Theme:
1. Artefacts, Buildings & Ecofacts
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Weaving and Wearing Narratives of Identity. Production, Trade, and Consumption of Textiles and Personal Jewellery as Markers of Identities [ComTex]
Content:
In the ancient Mediterranean, people engaged in the production, trade, and consumption of a vast array of staple and luxury goods. The well-known case of the Phoenicians, who were both skilled producers and large-scale traders of many goods (i.e., ivory artefacts, metals, textiles, etc.), is a paradigmatic example of how production and trade could be formative aspects of social identity. In parallel, the consumption of valuable Phoenician products across the Mediterranean was a means of self-representation, cultural affiliation, and embodiment of specific social values.
The relationship between crafting and/or product consumption and social identity is particularly evident when it comes to textiles. Over the last 20 years, scholars have reflected on how social groups used textiles to forge, embody, and convey different identities, including cultural/ethnic ones. Nevertheless, this is not exclusive to textile production. Other ancient crafts show a similar entanglement between the producers, traders, and consumers. For instance, possessing and wearing jewellery was closely connected to identity and thereby a potential means through which individual and social identity could be expressed. At the same time, producing jewellery (i.e., pins, fibulae, necklaces, rings, etc.) or other kinds of artefacts to be worn (i.e., weapons) would have given the craftspeople a certain role in society, enabling them to build a work-related identity.
This interdisciplinary session wishes to bring together contributions with the main focus on all goods to be worn (textiles, jewellery, and weapons) through which social identity could be shaped and expressed. We welcome papers covering the period from prehistory to 1000 CE across the wider Mediterranean and Europe. The goal is to stimulate a broad discussion on the materiality and materialisation of ancient identities through the ‘production-exchange-consumption’ paradigm of these specific goods.
Keywords:
identity, textiles, artefacts to be worn, craft production, trade, consumption
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
ComTex
Main organiser:
Gabriella Longhitano (Italy) 1
Co-organisers:
Alistair Dickey (United Kingdom) 2
Giulia Muti (Cyprus) 3
Sarah Hitchens (United Kingdom) 4
Affiliations:
1. University of Catania
2. Independent Archaeologist
3. Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI)
4. University of Liverpool
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