I wrote about nettles the other day; they’re beginning to pop up in the garden and when there are enough of them I’ll be making nettle soup!
Today I came a cross an article about the discover of the remains of a man found in Denmark, a man from 2,800 years ago. He was found in a burial mound in Lusehøj and was obviously an important man, a rich and maybe powerful man. The funeral of him must have been full of ritual and reverence, his body was burned and the remains wrapped in a fine cloth and put within a bronze urn.
Today different disciplines work together to find out the secrets of the past; the cremated remains of this unknown man may have been found by archaeologists, but scientific skills were needed to analyse not just his remains, but the cloth and the metal in the bronze urn. The scientists had a surprise when they examined the results of their investigations. The cloth wrapping him was made of nettles, and when the fibres were analysed a remarkable result was revealed – the strontium isotope levels within the nettles showed that they were not grown in Denmark; in fact these Bronze Age nettles grew in what is now Austria. This tied in with the fact that the urn did not come from Denmark either, but somewhere nearer central Europe. Maybe, it’s suggested, the man was a trader and he was away in Austria on a ‘business trip’ and he died, and was brought back home for burial by a friend or companion. Apparently the quality of the nettle cloth would have been like silk – they grew wild as opposed to the cultivated flax and hemp, but would have been harvested, treated, spun and woven…
I shall think of the nettle weavers when I go out with my rubber gloves to collect our nettles for soup!.
http://phys.org/news/2012-09-ancient-nettles-reveal-bronze-age.html#nRlv
http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120928/srep00664/full/srep00664.html
Lois Elsden 
I have never eaten Nettles, but I have been stung by them. As I child, I loved the story of the Wild Swans…weaving nettle shirts to restore enchanted swans return to human shapes.
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I’ve often thought of that story since I have been interested in nettles… shirts made from them would have been as fine as silk, not stingy as I always imagined! Nettle soup is the most delicious soup you could imagine, and a most lovely shade of green! Hope all is well with you, Alice! x
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I wonder if nettle fabric is like linen or hemp…silk you say…I love greens of almost any kind…going to look for some nettles.
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Enjoy!
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I’ve been wanting to make nettle soup for ages. If you have a good recipe it would be nice if you could share it. I wasn’t aware of nettle silk, that’s fascinating.
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It is the simplest and most delicious thing, Nikki – you need young nettles , wash them really, really thoroughly, pull the leaves off the stems and wilt them in a little butter, meanwhile fry a few onions (only a small amount) add the wilted nettles and some stock and once it has all heated blend it (I rub it through a sieve as well) serve it with a dollop of cream/creme fraiche/yoghurt and nutmeg and pepper – it is the most wonderful green colour and tastes so good! You can also cook nettles as you would spinach.
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I read somewhere that towards the end of the War, the German army uniforms were made of nettle cloth as no other fabric was available
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Interesting – it’s supposed to be very good and strong, but more of a peasant textile… as you might guess! I know nettle-weaving crops up in the Grimm stories.
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