Textiles and Dyes in the Mediterranean Economy and Society
Author: Maria Stella Busana
Publisher:
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 535
ISBN-13: 9788479561796
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Exploring Ancient Textiles
Author: Alistair Dickey
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2022-07-20
Total Pages: 452
ISBN-13: 1789257263
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOver the past 30 years, research on archaeological textiles has developed into an important field of scientific study. It has greatly benefited from interdisciplinary approaches, which combine the application of advanced technological knowledge to ethnographic, textual and experimental investigations. In exploring textiles and textile processing (such as production and exchange) in ancient societies, archaeologists with different types and quality of data have shared their knowledge, thus contributing to well-established methodology. In this book, the papers highlight how researchers have been challenged to adapt or modify these traditional and more recently developed analytical methods to enable extraction of comparable data from often recalcitrant assemblages. Furthermore, they have applied new perspectives and approaches to extend the focus on less investigated aspects and artefacts. The chapters embrace a broad geographical and chronological area, ranging from South America and Europe to Africa, and from the 11th millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD. Methodological considerations are explored through the medium of three different themes focusing on tools, textiles and fibres, and culture and identity. This volume constitutes a reflection on the status of current methodology and its applicability within the wider textile field. Moreover, it drives forward the methodological debates around textile research to generate new and stimulating conversations about the future of textile archaeology.
Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective
Author: Agata Ulanowska
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2022-04-29
Total Pages: 336
ISBN-13: 3030921700
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe diverse developments in textile research of the last decade, along with the increased recognition of the importance of textile studies in adjacent fields, now merit a dedicated, full-length publication entitled “Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Humanities and Natural Sciences Interwoven for our Understanding of Textiles”. With this volume, the authors and the editors wish to illustrate to the current impact of textile archaeology on the scholarly perception of the past (not limited to archaeology alone). The volume presents new insights into the consumption, meaning, use and re-use of textiles and dyes, all of which are topics of growing importance in textile research. As indicated by the title, we demonstrate the continued importance of interdisciplinarity by showcasing several ‘interwoven’ approaches to environmental and archaeological remains, textual and iconographic sources, archaeological experiments and ethnographic data, from a large area covering Europe and the Mediterranean, Near East, Africa and Asia. The chronological span is deliberately wide, including materials dating from c. 6th millennium BCE to c. mid-14th century CE. The volume is organised in four parts that aim to reflect the main areas of the textile research in 2020. After the two introductory chapters (Part I: About this Volume and Textile Research in 2020), follow two chapters referring to dyes and dyeing technology in which analytical and material-based studies are linked to contextual sources (Part II: Interdisciplinarity of Colour: Dye Analyses and Dyeing Technologies). The six chapters of Part III: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Textile Tools discuss textiles and textile production starting from the analyses of tools, whether functional or as representative of technological developments or user identity. Archaeological and cultural contexts as well as textile traditions are the main topics of the six chapters in Part IV: Traditions and Contexts: Fibres, Fabrics, Techniques, Uses and Meanings. The two final chapters in Part V: Digital Tools refer to the use of digital tools in textile research, presenting two different case studies.
Textiles in Ancient Mediterranean Iconography
Author: Susanna Harris
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2022-02-03
Total Pages: 406
ISBN-13: 1789257220
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume provides an ambitious synopsis of the complex, colourful world of textiles in ancient Mediterranean iconography. A wealth of information on ancient textiles is available from depictions such as sculpture, vase painting, figurines, reliefs and mosaics. Commonly represented in clothing, textiles are also present in furnishings and through the processes of textile production. The challenge for anyone analysing ancient iconography is determining how we interpret what we see. As preserved textiles rarely survive in comparable forms, we must consider the extent to which representations of textiles reflect reality, and critically evaluate the sources. Images are not simple replicas or photographs of reality. Instead, iconography draws on select elements from the surrounding world that were recognisable to the ancient audience, and reveal the perceptions, ideologies, and ideas of the society in which they were produced. Through examining the durable evidence, this anthology reveals the ephemeral world of textiles and their integral role in the daily life, cult and economy of the ancient Mediterranean.
Textiles and Gender in Antiquity
Author: Mary Harlow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-11-12
Total Pages: 328
ISBN-13: 135014150X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume looks at how the issues of textiles and gender intertwine across three millennia in antiquity and examines continuities and differences across time and space – with surprising resonances for the modern world. The interplay of gender, identity, textile production and use is notable on many levels, from the question of who was involved in the transformation of raw materials into fabric at one end, to the wearing of garments and the construction of identity at the other. Textile production has often been considered to follow a linear trajectory from a domestic (female) activity to a more 'commercial' or 'industrial' (male-centred) mode of production. In reality, many modes of production co-existed and the making of textiles is not so easily grafted onto the labour of one sex or the other. Similarly, textiles once transformed into garments are often of 'unisex' shape but worn to express the gender of the wearer. As shown by the detailed textual source material and the rich illustrations in this volume, dress and gender are intimately linked in the visual and written records of antiquity. The contributors show how it is common practice in both art and literature not only to use particular garments to characterize one sex or the other, but also to undermine characterizations by suggesting that they display features usually associated with the opposite gender.
Chalkis Aitolias II
Author: Sanne Houby-Nielsen
Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag
Published: 2020-07-24
Total Pages: 503
ISBN-13: 8772191740
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHomeric Chalkis is situated on the coast of Aetolia at the very ‘gateway’ of the Gulf of Patras. The foundation occurred during an important period in early Greek history when trade and movement of peoples along the Gulf intensified with a resulting strong pull to the coast. Well-preserved stratigraphies date the foundation to the early seventh century BC and testify to a flourishing settlement in the sixth century lasting till the early fifth century BC when the site was temporarily given up. Walls and roads follow a rectilinear layout. A broad spectre of pottery shapes and wares attest to innovative local and regional workshops already from the onset of the settlement. Alongside the pottery, tools for complex textile manufacture were found in all houses, among which were many small, pyramidal loom weights and spools. These findings indicated a high degree of experimental weaving techniques and demonstrated how the courtyard house, as a new house model, was particularly well suited to accommodate this manufacture, probably mantels. The results therefore offer important new evidence on relations between gender behaviour and Greek houses. The catalogue is richly illustrated with profile drawings, plans, black-and- white and colour photos and accompanied by discussions of the material.
Reframing the Roman Economy
Author: Dimitri Van Limbergen
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2022-11-17
Total Pages: 423
ISBN-13: 3031062817
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book focuses on those features of the Roman economy that are less traceable in text and archaeology, and as a consequence remain largely underexplored in contemporary scholarship. By reincorporating, for the first time, these long-obscured practices in mainstream scholarly discourses, this book offers a more complete and balanced view of an economic system that for too long has mostly been studied through its macro-economic and large-scale – and thus archaeologically and textually omnipresent – aspects. The topic is approached in five thematic sections, covering unusual actors and perspectives, unusual places of production, exigent landscapes of exploitation, less-visible products and artefacts, and divergent views on emblematic economic spheres. To this purpose, the book brings together a select group of leading scholars and promising early career researchers in archaeology and ancient economic history, well positioned to steer this ill-developed but fundamental field of the Roman economy in promising new directions.
Values and Revaluations
Author: Hans Peter Hahn
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2022-03-24
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13: 1789258146
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy are some things valuable while others are not? How much effort does it take to produce valuable objects? How can one explain the different appraisal of certain things in different temporal horizons and in different cultures? Cultural processes on how value is attached to things, and how value is re-established, are still little understood. The case studies in this volume, originating from anthropology and archaeology, provide innovative and differentiated answers to these questions. However, for all contributions there are some common basic assumptions. One of these concerns the understanding that it is rarely the value of the material itself that matters for high valuation, but rather the appreciation of the (assumed or constructed) origin of certain objects or their connection with certain social structures. A second of these shared insights addresses the ubiquity of phenomena of 'value in things'. There is no society without valued objects. As a rule, valuation is something negotiated or even disputed. Value arises through social action, whereby it is always necessary to ask anew which actors are interested in the value of certain objects (or in their appreciation). This also works the other way round: Who are those actors who question corresponding objective values and why?
Textiles in Motion
Author: Audrey Gouy
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2023-05-04
Total Pages: 462
ISBN-13: 1789257999
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people. As such, dress transcends how it is seen visually to address what is being communicated. Nonetheless, studies in ancient dance have rarely taken clothing into consideration. Therefore, this publication gathers articles that give new perspectives and insights on ancient dances and their ancient textiles. Comprehension of ancient dance benefits from investigations undertaken through the lens of dress. And research on ancient dress is understood through its relation to body movement and performative rituals, thus reinforcing the progressive integration of an anthropological and sociological dimension into historical analysis of ancient textiles. For the first time, the two-way transfer of knowledge between dance studies and costume studies is connected via an innovative approach. Among the issues that are specifically addressed are the movement design of dress for dance, its sensory experience, gender and identity, reenactment and reception. The chronological range of the publication is limited to the ancient world (3rd millennium BC to 5th century AD), and the geographical definition is meant to be broad in order to promote a comparative approach and cross-cultural dialogue, as well as discourse between fields and disciplines.
Textile Activity and Cultural Identity in Sicily Between the Late Bronze Age and Archaic Period
Author: Gabriella Longhitano
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2021-06-30
Total Pages: 192
ISBN-13: 178925602X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKClothing was an essential part of material culture in ancient societies both as a form of body protection and as house equipment. Besides a practical function, textiles played a crucial role in communicating various aspects of social and personal identity. Based largely on the analysis of textile tools, this book is intended to be the first systematic attempt at reconstructing textile culture in ancient Sicily. Textile implements represent the most abundant category of evidence for textile activity in Sicily and in this book they are used as a means to explore the social dynamics within cultural interactions in the final Bronze–Iron Age and Archaic Sicily. The book begins with an overview of the cultural complexity of communities in Sicily and the Aeolian islands, focusing on two crucial periods of Sicilian history, which are characterised by intense movements of peoples from the Italian peninsula and the establishment of Greek and Phoenician settlements. Through the investigation of textile tools, the book discusses several key aspects, including technological features of textile technology and production, knowledge transfer, networks of weavers, as well as the social significance of textile activity. By employing an interdisciplinary perspective, this book is important not only for textile specialists but also for scholars and students dealing with culturally hybrid frameworks of ancient Sicily and provides a springboard for future studies on textile culture and cultural interactions in the ancient world.
