The Mathematical Secret of Viking Jewelry

The beautiful bracelets and necklaces made by Viking artisans leave archaeologists with something of a conundrum. These objects are made from rods of gold and silver which have twisted together into double helices. The puzzle is the regularity of these helices, which are remarkably similar in jewelry found in places as diverse as Ireland, Scotland, the Orkney Islands and Scandinavia.

How could craftsmen have achieved this regularity in such disparate places?

The answer comes today thanks to the work of Kasper Olsen and Jakob Bohr at the Technical University of Denmark. They point out that two wires become maximally twisted when no more rotations can be added with deforming the double helix. They go on to demonstrate the properties of maximally twisted wires. (We looked at a similar but more detailed argument about the properties of old rope a few weeks back.)

Olsen and Bohr then measured the properties of helices in Viking jewelry are twisted. It should come as no surprise to find that Viking jewelry is maximally twisted, which neatly explains why it all looks so similar. “Maximally rotated geometry is universal and therefore independent of the skills of the craftsman,” say Olsen and Bohr.

Problem solved.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1008.4306: Hidden Beauty in Twisted Viking Neck Rings