Ancient Textiles: Production, Crafts and Society

An understanding of textiles and the role they played in the past is important for anyone interested in past societies. Textiles served and in fact still do as both functional and symbolic items. The evidence for ancient textiles in Europe is split quite definitely along a north-south divide, with an abundance of actual examples in the north, but precious little in the south, where indirect evidence comes from such things as vase painting and frescoes. This volume brings together these two schools to look in more detail at textiles in the ancient world, and is based on a conference held in Denmark and Sweden in March 2003. Section one, Production and Organization takes a chronological look through more than four thousand years of history; from Syria in the mid-third millennium BC, to Seventeenth Century Germany. Section two, Crafts and Technology focuses on the relationship between the primary producer (the craftsman) and the secondary receiver (the archaeologist/conservator). The third section, Society, examines the symbolic nature of textiles, and their place within ancient societal groups. Throughout the book emphasis is placed on the universality of textiles, and the importance of information exchange between scholars from different disciplines. A small book on finds First Aid for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles is included as an Appendix.

Table of Contents

Introduction (Carole Gillis and Marie-Louise B. Nosch)
Part 1: Introduction to Textiles: Background, Studies and Application
Methodological Introduction (John Peter Wild)
The World According to Textiles (Lise Bender Jørgensen)
The Academic Craftsman – a Discussion on Knowledge of Craft in Textile Research (Martin Ciszuk)
Part 2: Production and Organization
Textile Tools and Production during the Viking Age (Eva B. Andersson)
Spinning and Weaving at Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Syria): Some Observations on Spindle-Whorls and Loom-Weights from the Bronze and Iron Ages (Luca Peyronel)
Textile Industry and Minoan Palaces (Pietro Militello)
Flax and Linen Textiles in the Mycenaean Palatial Economy ( Françoise Rougemont)
Cloth Production in Late Bronze Age Greece: the Documentary Evidence (John T. Killen)
Washing and Dyeing Installations of the Ancient Mediterranean: towards a Definition from Roman Times back to Minoan Crete (Maria Emanuela Alberti)
The Kingdom of Midas and Royal Cloth Production ( Brendan Burke)
Textile Production in Proto-historic Italy: from Specialists to Workshops (Margarita Gleba)
Textiles from the 1st Century CE in Jerusalem – a Preliminary Report (Orit Shamir)
Artifacts Related to Preparation of Wool and Textile Processing Found Inside the Terrace Houses of Ephesus, Turkey (Elisabeth Trinkl)
'Dyeing' in Ancient Italy? Evidence for the purpurarii (Lisa Hughes)
Local Cloth Production in Medieval Turku, Finland (Heini Kirjavainen)
Woollen Textiles in Archaeological Finds and Descriptions in Written Sources of the 14th to 18th Centuries (Klaus Tidow & Eva Jordan-Fahrbrach)
Part 3: Craft and Technology
'Translating' Archaeological Textiles (Lise Ræder Knudsen)
The Use of Wool for the Production of Strings, Ropes, Braided Mats, and Similar Fabrics (Hartmuth Waetzoldt)
Under Canvas (Susan Möller-Wiering)
Similarities and distinctions of Minoan and Mycenaean Textiles (Edith Trnka)
Re-considering Alum on the Linear B Tablets (Richard Firth)
Late Roman and Byzantine Linen Tunics in the Louvre Museum (Roberta Cortopassi)
Looped-Pile Textiles in the Benaki Museum (Athens) (Sofia Tsourinaki)
A Medieval Georgian Textile in the Benaki Museum (Athens): the sakkos of the Antiochene Patriarch with Georgian Embroidery (Irine Nikoleishvili & Eliso Akhvlediani)
The Llangorse Textile: Approaches to Understanding an Early Medieval Masterpiece (Louise Mumford, Heather Prosser & Julie Taylor)
A Study of Textile Remains from the 5th Century BC Discovered in Kalyvia, Attica (Christophe Moulherat & Youlie Spantidaki)
Ancieent Textile Evidence in Soil Structures at the Agora Ex