Ancient Civilizations Herringbone Scarves

Honouring age-old decoration

This collection of Ancient Civilizations Herringbone Scarves takes inspiration from the building patterns found in ancient civilizations. Liz’s experience in the underground city of Naples kindled her interest in this decorative technique.

From the jewellery of the Pharaohs and the roads of the Roman Empire to ancient indigenous North American basketry, the herringbone pattern is found across the ancient world. Called “herringbone” due to its visual similarity to the bone structure of a herring fish, embracing this ancient pattern has opened up interesting textile design possibilities for Liz. She loves to innovate with the traditional rules and combine cotton and wool in her weavings.

Herringbone woven cloth features a geometric pattern that is sometimes called a broken twill weave. For these soft and very wearable scarves, Liz chooses a soft combed cotton as the warp to encase Donegal Tweed woollen weft. The Ancient Civilisations scarf has the softness of cotton yet the warmth of wool to keep winter chills at bay.

The Cromagh Hoard, dug up by turf cutters in Co. Antrim in 1904, dates from the Late Bronze Age and includes a woven herringbone twill horsehair sash. A pin and axe, which were found with the sash, date the piece of woven textile. So, Ireland is included in the Ancient Civilizations across the world that use the decorative herringbone technique.

This collection of Liz Christy Scarves carries within each piece a part of this ancient heritage through modern scarves for twenty-first-century style.