Quick Search

 
All Fields Title Author Description ISBN
or
Browse by Subject

Find Us on Facebook!

Sale Bargains &
Special Offers

Distributed Titles

Current Catalogs and Leaflets
Take advantage of our latest offers

Information on Shipping Charges

Damaged Books

Conference Timetable

Request Catalogues

Ancient Textiles: Production, Crafts and Society

edited by Carole Gillis and Marie-Louise B Nosch

An understanding of textiles and the role they played in the past is important for anyone interested in past societies. Textiles served - and in fact still do - as both functional and symbolic items. The evidence for ancient textiles in Europe is split quite definitely along a north-south divide, with an abundance of actual examples in the north, but precious little in the south, where indirect evidence comes from such things as vase painting and frescoes. This volume brings together these two schools to look in more detail at textiles in the ancient world, and is based on a conference held in Denamrk and Sweden in March 2003. Section one, Production and Organisation , takes a chronological look through more than four thousand years of history, from Syria in the mid-third millennium BC, to Seventeenth Century Germany. Section two, Crafts and Technology , focuses on the relationship between the primary producer (the craftsman) and the secondary receiver (the
archaeologist/conservator). The third section, Society, examines the symbolic nature of textiles, and their place within ancient societal groups. Throughout the book emphasis is placed on the universality of textiles, and the importance of information exchange between scholars from different disciplines. 296p,Bb/w and color illus. (Oxbow Books 2007)

Review Quote

"It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to all fifty contributors to this volume, but their number and their variety of expertise should alert the reader to the plethora of information contained here.(...)This interaction makes textile studies, in this volume and among this group of scholars and craftspeople at least, a model of academic practice."

Mary Harlow, University of Birmingham
Medieval Clothing and Textiles , vol 14 (2008)

Table of Contents

Introduction (Carole Gillis and Marie-Louise B. Nosch)
Part 1: Introduction to Textiles: Background, Studies and Application
Methodological Introduction (John Peter Wild)
The World According to Textiles (Lise Bender Jørgensen)
The Academic Craftsman – a Discussion on Knowledge of Craft in Textile Research (Martin Ciszuk)
Part 2: Production and Organization
Textile Tools and Production during the Viking Age (Eva B. Andersson)
Spinning and Weaving at Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Syria): Some Observations on Spindle-Whorls and Loom-Weights from the Bronze and Iron Ages (Luca Peyronel)
Textile Industry and Minoan Palaces (Pietro Militello)
Flax and Linen Textiles in the Mycenaean Palatial Economy ( Françoise Rougemont)
Cloth Production in Late Bronze Age Greece: the Documentary Evidence (John T. Killen)
Washing and Dyeing Installations of the Ancient Mediterranean: towards a Definition from Roman Times back to Minoan Crete (Maria Emanuela Alberti)
The Kingdom of Midas and Royal Cloth Production ( Brendan Burke)
Textile Production in Proto-historic Italy: from Specialists to Workshops (Margarita Gleba)
Textiles from the 1st Century CE in Jerusalem – a Preliminary Report (Orit Shamir)
Artifacts Related to Preparation of Wool and Textile Processing Found Inside the Terrace Houses of Ephesus, Turkey (Elisabeth Trinkl)
'Dyeing' in Ancient Italy? Evidence for the purpurarii (Lisa Hughes)
Local Cloth Production in Medieval Turku, Finland (Heini Kirjavainen)
Woollen Textiles in Archaeological Finds and Descriptions in Written Sources of the 14th to 18th Centuries (Klaus Tidow & Eva Jordan-Fahrbrach)
Part 3: Craft and Technology
'Translating' Archaeological Textiles (Lise Ræder Knudsen)
The Use of Wool for the Production of Strings, Ropes, Braided Mats, and Similar Fabrics (Hartmuth Waetzoldt)
Under Canvas (Susan Möller-Wiering)
Similarities and distinctions of Minoan and Mycenaean Textiles (Edith Trnka)
Re-considering Alum on the Linear B Tablets (Richard Firth)
Late Roman and Byzantine Linen Tunics in the Louvre Museum (Roberta Cortopassi)
Looped-Pile Textiles in the Benaki Museum (Athens) (Sofia Tsourinaki)
A Medieval Georgian Textile in the Benaki Museum (Athens): the sakkos of the Antiochene Patriarch with Georgian Embroidery (Irine Nikoleishvili & Eliso Akhvlediani)
The Llangorse Textile: Approaches to Understanding an Early Medieval Masterpiece (Louise Mumford, Heather Prosser & Julie Taylor)
A Study of Textile Remains from the 5th Century BC Discovered in Kalyvia, Attica (Christophe Moulherat & Youlie Spantidaki)
Ancieent Textile Evidence in Soil Structures at the Agora Excavations in Athens, Greece (Julie Unruh)
Part 4: Society
Weaving the Social Fabric (Elizabeth J. W. Barber)
Invisable Exports in Aratta: Enmerkar and the Three Tasks (Irene Good)
Textile Production at Pseira: the Knotted Net (Philip P. Betancourt)
Weaving at Akrotiti, Thera. Defining Cloth-making Activities as a Social Process in a Late Bronze Age Aegean Town (Iris Tzachili)
Can a Textile Tradition Survive? The rebozo in a Changing Society (Yosi Anaya)
Political Affinities and Economic Fluctuations: the Evidence from Textiles (Nettie K. Adams)
Clothing Patterns as Constructs of the Human Mind: Establishment and Continuity (elizabeth Wincott Heckett)
Picture in textili on Shoulder Busts in Hellenistic Sicily? (Antonella Pautasso)
Spinning in the Roman World: from Everyday Craft to Metaphor of Destiny (Daniela Cottica)
Wool Work as a Gender Symbol in Ancient Rome. Roman Textiles and Ancient Sources (Lena Larsson Lovén)
Christian Influences and Symbols of Power in Textiles from Viking Age Denmark. Christian Influence from the Continent (Anne Hedeager Krag)
APPENDIX: First Aid for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles
Guidelines for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles (Jana Jones, Julie Unruh, Regina Knaller, Irene Skals, Lise Ræder Knudsen, Eva Jordan-Fahrbach, Louise Mumford)
Use of Digital Camera for Documentation of Textiles (Annemette Buselius Scharff)

Related Titles

• First Aid for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles
  edited by Carole Gillis and Marie-Louise B Nosch

• Dressing the Past
  edited by Margarita Gleba, Cherine Munkholt and Marie-Louise Nosch

• Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy
  by Margarita Gleba

• Textiles, Carpets and Costumes
  by Michael Franses and others

• North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles X
  edited by Eva B. Andersson Strand, Margarita Gleba, Ulla Mannering, Cherine Munkholt and Maj Ringgard

• The Medieval Broadcloth: Changing Trends in Fashions, Manufacturing and Consumption
  edited by Kathrine Vestergard Pedersen and Marie-Louise B. Nosch

• From Minos to Midas: Ancient Cloth Production in the Aegean and in Anatolia
  by Brendan Burke

• Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennnia BC
  edited by C. Michel and M.L. Nosch

Browse other Textiles and Weaving books

Browse other Europe books