The comb was found in a trash pile, what the archeologists call a midden, not far above the sea and just outside the remains of a longhouse. From the sit of the house and the site of the midden we know it was an easy toss: you could practically step outside and hurl food scraps, bits of wood, leather or whatever onto the pile. And so the ancient homesteaders did: Ashes from the hearth, bones from meals of seal, a tiny wooden horse with braids carved into its mane. And this curved comb, held together with rivets that still shine in the right light.
The people who lived beside the midden more than 500 years ago, along the edge of fjord in southern Greenland, are generally called Norse, though they are often called Vikings, too. What we know is that they arrived in Greenland around the first millennium and survived up into the 15th century. Then they vanished, somewhat abruptly, and more or less without a trace. This is to say we don’t know how or why they disappeared. We don’t know where they went, or if they went, or how they died. Theirs is among the mutest of all endings I can think of, for no one in the Middle Ages seems to have noticed, or recorded, or even wondered what happened to them. By the time Europeans returned to Greenland, in the early 1700s, this comb had lain buried for at least 300 years.
One afternoon last September I sat in the attic of the Greenland National Museum and Archives considering the comb. Arranged on a table before me were a dozen or so other artifacts—bits of wood decorated with interwoven, almost Celtic designs; sticks carved with enigmatic Old Norse runes, a pair of rust-caked shears still sharp enough to be dangerous. But the comb held my attention.
It was in good shape, seemed ready for use. I gently lifted it from a tissue-lined tray and tried to imagine who had last pulled it through their beard or hair, or tugged it across the head of a reluctant child. Nearby on the table was a lock of braided hair that had somehow survived from Viking times. The two relics were not related—they came from different sites—and yet here in the attic they formed an unsettling pair. While I handled the comb (with a curator’s permission), something kept me from touching the hair. It seemed too intimate, even though its owner was many centuries gone. I’d discovered, to my surprise, a line I would not cross.
What I’m learning now about the comb is that it tell us more about the Vikings than I’d ever imagined. Similar examples have been found across an astonishing sweep of territory: western Greenland, Iceland, the British Isles, the Scandinavian homelands, and deep into eastern Europe. More than almost any other object, the combs reveal how far Norse travelers moved. Map the places where they turn up and a vast network emerges—routes of trade, migration, raiding, and settlement stretching across much of the medieval world.
The combs reveal something else, as well. In them we glimpse what mattered to the people who carried them. Grooming. Craftsmanship. Daily ritual. These are not the kinds of details that tend to survive in the popular imagination of the Viking Age. We think swords, spears, armor. We think boats, burial mounds, hoards of silver. We think of their terrible raids into Britain, or the way they once or twice attacked Constantinople. Or we remember stories of sacrifices made to old gods who loved a good battle.
The comb told about none of that. When I mentioned this to a curator he laughed and said personal grooming kit didn’t make for good TV. But perhaps it’s the nature of the comb itself: simple, practical, intimate. What is a comb but an undramatic tool for a small personal act that after a moment on a wind-swept shore leaves no trace. And yet this object may yet undermine generations of violent storytelling. How do you gauge the real reach of Viking culture? Look for their combs.
I thought of the comb I’d carried in my suitcase—black plastic, cheap and forgettable—and I handed the Norse one to the curator. He held it up to catch afternoon sunlight glancing through the attic window. The relic was warm in that light and surprisingly heavy in the hand. It felt good to hold. Later I would pick it up again, and pull it through the air, mimicking the way its last owner might have moved. I would think of my middle child, the one whose long hair I have learned, after much screaming, to untangle from the ends first, not the roots. After a moment the curator turned to me and said, You know, no one’s ever found a sword or a shield or a spear in Greenland. But we have plenty of combs.
