Theme:
1. The Material Record: Current Trends and Future Directions
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Textile Records: Past, Present and Future of Textile-Related Artefacts Recording in the Mediterranean and beyond
Content:
Since always textiles have been a necessity for daily protection, social display, home furnishing, transportation, war logistics and various other purposes. Even though textiles only survive under extreme environmental conditions, many archaeological finds bear witness to these indispensable goods as well as to the craft itself. Finds such as fragmentary preserved fabrics, textiles mineralised on metal objects, carbonised fibres and textile imprints provide data on the quality and type of materials and techniques used to produce textiles in the past. In addition, a wealth of tools offers insights into the technologies used by prehistoric and ancient craftspeople to process the raw fibres into finished textile products.
Even though textiles were crucial to past societies, they are less represented in archaeological publications than other finds. One of the reasons for this could be their gender-specific character. For decades, they were thought to be the result of a modest domestic craft, mainly practised by women. Other reasons are the general lack of interest in the subject and the lack of knowledge about such objects. As a result, the publication of textiles and textile-related tools is still prone to confusion and misinterpretation.
Recent advances in the field of archaeological textiles provide good reasons for a reassessment of the old literature and for an in-depth analysis of how professionals in archaeology might approach and better publish textile-related artefacts in the future. We call on both archaeologists and textile experts to share their insights into the history of recording textile artefacts, and to suggest new methodologies to integrate these finds into general archaeological publications with the same consistency as other finds. We are also interested in producing, if possible, a short and comprehensive step-by-step guide with basic information on how to correctly record, describe, illustrate and publish textiles and textile tools in archaeology.
Keywords:
textile tools, textile fibers, loom weights, spindle whorls, recording of textiles, textile archaeology
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:
EAA community for Textile Archaeology and Conservation (ComTex)
Main organiser:
Alina Iancu (Romania) 1
Co-organisers:
Kalliope Sarri (Greece) 2
Affiliations:
1. National Institute of Heritage of Romania
2. University of Peloponnese
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