100 stories from the hiking route

1950 – the oldest known needle-knit item of Northern Europe was found from the Jõuga Barrows

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.1517246

Longitude: 27.3809367

L-EST 97

x: 6561891.0
y: 693376.7

Location

Kauksi-Aegviidu Hiking route

In 1950, the archeological excavations were lead by archeology professor Harry Moora. A piece of textile was found from one of the barrows from a Vote woman buried in the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. The significance of the find became evident 30 years later, when archaeologist Jüri Peets started registering the textiles. It turned out to be a piece of glove knit with needles. It is the oldest textile fragment knit with needles in the whole Eastern and Northern Europe.
The skill of knitting with needles in the Baltics was thus far considered to have been acquired in the 17th century. However, with the Jõuga glove finding, it can be dated back to the start of 14th century—300 years earlier.
The custom of putting gloves on the dead was probably known only to the Finnic peoples, there are no such reports from other ethnic regions.