Ancient Textiles

The Turin Shroud was extensively scientifically investigated in 1978. In its pinkish red bloodstains, normal features of human blood were found, but also seemingly anomalous ones. In the present study, hitherto unnoticed details of the data are presented, Shroud data and more modern reference data are compared, and the results of a few experiments with linen, madder dye and blood are shown. It turns out that the Shroud’s ‘anomalous’ data are strong consistent evidence that its bloodstains contain acid heme-madder lake, of which the heme derived from cold acid postmortem blood and the madder had been applied to the Shroud at manufacture. It implies that the bloodstains were formed on the Shroud before the still not reproduced body-image was. Several other ‘red-color’ hypotheses for the Shroud’s bloodstains are discussed and dismissed.

Scenes of textile production on Athenian vases are often interpreted as confirming the oppression of women, who many argue were confined to "women's quarters" and exploited as free labor. However, reexamination of the iconography--together with a reconsideration of gender roles and the archaeology of Greek houses dating to the 5th and 4th centuries BC--suggests that these images idealize female contributions to the household in a positive way. The scenes utilize the dual metaphor of weaving and marriage to express the harmonia of oikos and polis, a theme particularly significant under the evolving Athenian democracy.

Many Andean textiles are painted, a tradition practiced across the Andes as early as the Lithic period (ca. 10000-4000 B.C.E). Despite its prevalence and aesthetics, research into painted textile technology is limited. Recently, samples from nine painted Andean textiles were collected from different museums and analyzed at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles. The samples represent a range of cultures, locations, and times. Analytical techniques included polarized light microscopy and X-ray florescence spectroscopy. Due to the paucity of published data on painted textiles, a comparison is made with mural paintings. Results show that Andean painters used a range of pigments, including ocher and cinnabar, and that pigments were chosen based on their chemical and physical characteristics from at least the Early Horizon period (ca. 950 B.C.E.-200 C.E.) onward, although there were also cultural preferences for specific pigments. The quality of the cinnabar pigment especially shows that Andean painters had great technical knowledge and skills, superior to what was previously suspected. Patterns of pigment choice and application indicate that painted textiles were primarily produced for funerary purposes.

An important episode in Mesoamerican mythical narratives involves the abduction or impregnation of a tightly guarded maiden by a disguised god, against the will of her father or mother. This action precipitates major creational events that variously result in the origin of the sun, the moon, and human sustenance. Relying on a comparative analysis of versions recorded throughout Mesoamerica, this paper explores (a) representations of this episode in Maya art, where the suitor sometimes takes the shape of an insect; (b) the magical role of weaving and spinning, a recurrent theme in this mythical sequence; and (c) the relevance of Maya narratives for the interpretation of related passages in central Mexican mythology and ritual. Classic representations evidence the myth’s antiquity, while its numerous versions pose methodological problems, addressed in this paper through the analysis of synonymies in narrative, art, and performance.

Textile remains were discovered during a salvage excavation at the site of the North Brisbane Burial Ground, a nineteenth-century cemetery in the city of Brisbane, Australia. Ninety-six textile samples were collected at excavation, comprising 39 twill weaves, 17 tabby weaves, one haircord weave, one satin weave, three knitted fabrics, one piece of felt and 34 masses of loose wool packing. Most of the woven textiles recovered were coffin coverings or coffin linings. Similarly, the majority of non-woven textile samples were also associated with coffins and their dressing. Five of the identified textiles were likely to have been fragments of garments worn by the deceased.

The use of wool derived from sheep (Ovis aries) hair shafts is widespread in ancient and historic textiles. Given that hair can represent a valuable source of ancient DNA, wool may represent a valuable genetic archive for studies on the domestication of the sheep. However, both the quality and content of DNA in hair shafts are known to vary, and it is possible that common treatments of wool such as dyeing may negatively impact the DNA. Using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), we demonstrate that in general, short fragments of both mitochondrial and single-copy nuclear DNA can be PCR-amplified from wool derived from a variety of breeds, regardless of the body location or natural pigmentation. Furthermore, although DNA can be PCR-amplified from wool dyed with one of four common plant dyes (tansy, woad, madder, weld), the use of mordants such as alum or iron leads to considerable DNA degradation. Lastly, we demonstrate that mtDNA at least can be PCR-amplified, cloned and sequenced from a range of archaeological and historic Danish, Flemmish and Greenlandic wool textile samples. In summary, our data suggest that wool offers a promising source for future ancient mitochondrial DNA studies.

The coat of mail from Vimose (Funen, Denmark) is extraordinarily well preserved for an artefact from the Roman Iron Age. Examination demonstrates that its construction is similar to that of the Roman tunic and differs from later medieval mail shirts. The fixtures for regulating the neck opening appear a local Germanic phenomenon. The blend of Germanic and Roman elements in the Vimose coat is evidence for local manufacture of mail armour in the Barbaricum.

The textile evidence for the archaeological site of Kissi, Burkina Faso, is presented and the implications for the history of weaving in West Africa are discussed. Woolen textiles have been preserved in Iron Age graves of the first millennium AD due to the corrosion of metal objects in the graves. This lucky circumstance adds further examples to the very small corpus of first millennium AD textile finds, pushing back in time the evidence for the demand and use of cloth in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mail armour is made of many interlinking metal rings. It has been a popular type of defensive gear through the centuries, and this popularity has in part been due to mail armour’s flexibility. However, this very flexibility today hinders its conservation, interpretation and display. Mail pieces retrieved from archaeological contexts are often in such poor state of preservation that their original shape is unrecognizable. This poses a challenge not only for conserving these artefacts, but also for understanding them. This paper describes a conservation technique for flexible mail that involves restoring preserved rings to their original position and filling in the remaining gaps with dummy rings. In addition to stabilizing the mesh of mail, this measure also aids the artefact’s interpretation. The advantages of using this method with archaeological specimens are presented by means of a case-study concerning the remains of a Roman mail coat found near Novae, Bulgaria. The case-study shows that the choice of conservation technique greatly influences the amount of information that researchers can obtain from this material.

The linen cloth of the shroud of Arquata, a precious copy of the Shroud of Turin which dates back to 1653, was discovered in 1980 during the restoration works of the St. Francis church in Arquata del Tronto (Ascoli Piceno, Italy). Following the strong earthquake that hit central Italy in August 2016, the church was seriously damaged and it was, therefore, necessary to secure the shroud in the Cathedral of Ascoli Piceno. A multidisciplinary approach was required in order to evaluate the correct intervention methods that will be performed in the next future: although several investigation techniques were performed on the Arquata shroud, this paper focuses on the combination of two different techniques, optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy microanalysis (SEM-EDS). Few samples of fibrils of the linen cloth of the Arquata shroud were analysed, achieving information about their morphology, the surface characteristics, the chemical composition and the possible deterioration phenomena.
Light microscopic analyses showed some typical features of the single elementary flax fibre: lumen, dislocations and cross markings. SEM-EDS analysis also revealed interesting morphological features of the flax fibrils and the presence of encrustations on their surface, while the microanalysis preformed on the encrustations revealed the presence of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, sodium, and potassium, due to dust deposits. Moreover, the absence of biological attacks by microorganisms, parasites, moulds or fungi was highlighted. Finally, numerous defects of the surface that could characterise the linen cloth as antique were identified (cross cuts).
These results suggested some actions useful for the conservation of the shroud, thus avoiding the use of more invasive methods which could impact the integrity of this precious object of veneration.

In the 2012/2013 season, the Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and Conservation Mission of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari (PCMA UW) continued work in a tomb (Tomb II) cut into the cliffs bordering the temple of Tuthmosis III from the west. The work focused on a shaft and two subterranean chambers (C and D), which yielded together more than 300 pieces of funerary linen and equipment. Despite the disturbed archaeological context, the finds constitute an important corpus of seldom studied and published Pharaonic textiles. Some of the textiles are of very high quality, up to 2 m in length and preserved with their original colors. Importantly, they portray characteristic features of Pharaonic Egyptian textiles. Several pieces have inscriptions, including one with a fragmentary cartouche.

The investigation of textiles and textile production can yield important information about the infrastructure and resource management in ancient societies. Before the 19th century textiles made of plant material in Scandinavia were mainly made from locally available raw materials: nettle, hemp and flax. In 2012, an investigation of ten Scandinavian Viking Age and Early Middle Age wall hangings showed that four of these, including the famous Överhogdal wall hanging, are in fact made with hemp. This investigation demonstrates that hemp, in some cases at least, was also used for fine textile production in Viking Age Scandinavia. The aim of this paper is to investigate this topic further. In order to do so we examined all known Merovingian Period (560/570–800 CE) and Viking Age (800–1066 CE) textile finds in the Late Iron Age Collection of the University Museum of Bergen. The collection is extensive and belongs to one of the oldest archaeological collections in Norway. It contains finds from western Norway mainly. We identified a total of 45 grave finds with more than 100 different weaves in the collection. Plant fibres do not keep well under the burial conditions in Norway, but we managed to identify ten non-mineralized and non-charred finds with fragments of plant fibre material belonging most probably to clothing and accessories. Fibres from these ten finds were investigated using the modified Herzog test. In addition , morphological features were observed carefully. Nine samples were identified as flax, one sample could only be identified as a bast fibre. Our finds show that though hemp was used in some cases for fine textile production in Viking Age Scandinavia, available remains of plant fibre clothing and accessories coming from Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane and Rogaland counties are made of flax.

The book has not been digitized yet, but the brochure prepared in 1973 has been added with the complete table of contents.  From the 1973 brochure: Dr. George C. Miles, Curator of Islamic Coins of the American Numismatic Society and its former Chief Curator and Executive Director, has during the past thirty-five years revolutionized the study of Islamic numismatics.  On the occasion of his retirement from the ANS and his seventieth birthday, friends, colleagues, and former students have joined in assembling a volume of essays in those areas which have, and still continue, to dominate his scholarly activity: numismatics, epigraphy, iconography, and history, of the Islamic, pre-Islamic, and Byzantine worlds.  Forty-five scholars from fourteen countries have contributed studies to this important work of nearly 500 pages in large format and over 200 plates and illustrations.

Exceptianally preserved cordage anifacts from Bask~maker I1 sites offer a rare insight into social processes that persisted during the 1500-year beginnings of agricultural lifavap and village sedentism on the Colorado Plateau. Through an anatpis of cordage design, I examEne the process of knowledge sharing among Basketmaker II peoples. I propose that cenain technical choices in raw-material selection and fiber-twisting rnethds result from an artisan's enculturative h o w ledge and experience alone, and that spatial clustering indem pools of shared knowledge among artisans. Data describing formal vadation in Basketmaker II and non-Basbaker It cordage show that, with respect to raw material and twist structure, ~asket&ker I[ cordage is internally consistent but significantly different from non-Basketmaker II cordage. I propose that the obserwd patterns in Basketmaker I1 cordage design index the geopphical extent of a pool of shared knwledge that circulated within a dinally-unified Basketmaker I1 marriage network.

This essay reflects on the importance of cloth as a medium of transregional economic and social engagement. Additionally, it highlights the ways in which complementary processes of alteration in multiple locales have augmented cloth’s socioeconomic value. Specifically, the history of textiles in the Indian Ocean region evidences the vitality of cloth as an object imagined, fabricated, and creatively adapted. A holistic view of cloth as an economic object reveals the intertwined processes not only of weaving, circulation, exchange, and adornment but also alteration, unraveling, reweaving, and other forms of reassembly. By recognizing cloth as a highly dynamic socioeconomic object we gain insight into the creation and augmentation of value as well as how the process of adding value connects producers and consumers, often through circuitous transregional routes. Ultimately, cloth is an apt metaphor for the changing Indian Ocean world: diverse threads of social and economic relation woven together to form a discernible fabric, while this fabric has been altered, elaborated, and reimagined for new social and economic demands. In the present as in the past, cloth expresses the Indian Ocean as a matrix of inter-societal relationships and a dynamic idea.

This article will discuss the findspots of cotton textiles and the location of their manufacture, questioning the origin of these different cotton fabrics, their provenance, and the route they took to their new owners.
Through the duration of the Byzantine period, in the 5th-6th c. CE, cotton remained rather rare in Palestine. It continued to be infrequent during the Islamic period, leading to very few discoveries on selected sites. At least one of these location shows that cotton was also a foreign product coming mainly through importation networks with India. Such commerce has left a strong imprint on the textile landscape of ancient Palestine. The caravan town of Nahal ‘Omer has left us a rich textile assemblage of good quality pieces where cotton was predominant, attesting the prosperity of the site’s inhabitants and the travellers who frequented it. These finds contrast sharply with the textiles characterizing nearby sites of the same period. In most of Palestine except for Nahal ‘Omer, wool was still the fibre of choice during the Early Islamic Period (7th-8th c. CE) in sites such as Nahal Shahaq, ‘En Evrona, ‘En Marzev (Yahav), and Yotvata.
The exceptional quantities of silk and cotton fabrics discovered at Nahal ‘Omer testifies to textile encounters with faraway lands. This distinct foreign character of cotton textiles continued to be relevant during the Later Islamic period, at Qasr el-Yahud for example, where cotton textiles are associated to Nubians and South Egyptians pilgrims. Nonetheless, local cotton production continued to be slowly developed through the medieval period, until the fibre became quite prevalent and even replaced linen.
https://journals.openedition.org/ethnoecologie/4176

Smith, J. S. 2002 “Changes in the Workplace: Women and Textile Production on Late Bronze Age Cyprus,” pp. 281–311 in D. Bolger and N. Serwint eds., Engendering Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus (American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports 7, Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute Monographs 3). Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research.

La presencia de un conjunto significativo de fusayolas entre los ajuares de la necrópolis de la Edad del Hierro de Olival do Senhor dos Mártires (Alcácer do Sal, Portugal) plantea cuestiones de gran interés sobre los límites entre la función de estos elementos y su significado simbólico y escatológico. En este estudio se abordan esas cuestiones, analizando por un lado las características físicas, tecnológicas y morfológicas de las piezas, y por otro los posibles códigos simbólicos y religiosos que las convierten en elementos integrales del ajuar funerario en distintas comunidades del sur peninsular.

Smith, J. S. 2013 “Tapestries in the Bronze and early Iron Ages of the Ancient Near East,” pp. 159–186 in M.-L. Nosch, H. Koefoed, and E. Andersson Strand eds., Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East: Archaeology, Epigraphy, Iconography. Ancient Textiles Series 12. Oxford: Oxbow.

The kingdom of Meroe (300 BCE – 350 CE) developed a truly unique textile tradition, represented by hundreds of preserved fabrics, tools and iconographic representations. Together, this vast body of historical data provides a great opportunity to study the patterns of textile production and consumption in the Meroitic society. This paper will first focus on restoring the textile implements to their archaeological locations in order to identify the different contexts and scales of textile manufacturing, primarily spinning and weaving. Far from homogenous, the Meroitic textile industry reflected the social complexity and the ethnic diversity of the kingdom. The paper’s second part will thus relate the settlement data on textile production to the finished products – fabrics and clothing – discovered in graves and depicted on reliefs and statues, thereby linking the textiles to the individuals using them. The role of the administrative and religious elite will particularly be discussed, both as commissioners and consumers of specific textile goods, as well as official relays in a state-controlled industry.

International symposium 18-19 May 2017

Organisers: Joanne Cutler, Beatriz Marin Aguilera and Margarita Gleba

In the past few years the field of archaeological textile research has witnessed a major dynamism as demonstrated by numerous conferences and publications on the topic, as well as establishment of large-scale interdisciplinary collaborative projects. The necessary next step is to integrate this growing field of study into wider academic discourse in order to address some of the wider research questions where evidence for textiles has hitherto been virtually unexplored. The project PROCON Production and Consumption: Textile Economy and Urbanisation in the Mediterranean Europe in 1000-500 BC (PROCON), funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant (2013-2018) and hosted by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK, aims to test the hypothesis that textile production and consumption was a significant driving force of the economy and of the creation and perception of wealth in Mediterranean Europe during the period of urbanisation and early urbanism in 1000-500 BCE.

The PROCON project has gathered a substantial amount of new data on textile production for the period of urbanisation in Greece, Italy and Spain. The aim of this international symposium is to discuss the significance of the production and consumption of textiles for the development of urban centres in these areas during 1000-500 BCE (as clothing, elite regalia, trade and exchange items) within the broader perspective of other production activities. We are particularly interested to explore how productive activities during this period related to other economic aspects such as the use of farm land, labour resources, rise of the elites, as well as the development of urban lifestyle.

With this in mind, we have asked the invited participants to focus on the economies of production at specific sites or regions of Greece, Italy and Spain in order to place textile production in a wider economic context.

Registration obligatory:
http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/events/procon

Textile production and fur and skin preparation are seldom put into an archaeological context and discussed. An often-heard argument is that finds of textiles are few and that we know nothing about skin preparation. Textile finds are few compared to, say, iron fragments, flints and potsherds, but there are many implements such as needles, spindle whorls and loom weights.
What significance is ascribed to these handicrafts in prehistoric society? To see how these crafts are presented, I have examined eight surveys from Sweden, Denmark , Norway and Finland.
The examination reveals several interesting differences between, on the one hand, textiles and skin crafts and, on the other hand, other kinds of craft. Textile production and skin preparation are seldom discussed under headings about handicraft. Imported textiles are mentioned in passing but with no proper discussion. None of the authors has totally omitted to describe costumes from the Bronze Age and Iron Age, but one often gets the impression that dresses only are a complement to brooches and other ornaments.
Textile and skin crafts should be discussed on the same premises as other crafts and should be put into context. We must see the needs and possibilities of prehistoric people, not transfer our own values to them. We do not have to presume that the status of a craft in prehistoric time depends on the number of archaeological finds we have today.

The cotsen Institute Press specializes in producing high-quality academic volumes in several different series, including Monographs, World Heritage and Monuments, Cotsen Advanced Seminars, and Ideas, Debates, and Perspectives. The Press is committed to making the fruits of archaeological research accessible to professionals, scholars, students, and the general public. We are able to do this through the generosity of Lloyd E. cotsen, longtime Institute volunteer and benefactor, who has provided an endowment that allows us to subsidize our publishing program and produce superb volumes at an affordable price. Publishing in nine different series, our award-winning archaeological publications receive critical acclaim in both the academic and popular communities.

A recurring theme in Greek thought is the reflection on the way the production and consumption of wealth structures the relationship between humanity and nature. There is an ongoing dialogue in the poetry and philosophy of archaic and classical Greece that explores the ethical connotations of agricultural labour, manufacturing, technology, warfare, commerce and other types of economic activity in relation to how they affect the balance between humans and environment. 1 Different forms of human economic activity thus become invested with profound -if constantly re-negotiatedsymbolic values that relate not just to the community, but to the natural environment more widely.

The texts from the Eanna archive provide significant information about the craftsmen of the Neo-Babylonian period. Based on these texts, this dissertation presents a study of the temple's textile and metal workers. After a brief introduction, Chapter

The contribution of this thesis to the existing field of tiraz textile studies is that it
has tried to overcome the existing rift between historians and textile specialists,
in approaching the subject in a more unified way, which takes into account the
interrelationship between production, administration and use. Historians have
traditionally worked on the textile industry and administration from the point of
view of Arabic literary sources, while textile specialists focused on the material
evidence of fabrics and their manufacture.

Rather than relying on one collection, as most previous authors have done,
samples from all the major museum collections are examined here and have
been arranged in a database of 1823 items, which made it possible to analyse
the properties of textiles taxonomically. By using taxonomic analysis both
material and historical information could be combined and emerging trends
tested against the historical evidence of literary sources. A major discovery here
has been how the textile evidence reflects administrative changes in control of
the textile industry and the wider administrative relationship between Egypt and
Iraq under the Abbasids.

While there is agreement by both textile specialists and historians that tiraz
textiles were produced for court consumption, neither considered the question
why tiraz textiles were used in burials, from which most surviving tiraz textiles
have in fact been recovered archaeologically. This thesis approaches this
subject by considering both material and literary evidence and suggests that
tiraz textiles were regarded as a source of blessing for the deceased because of
their caliphal association recorded in their inscriptions.

El archivo de Frédéric Engel, arqueólogo suizo quien trabajó en la costa sur del Perú entre los años 1950 y 1960, representa un patrimonio documental importante conservado en el Museo Nacional de Antropología, Biodiversidad, Agricultura y Alimentación (MUNABA) de la Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina en Lima. Gracias a la revisión de los registros gráficos y fotográficos de las excavaciones realizadas en Cabezas Largas, sitio ubicado en la Península de Paracas, y particularmente de los materiales hallados en la tumba T.27, este artículo presenta los principales textiles asociados a la parafernalia ritual de siete fardos funerarios para tratar de entender mejor las técnicas de manufactura y las prácticas mortuorias del final del Horizonte Temprano en la región (fases Ocucaje 8, 9 y 10). Esta investigación pretende demostrar la relevancia de los datos recopilados en vista de la recontextualización y del análisis de los textiles de la tumba T.27.

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This paper examines the engagement with the materiality of textiles and textile crafts in Roman poetry. Through close readings of Ausonius’ Epigrams and Silius Italicus’ epic on the Punic war, informed by archaeological evidence and reconstructions of ancient weaving, the paper demonstrates that male Roman authors display significant knowledge of the practicalities of contemporary textile work and its range of sensory experiences. The paper explains the basis for this knowledge by drawing on archaeological evidence for shared use of domestic space, but in contrast to previous studies on shared space utilisation and crafts, emphasis is placed on the childhood experiences both of male and female children in elite households. The paper proposes that training undertaken by girls of such families impacts considerably on male members of the household and underpins the technical knowledge displayed in literary descriptions of textile work.

The aim of the present article is to reconsider the interpretation of the Greek word halourgos (ἁλουργός) and its relation to textiles and purple dye by reinvestigating its recordings in Greek epigraphy and the papyri, as well as comparative examples from Greek literary sources, in the period from the fourth century bc to the seventh century ad — thus combining the source material from ancient Greece and the Greek-speaking part of the Roman world. This will illustrate the wealth of information one can get from the exploration of one single word: not only on the significance and appearance of textiles and garments in the ancient world from Greece to Egypt, but also on the diversity of colours and the subtleties in their use and terminology.

Artículo a publicarse en el número 54 de la revista Desacatos (mayo-agosto de 2007)
Resumen: El propósito de este artículo es entender de manera integral el papel que tienen los palos del telar de cintura, específicamente el instrumento conocido como machete o tzotzopaztli, dentro de una serie de relatos de comunidades zapotecas del sur de Oaxaca, en los que personajes como naguales y vírgenes tutelares utilizan dichos palos como armas para pelear y defender a los pueblos. En nuestro análisis recurrimos a la revisión de una serie de imágenes de códices mexicas donde aparecen diosas asociadas con el tejido y la guerra. Otras fuentes importantes para nuestro análisis son escenas de códices mixtecos, así como objetos arqueológicos de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca. Esto se hace con el fin de aportar elementos que enriquezcan el planteamiento de la relación simbólica entre el tejido y la guerra en Mesoamérica. Palabras clave: tradición textil, diosas del tejido, guerra y tejido, zapotecos del sur.