as a free PDF.
• Archive of Anglo-Saxon Pottery Stamps 
• Extant Anglo-Saxon Garments

Scandinavian

• Eithni’s Posament materials
• Wikinger Siegen – in German but some interesting resources available
• Birka graves – courtesy of the Swedish History Museum
• Birka Portal – also from the fine folks at the Swedish History Museum. This includes exciting resources like PDFs of some of the most important publications about Birka
• Leather and Leatherworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York – York Archaeological trust 17/16
• Full list of York Archaeological Trust fascicules, including many for free download
• Margrethe Hald Archive – a bibliography of the works of Margrethe Hald, one of the most important researchers in the field, with links to free copies of many publications
• Fashioning the Viking Age – Project by the University of Copenhagen to research and re-evaluate Norse clothing. This project is ongoing. 
• Hedeby Cap
• Nice photos of the Skjoldehamn finds (Facebook)
• A nice timeline and links to sources here
• Nordic texts – images of original pages and converted to text – menota 
• Swedish-English search term glossary
• Multi-language *Scandinavian and German) dictionary of textile terms
• Another textile dictionary for Scandinavian terms
• Pictures of the “We call them Vikings Exhibit”
  • In Canada – here
  • In Chicago – coming soon
• Oseberg Dresses
• Norse Apron Dresses
  • Excellent overview of the archaeological evidence here
  • Another archaeological look, including seam decoration, available here
  • My favorite reconstruction here
  • …and a automatic pattern generator for it here (on the Elizabethan Costuming page, but completely legit!)
  • Inga Hagg’s response to the Annika Larsson abomination

Irish

• Book of Kells online – Be patient! It takes a minute to load!

German

• Abbreviations of German terms here and here 

Textiles

• Bibliographica Textilia Historiae – database is a free, open-access, searchable database based on the research library and documentation of the Center For Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT]
• Surviving Garments Database – a searchable database of garments from SCA period
• Museum of London – Janet Arnold – A collection of images of the garments investigated by Janet Arnold.

Specific Topics

• Ragnar’s Links – A collection of links with many Norse and blacksmithing links
• Scientific Instruments – Medieval and Renaissance
• Food – Free downloads of the Proceedings from the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.
• Moschevaya Balka – Russian/Rus artifacts, including a lot of textile detail shots.