Call for papers TEXTILES IN ANCIENT ICONOGRAPHY

Call for papers TEXTILES IN ANCIENT ICONOGRAPHY EAA Annual Meeting Barcelona, Spain 5th – 8th September 2018 Textiles have largely disappeared from the archaeological record, which makes a study of them something of a challenge. A study of ancient textiles must therefore be based, to a large extent, on secondary sources. Iconography is a particularly crucial source of information about ancient textiles and dress, especially in societies where we only have limited written sources. Thus, a wealth of information on ancient textiles is available from ancient depictions in, for instance, sculpture, vase-painting, figurines, reliefs, mosaics and coins. However, making sense of images can be difficult, although we still tend to take the process of interpreting images very much for granted. A constant problem for anyone interpreting ancient iconography is therefore determining how we interpret what we see. The most important problem with the use of iconography as a source on ancient societies is the extent to which iconography corresponds to reality. There is no doubt that images are not simple replicas or photographs of reality, and that they were not produced to document or to provide information. Instead, iconography may draw on and select elements from the surrounding world that were ‘recognisable’ to the ancient audience. Thus, in many cases, the images reflect the perceptions, ideologies, and ideas of the society in which they were produced. Furthermore, reading images is not just a question of decoding a single meaning, since the interpretations of images changes from context to context depending on the various viewers and their expectations. In ancient societies, dress was used to signal aspects of identity such as gender, status, ethnicity, and age, as well as position in the social hierarchy. Dress was also used to indicate specific professions or one’s position in religious hierarchies. In consequence, textiles are often represented in detail in iconography, permitting analysis of a broad spectrum of issues. Furthermore, textile production was an important element of ancient economy as well as social and cultural life and textile tools and scenes of textile production were therefore depicted in art. This workshop addresses the topic of representations of textiles in ancient visual arts and how we should interpret these depictions. Further questions include (but are not limited to):  How do the depictions relate to the medium in which, or the artefact on which they are represented?  How do the depictions of dress relate to our knowledge of ancient garments and/or written sources?  How were depictions of textile tools used to reflect social practices and traditional values?  How do we assess the possible religious aspect of the depictions of textiles and textile production? We warmly welcome papers addressing these topics in depictions of dress, textile tools, textile production, as well as textiles for other purposes than dress, such as furnishing textiles etc. We do not set any chronological or geographical restrictions, we welcome all papers proposing new methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of textiles and ancient iconography. Guidance for submissions: All paper proposals should be submitted via EAA Annual Meeting 2018 official website: https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA2018/ by February 15th 2018. Each paper will be allocated 15 minutes and should be presented in English. SESSION ORGANISERS: Dr. Marta Zuchowska University of Warsaw marta.zuchowska@gmail. com Dr. Cecilie Brøns Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies [email protected] Dr. Susanna Harris University of Glasgow Susanna.Harris@glasgow. ac.uk