Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

Author: Agata Ulanowska

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-04-29

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 3030921700

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The 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.


Exploring Ancient Textiles

Exploring Ancient Textiles

Author: Alistair Dickey

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2022-07-20

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 1789257263

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Over 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.


The Textile Revolution in Bronze Age Europe

The Textile Revolution in Bronze Age Europe

Author: Serena Sabatini

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1108493599

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Discusses both the revolutionary cultural, social, and economic impact of Bronze Age textile production in Europe and innovative methodologies for future studies.


The Hammerum Burial Site

The Hammerum Burial Site

Author: Ulla Mannering

Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag

Published: 2019-09-02

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 8793423381

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Hammerum Burial Site is the story of a burial site told by more than 20 academics; a fascinating combination of different archaeological and scientific studies analyzing individuals, objects and context from different angles. The site was named after the small modern-day town of Hammerum, 5 km east of Herning in the central part of Jutland, Denmark. As early as 1993 the museum investigated this burial site, where seven inhumation graves emerged within a small area, most of which turned out to be empty of finds. Three of the graves did turn out, however, to contain well preserved organic material, so they were removed as block samples in large wooden crates with a view to later excavation. Thanks to a grant in 2009 from the Danish Cultural Agency's special pool for the conservation of objects of unique national importance (the ENB pool) a collaboration between the museum, the Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Textile Research and the Conservation Centre in Vejle began. These analyses show that grave 83 - known as the Hammerum girls grave - was a sensation. All that remain of the deceased was her hair and her dress, but it was the best-preserved Danish Iron Age textile from an inhumation grave. Therefore, it offers an unique opportunity to analyse an object which in most cases has disappeared. The analysis tells us an extraordinarily nuanced archaeological story of daily life and of pan-European 'slow fashion': a dress used in everyday life, produced by carefully choosing fine fibres which, together with the coiffure refers to a style recognizable throughout Europe and worn by a mobile, well-groomed, well-connected Iron Age female. Moreover, the preserved organic material permits us a rare glimpse of the grief of the bereaved. We can see how they carefully wrapped the Hammerum Girl in skin and put blueberry twigs under her head before laying her to rest - an act of compassion and mourning.


Crafting Textiles

Crafting Textiles

Author: Frances Pritchard

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2021-10-13

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1789257603

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

New research into the techniques of tablet weaving, sprang, braiding, knotting and lace is presented in this lavishly illustrated volume written by leading specialists from Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and USA. Drawing inspiration from the pioneering work of Peter Collingwood, this publication explores aspects of these craft skills in the prehistoric, Roman, and medieval world through scientific, object-based analysis and 'research through making'. Chapters include the growth of patterned tablet weaving for trimming garments in prehistoric Central Europe; recently identified styles of headdress worn in the Roman Rhineland and pre-Islamic Egypt; Viking-age Dublin as a production center for tablet-woven bands; a new interpretation of the weaving technique used to make luxurious gold bands in the twelfth to late thirteenth centuries; and the development out of plaiting of bobbin lace borders in gold and silver threads from the fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Practical experiments test methods of hand spinning and the production of figure-hugging hose in ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy. A typology of braid and knotting structures in late medieval Europe is also set out for the first time. Diagrams, illustrations, and photographs enrich each chapter with a wealth of visual source material. The work is the outcome of recent discoveries of archaeological textile finds from excavations as well as fresh examination of material recovered in the past, or preserved in treasuries. Early textiles form an increasingly popular subject of interest and this publication, which is a landmark in the study of various specialized textile techniques, aims to provide the reader with a better understanding of these virtuoso craft skills in antiquity.


Investigations into the Dyeing Industry in Pompeii

Investigations into the Dyeing Industry in Pompeii

Author: Heather Hopkins Pepper

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2022-03-03

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1789697433

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The scale of processing associated with the dyeing industry in Pompeii is a controversial subject. This investigation uses a new multi-disciplinary triangulated approach, providing an understanding of the significance of the industry that is grounded in engineering and archaeological principles, but within the context of Pompeii.


Medieval Clothing and Textiles

Medieval Clothing and Textiles

Author: Robin Netherton

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1783270020

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A wide-ranging and varied collection of essays which examine surviving garments, methods of production and clothes in society. The second decade of this acclaimed and popular series begins with a volume that will be essential reading for historians and re-enactors alike. Two papers consider cloth manufacture in the early medieval period: Ingvild Øye examines the graves of prosperous Viking Age women from Western Norway which contained both textile-making tools and the remains of cloth, considering the relationship between the two. Karen Nicholson compliments this with practical experiments in spinning. This is followed by Tina Anderlini's close examination of the details of cut and construction of a thirteenth-century chemise attributed to King Louis IX of France (St Louis), out of its shrine for the firsttime since 1970. Three papers consider fashionable clothing and morality: Sarah-Grace Heller discusses sumptuary legislation from Angevin Sicily in the 1290s which sought to restrict men's dress at a time when preparation for war was more important than showy clothes; Cordelia Warr examines the dire consequences of a woman dressing extravagantly as portrayed in a fourteenth-century Italian fresco; and Emily Rozier discusses the extremes of dress attributed by moral and satirical writers to the men known as "galaunts". Two textual studies then show the importance of textiles in daily life. Susan Powell reveals the austere but magnificent purchases made on behalf of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, in the last ten years of her life (1498-1509); Anna Riehl Bertolet discusses in detail the passage in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream where Helena passionately recalls sewinga sampler with Hermia when they were young and still bosom friends.


Hallstatt Textiles

Hallstatt Textiles

Author: Peter Bichler

Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In 2004 the Austrian village of Hallstatt hosted the first Symposium on Hallstatt textiles, the proceedings of which are published here. Divided into three sections, the detailed and well-illustrated papers focus on material recovered from sites in Hallstatt itself, discuss the results of experimental archaeology and consider textile evidence from neighbouring Iron Age and La T ne sites in, for example, Italy, Slovakia and Moravia. The papers are all presented in both English and German and are followed by colour photographs of some of these remarkable and complex pieces of cloth.


The Human Body in Early Iron Age Central Europe

The Human Body in Early Iron Age Central Europe

Author: Katharina Rebay-Salisbury

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-08

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1351998722

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Identities and social relations are fundamental elements of societies. To approach these topics from a new and different angle, this study takes the human body as the focal point of investigation. It tracks changing identities of early Iron Age people in central Europe through body-related practices: the treatment of the body after death and human representations in art. The human remains themselves provide information on biological parameters of life, such as sex, biological age, and health status. Objects associated with the body in the grave and funerary practices give further insights on how people of the early Iron Age understood life and death, themselves, and their place in the world. Representations of the human body appear in a variety of different materials, forms, and contexts, ranging from ceramic figurines to images on bronze buckets. Rather than focussing on their narrative content, human images are here interpreted as visualising and mediating identity. The analysis of how image elements were connected reveals networks of social relations that connect central Europe to the Mediterranean. Body ideals, nudity, sex and gender, aging, and many other aspects of women’s and men’s lives feature in this book. Archaeological evidence for marriage and motherhood, war, and everyday life is brought together to paint a vivid picture of the past.


Worlds Full of Signs

Worlds Full of Signs

Author: Kim Beerden

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-08-08

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 900425630X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Worlds Full of Signs compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome. It argues that the character of Greek divination differed fundamentally from that of the two comparanda. Ample attention is given to background and method at first. Subsequent chapters discuss the divinatory elements – sign, homo divinans, and text, relating divination to time and uncertainty. This book brings together sources originating from various times and places, questioning these to consider both generalities of ancient divination and specifics of Greek divination. Greek divination was inherently flexible on many levels: these findings should be connected to Greek views on time and the future as well as the relatively low level of divinatory institutionalization.