The oak-coffin grave from Skrydstrup in south Jutland was excavated in 1935.   The body was that of a young woman of about 18-19 years old, 170cm (5’8”) tall, slim-built and with ash-blonde, faintly reddish, hair.   Her face was long and narrow with strong, healthy teeth and she had long eye-lashes.   Her hair was fastened up in a high, elaborate coiffure covered by a hairnet.  She wore large spiral gold rings around each ear.

Her long hair had first been combed back, and across from one temple to the other a pad of human hair had been laid.   Her hair had then been combed forward, covering the pad: the ends of the hair had been plaited together and held in place by a woollen cord.   Finally her hair has been covered by a horsehair net, edged by a 5m (16') long cord which was coiled around the head, while another cord was brought down under the chin.  A similar hairstyle is known from another grave, Hvilshøj on Mors, but there is nothing similar on contemporary figure representations so we do not know if it is a native or foreign fashion.

The young woman was buried early in the summer, streched out on her back on a cow hide which had been placed on top of a layer of freshly-picked chervil strewn over the bottom of the coffin..  She was dressed in a short-sleeved bodice with embroidery on the sleeves and around the neckline.   A long piece of cloth, held together by a woven belt, covered her from the waist down to the feet.   This piece of cloth was perhaps originally worn as a full-length garment fastened on the shoulders.   On her feet were simple leather sandals held together with leather laces.
 

The long skirt is wrapped around the body over the bodice.	The overgarment being secured above the bust. (Alternatively, it could have been fastened at the shoulder in a 'peplos' style.)	The completed outfit with the overgarment belted and the hairnet in place.

Virtually nothing of the dead woman’s coffin was preserved, but the woman and her clothes were particularly well preserved..   The mound’s protective layer of hard-pan had been broken during digging work a few years earlier, and putrefaction of all the organic material had set in, although the process was not complete.   If  the Skrydstrup grave had not been brought to light until just a few years later, the two gold ear-rings would have been all there was to find and everything else would have disintegrated.

The preserved head and upper part of the bodice of the Skrydstrup Woman.

Photo of the burial soon after its conservation.

How the elaborate hairstyle was achieved.

How the hairnet was worn over the hairstyle.