Dressing the Past

INTRODUCTION

How do we dress the past? What lies behind the dress of a Viking on a mannequin in a museum, the appearance of a Roman emperor in the movie Gladiator or an illustration of a Scythian warrior in an archaeological treatise?

Today, there is a growing interest in ancient and historical costume, as well as an increasing need in museums, in the media and in the private sphere to obtain all the available knowledge about the subject. To ensure that this is possible on an adequately scholarly level, the academic community of prehistoric and modern textile research has to put more effort into presenting data and research results in a more user-friendly manner.

The aim of the present volume is to highlight the difficulties in the analysis of archaeological and historical garments and to show how scholars from different disciplines approach the subject. The book is conceived as a handbook by specialists for non-specialists. Our aim is to show the wide range of disciplines involved in textile research, and also the multitude of topics which can be investigated through the study of dress.

The anthology originated in a series of lectures given by The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research to students at the Design School in Kolding, Denmark in spring 2006. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds such as archaeology, ancient history, ethnology, design, professional weaving, museum and media studies. They have been given a free hand in choosing their perspective and approach to the subject and have selected a number of issues for discussion, in order to demonstrate the importance of being critical of sources when dealing with ancient or historical dress, while presenting their methods, reflections and results.

Our sources when investigating textiles are, first of all, the dresses themselves, both archaeological textiles excavated from the soil, and historical costumes preserved in museum collections. Furthermore, written materials, images, textile tools, context studies of workspaces, industries or household production provide important additional information. Textile researchers also draw data from ethnographical sources and from craftsmanship. Each of these sources informs us in its own way about the prevalent attitude towards the body in different places and periods. Each of them is also problematic in its own way. All of the chapters in this volume demonstrate how important it is to use all available sources critically in order to obtain the most objective picture of dress in the past.

Most authors emphasize the wide range of disciplines studying textiles, dress and costume. It may be significant that none of them sees this as a conflict. On the contrary, there is an awareness of how different disciplines can offer new perspectives and new questions. Today, study of costume is not limited to the basic description. In recent decades, textile research has developed from the object-based, empirical collection of data to a context based approach. We want to know about the use of dress: how did it feel to wear it? For what occasion was it made and/or worn? Was it comfortable? How often was it worn? Why did the wearer choose this garment and textile? We want to know about the context: for what purpose was the textile made or bought? When was it worn? And what impression did the textile give? We want to know about the process of production: how was it organised and who participated in it? Where did the production take place, and why? What tools and what techniques did the producers choose, and what did they base their choice on? We want to know about the costume’s history: why was it made and what do the traces of wear tell us? Why has the garment changed in size or function?

Still, it is important to emphasize: the following chapters do not necessarily show how people dressed in the past, rather how we think they dressed in the past, and why we think so.

Traditional research is seen as objective and a search for the truth. The papers in this anthology reflect an ongoing process where scholars acknowledge the subjective, intuitive and tactile aspects of knowledge such as feeling, the handle of an object, the know-how or craftsmanship. In textile research, we must supplement the supremacy of the eyes as our primary mode of comprehending the world. We include the tactile sense: corselets and heavy coronation robes immediately give us the sense of tightness and heaviness; rags and worn-out shoes remind us of the harsh cold of a Scandinavian winter.

How do we make the past present? From hobby enthusiasts who devote considerable time and expense to re-enacting the past, to museum curators who spend their entire professional careers recreating the past for the edification of the general public, to historians who recently devoted nearly an entire issue of the journal History and Theory to the topic, the past in the present is a burning subject.

Popularising textile knowledge is vital. Textile research is interdisciplinary, and textile scholars are trained to transgress the academic boundaries between conservation and archaeology, history and ethnology. In this publication, we wanted to go a step further: to enter into a dialogue with colleagues in other textile-related fields, such as designers. It is a challenge and, in the process of compiling this book, we have had many discussions about what this new common platform could be. Our experience of teaching at a design school gave hints of a common interest and knowledge, and what we could learn from each other.

We hope that this book will be of equal interest to students of costume design, museology and film, hobby enthusiasts, museum curators, historians and all who are interested in costume–prehistoric, historic or modern–and its impact on human society. This is an invitation to dive into the colourful world of dress.

Margarita Gleba, Cherine Munkholt and Marie-Louise Nosch

Copenhagen, December 2006

In the spirit of collaboration, the Kolding School of Design made a generous gift to this publication: a collage documenting the design process of the clothing projects by the design students in 2006, inspired by our lectures. The collage was made by Kirsten Schou-Jørgensen.

Map 1.

Map 2.

Maps created by Peder Dam

Map 3.

Map 4.

Maps created by Peder Dam

Chapter 1

Haute Couture in the Bronze Age: A History of Minoan Female Costumes from Thera

Marie-Louise B. Nosch

In this chapter, the author presents some of the female costumes from Minoan Santorini and uses recent scholarly contributions as the basis of her discussion on the Bronze Age technology available for the manufacture of these costumes. She views the use and representation of these costumes today as stemming from political and cultural agendas.

Keywords: Minoan, Thera, frescoes, colours, design, historiography.

King Minos was a legendary king at Knossos in Crete. He was married to Queen Pasiphae and had a daughter, Ariadne. According to legend, Minos demanded an annual tribute of seven young men and seven young women from Athens. The young people were sacrificed to his son, the monster Minotaur, half man and half bull, who was kept in a labyrinth. The Athenian prince, Theseus, son of King Aegeus, sailed off on a dangerous mission to Crete: to kill the Minotaur and free Athens from the demand for human tribute. His ship had black sails but he promised his father to raise white sails on his return voyage if his mission was successful. On his arrival in Crete, Ariadne fell in love with Theseus. She gave him a ball of thread to follow through the labyrinth. With this thread, he managed to find his way through the labyrinth, kill the Minotaur, and return safely out of the labyrinth again. Joyful over his success, he immediately travelled back but forgot to change his sails. Aegeus, holding watch for his son’s ships from a rock high above the ocean, saw the black sails and out of despair over his son’s presumed death, threw himself into the sea.

This classical legend contains two references to textiles: Ariadne’s thread and the coloured sails. Let us now follow Ariadne’s thread into the world of Minoan textile and costume.

The Minoan culture is named after King Minos. The Minoan civilisation is attested in the Bronze Age in present day Greece and Turkey. One of the centres of Minoan culture was the small island of Thera, today Santorini, in the southern part of the Cycladies in Greece (see Map 1). The island was destroyed in the Bronze Age by a volcanic eruption which blew a major part of the island away.

When did this destruction occur? Specialists agree that it was some time between 1700 and 1500 BC, that is, 3700–3500 years ago. Some scholars, based on the study of ceramic style, date the destruction to 1500 BC; others believe in the dates 1620–1520 or 1700–1610 BC, based on the scientific analyses of changes in the carbon isotopes in finds from the excavation; pieces of wood have been used for dendro-chronology and have yielded the dates 1628–1626 BC; ash layers from the volcanic eruption found in ice-core drillings on Greenland have been dated to 1645 BC. And, recently, analysis of carbon isotopes from a tree trapped in the ash layer has given a destruction date of 1627–1600 (Friedrich et al. 2006).

The discussion on the destruction date will probably continue. However, for the purposes of this chapter, it is important to note that the destruction of Thera created a freeze-frame in which Minoan life and material culture was preserved. Thus, the destruction gives us a kind of snap-shot of the life of the last inhabitants.

The island of Thera literally exploded when the volcano erupted. In the remaining part of the island, excavations have been carried out, revealing a Bronze Age town. Similar to Roman Pompeii, the excavators dug into private houses and discovered preserved furniture, cooking ware and amazing frescoes on the walls.

The frescoes show men, women and children in elaborate costumes. Here we will focus on the Minoan frescoes representing women and their costumes. Two excellent examples are the ‘Female Figure’ (Fig. 1.1) and the ‘Saffron gatherers’ (Fig. 1.2).

How far is it plausible to believe that the costumes on the Theran frescoes represent real costumes and are not pure fantasy? Elizabeth Barber, the specialist on Aegean textile and costume, believes that the elaborate and festive female dresses seen on the monuments were probably a development of daily wear (Barber 1991, 315). In the following discussion, I will outline the technological possibilities in Minoan society for producing such garments.

FEMALE COSTUMES

The female Minoan costume seems to be composed of a tight bodice, sometimes open-fronted and with short sleeves. The bodice is decorated on the edges, either with bands or in-woven decorative motifs. The skirt can be bell-shaped or flounced, and is often decorated with either woven stripes or bands. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show women and girls wearing sleeved bodices with decorative bands on the shoulders. Tassels hang from the sleeve edges or around the waist. The girls wear what look like wrap-around skirts richly decorated with bands. All the depicted costumes display a wealth of colours and an extended use of bands as decorative elements. Elizabeth Barber writes:

On the whole, the Theran textiles all look readily–even easily–weavable. To imitate most of these designs, the techniques of choice would be supplemental-warp float for the bands and supplemental weft for the larger cloths, possibly in double-faced or even double-cloth techniques (Barber 1991, 317).

Fig. 1.1: Female figure from the House of the Ladies, Room 1. (The Greek Archaeological Society at Athens, Excavation of Akrotiri, Thera)

Fig 1.2: Saffron gatherers from Xeste 3, Room 3a. (The Greek Archaeological Society at Athens, Excavation of Akrotiri, Thera)

Pictures of Minoan dresses are found on frescoes, seals and statues, and the evidence is scattered all over the Aegean area throughout the 2nd millennium BC. Attempts have been made to see specific developments over time and space, regional differences or ethnic markers. Nevertheless, the relative scarcity of evidence, and the wide time span, makes it difficult to trace such patterns. I would agree with Edith Trnka’s assessment of the situation:

Rather than an indicator of ethnicity, differences in design may refer more to the age, status and activity of the wearer. Distinctions like textile patterns, colours and band decorations within the fabrics might indicate the social rank of the wearer (Trnka 2007, 121).

Several attempts have been made through the years to reconstruct the Minoan costumes. In the 1920s, the Lyceum Club of Greek Women made reconstructions of Minoan costumes. The work was done under the guidance of Anna Apostolidou, then Curator of the Museum of Decorative Arts (the present day Museum of Greek Folk Art). The costumes were used for festive events at the Panathenian Stadium in 1927 (Fig. 1.3). About 80 years later, Abby Lillethun made several reconstructions of the bodice of the young saffron gatherer on the Theran fresco and tested how reconstructions fitted the model and matched the frescoes. According to her, the closest match to the images came in the cut-in-one bodice with straight sleeves made of linen, because it fitted closely to the neck of the model; it was comfortable and the fit was smooth and tight (Lillethun 2003). These time-consuming reconstruction tests–among others–are a valuable source when investigating Aegean costume traditions and techniques.

COLOURS AND DYES

The use of colours–blue, yellow and red–springs to the eye when admiring the Minoan female costumes. People of the Bronze Age could obtain variegated shades or patterns with the naturally pigmented black, brown or white wool. However, in the Bronze Age, it is likely that through selective breeding people could increase the production of white wool and this gave great opportunities for an amazing explosion of colours in dress. Textiles were dyed with plant and animal dyes. The colour purple could be obtained from murex mollusc. These are found in the Mediterranean Sea and are edible. When archaeologists find heaps of murex shells, it may thus indicate that the snails were consumed or used to obtain dyestuff. The murex mollusc yields a strong and colourfast dye, varying from red to purple and blue. Extraction of purple from murex was known early in the 2nd millennium BC in Crete (Burke 1999). Murex-dyed garments are also known from later ancient literature: the Roman emperor alone was allowed to wear a purple garment while his senators could only carry purple-dyed bands on their toga. Purple dye from murex has always been considered a costly and luxurious substance, even more so than gold.

In some works on ancient colours and dyes, it is assumed that enormous amounts of murex were required to dye one piece of cloth. This however, is based on a misunderstanding of the dyeing technicalities. In the 19th century AD, the growing chemical industry aimed at supplanting plant and animal dyes with chemical dyes by determining the composition of murex dye and by isolating the pure dye substances. The chemist Paul Friedländer isolated 1.4 g of pure dyestuff from 12,000 Murex brandaris, one type of murex molluscs. These calculations have been applied to ancient dyeing technologies, since a precise understanding of the ancient dyeing techniques is lacking. However, the Minoans did not necessarily need the pure substance for their textiles (Burke 1999). A strong, vivid, and colourfast colour can be obtained with much less murex. This technical misunderstanding, combined with the Theran frescoes and the knowledge of Roman extravagance have contributed to the idea of the Minoan culture as being luxurious and sophisticated.

Fig. 1.3: Costumes in the style of the Mycenaean and Minoan periods. (Courtesy of the Lyceum club of Greek Women Costume Collection).

Roots from the madder plant can also be used for red dyes. We are less sure about the blue colours, but it was probably obtained from woad. The yellow could be obtained from either saffron or safflower flowers. On the Theran frescoes, women gather saffron and we know from the Late Bronze Age inscriptions that safflower was cultivated on palace land, most probably for dye substances to be used in the textile industry (Nosch 2004).

TECHNOLOGY AND THE ORGANISATION OF PRODUCTION

Textiles in Minoan times were made of wool, flax and–possibly–silk (Barber 1991). An intact silk cocoon was found on Thera, and some carved seals depict moths. This may indicate the use of silk already in the Bronze Age. Still, wool was the major fibre in textile production. Analyses of animal bones from excavations of Minoan sites in Crete show that the majority of sheep bones belong to rather old animals. This suggests that sheep were kept for lambing, milk and wool, and only butchered at an old age (Militello 2007). At Thera, archaeo-zoological and palaeo-botanical analyses have shown that wool and flax were available on the island (Tzachili 2007).

Wool or flax fibres were prepared and spun with a drop spindle in the Bronze Age. This process was extremely time-consuming (Andersson and Nosch 2003). When enough thread had been produced, the thread was mounted on a warp-weighted loom. This flexible technology could be used for both plain and pattern weaving.

One would expect to find spindle whorls and loom weights at any Minoan site. Such textile tools are needed to cover even the most basic needs of a Bronze Age community. However, archaeologists encounter an intriguing situation: In Minoan Crete, loom weights are found in abundance, but the finds of spindle whorls are rare (Burke 1997, note 9). In order to weave with the loom weights, the Minoans would