5) Chest and casket design and manufacture depend on a number of factors.

- Fashion (what is the latest style, import or design brought back from abroad).

- Size of timber available (the width of the planks). The size of the planks available effects the size of the chest. Note the decline of good timbers of boat building in the later Viking age would have also influenced the range of timbers available for chest and casket building.

- The tools available. The type of tools would also effect how the timber was used and thus the size of the chest and caskets built.

- Knowledge and ability of the manufacturer. From the range of extant chest available to us it can clearly be seen that there were different levels of craftsmanship (ie Oseberg versus Voxtorp).

- The desire of the market. As wealth increased, people need places to store their worldly goods and chest were there best option. This also fuelled the development in lock technology (ie. the transition from padlocks to slide locks to tumbler locks, and in some cases combinations of these existed.

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