Organised by Dr. E. Andersson Strand and Prof. Marie-Louise Nosch
The Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research,
University of Copenhagen
nosch@hum.ku.dk
evaandersson@hum.ku.dk
Location: Room 612 (6th floor) of the Institute of Archaeology, UCL.
Time: Friday 16th April
| Time | Name | Paper Title |
|---|---|---|
| 09.20 | Nosch & Andersson Strand | Introduction |
| 09.30 | Rooijakkers | Spinning Animal Fibres at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad? |
| 09.55 | Fischer | Textile tools, Abu al-Kharaz, Jordan |
| 10.20 | Levy et al | The Adoption of Textile Economy in the Southern Levant during the Chalcolithic Period (ca. 4,500-4,000 B.C.E.) |
| 10.45 | COFFEE | COFFEE |
| 11.15 | Andersson Strand | Textile production, tools and technology |
| 11.40 | Besana | The Warp Weighted Loom in the Northern Levant. New data from the Syrian-Italian Excavations at Tell Mishrifeh. |
| 12.05 | Wisti Lassen | Weaving with crescent shaped loom weight |
| 12.30 | Mazow | Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Innovations in Mediterranean Textile Production at the End of the 2nd/Beginning of the 1st Millennium BCE |
| 12.55 | LUNCH | LUNCH |
| 14.00 | Nosch & Andersson Strand | Introduction |
| 14.05 | Reifarth | The textiles from the royal tomb of Qatna and their importance for archaeological research |
| 14.30 | Baccelli | The symbolic meaning of the textile in the 2nd millennium B.C., with reference to the evidence in the Royal Tomb of Qatna. |
| 14.55 | Nosch | Textile production in Bronze Age palace economies |
| 15.20 | Yasur-Landau et al | Textile Production in Palatial and Non-palatial contexts: The case of Tel Kabri |
| 15.45 | COFFEE | COFFEE |
| 16.15 | Peyronel & Pinnock | Court Attires in Early Syrian Ebla, Technological Observations & Textual and Iconographic Evidence |
| 16.40 | Good | Changes in Fiber use and Spinning Technologies on the Iranian Plateau: A Comparative and Diachronic Study of Spindle Whorls ca. 4500-2500 BCE |
| 17.05 | Sauvage | Spinning from old threads: Schaeffer collection from Ugarit at Saint Germain en Laye (France). |
| 17.30 | Boertien | Relations; The weights of the warp-weighted loom from Tell Deir 'Alla |
| 18.00 | Smith | Tapestries in the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Ancient Near East |
Workshop Description:
Textile is attested for more than 10,000 years in the Ancient Near East. However, during Bronze Age textile production developed from household production to standardised, industrialised, centralised production. The development of dye industries, colour extraction and the intensive use of colour symbolism in dress demonstrate that shepherds were using selective breeding in order to obtain a variety of wool colours and qualities. During this same period, the palace economies lead to an intensification and standardisation of textile production, as testified in the extensive records on production management, tools, glyptic, frescoes and relief iconography. It is thus important to analyse and discuss the parameters of the technology and the development of this intensive, industry-like production of textiles, its impact on society, and how textile tools and technology developed in this period. In the quasi–absence of the textiles themselves, it is necessary to investigate other remains of textile production, such as depictions, archaeological contexts and textile tools. The workshop combines several approaches: textile tool studies, experimental testing, iconographical studies, and context studies. The aim is first and foremost to raise awareness of the existence of textiles in these early periods. The workshop will discuss backgrounds for the introduction of textiles in the Ancient Near East; it will search for the spread and strategies for tools, fibres and techniques, and the evolution of textile tools in various regions. This raises the question of how textile technologies have influenced the development of other, later technologies. The development of garments, social aspects of clothing and the environmental conditions and their relationship with the development of clothing is other aspects that have importance even today. As the overall outcome, the network will aim at answering how textile production influenced the early societies.
Workshop Abstracts
Textile production, tools and technology
Dr Eva Andersson Strand (The Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen)
Producing a textile includes many steps: fibre preparation, spinning, loom set up, weaving and finishing. Furthermore, many decisions have to be made: what type of fibres to use and how they should be prepared, what type of yarn and of what quality, what type of weaving technique etc. The choices are unlimited and depend on the result you wish to obtain and what the finished textile will be used for. Several types of textile tools are necessary for this textile chaîne opératoire. In this presentation I will discuss the possibilities and limitations of the interpretation of textile production from the presence and absence of finds of textile tools from archaeological excavations in Bronze Age Mediterranean sites. Producing a textile includes many steps: fibre preparation, spinning, loom set up, weaving and finishing. Furthermore, many decisions have to be made: what type of fibres to use and how they should be prepared, what type of yarn and of what quality, what type of weaving technique etc. The choices are unlimited and depend on the result you wish to obtain and what the finished textile will be used for. Several types of textile tools are necessary for this textile chaîne opératoire. In this presentation I will discuss the possibilities and limitations of the interpretation of textile production from the presence and absence of finds of textile tools from archaeological excavations in Bronze Age Mediterranean sites.
The symbolic meaning of the textile in the II millennium B.C, with reference to the evidence in the Royal Tomb of Qatna.
Miss Guilia Baccelli (Doctoral student, University of Tübingen)
This essay is part of an ongoing work aiming to outline the various meanings and the index of prestige textiles have been representative of during of 2nd millennium B.C. in Syria. To this purpose, evaluations of the raw materials and the study of production techniques, such as the spinning and the weaving up to the finished product, will be employed as the main analytical tools, along with a review of the written and iconographic documentation existing for the period under discussion. The Paper will focus mainly on sources datable to the Syrian 2nd millennium B.C., although some otherwise significant examples, not contemporary, will be cited when necessary. The final aim is to understand the various meanings of textiles in particular the symbolic one, in close relationship with the archaeological findings of the Royal Tomb of Qatna.
The Warp Weighted Loom in the Northern Levant. New data from the Syrian-Italian Excavations at Tell Mishrifeh.
Mr Riccardo Besana (Doctoral student, Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy)
The recent Syrian-Italian excavations at Tell Mishrifeh, the Middle and Late Bronze Age Qatna, yielded an interesting corpus of spinning and weaving tools. In particular, about 250 loom weights were found. Although the majority of them pertained to Iron Age II and III contexts, the warp-weighted loom appeared at Tell Mishrifeh a long time before. In fact, a small number of these artifacts was unearthed in the Middle Bronze Age levels of the "Eastern Palace". The loom weights from Tell Mishrifeh were mainly discovered in situ. This characteristic is particularly relevant for the artisanal quarter dug in Operation H-T1. Here loom weights were associated with other textile related tools as bone spatulas and spindle whorls and with plastered installation possibly devoted to fulling or dyeing. Loom weights found in the Iron Age levels present different typologies. This feature, associated with a chronological perspective, stresses the technological changes that, in this period, occurred to the warp weighted loom. In fact, Iron Age II layers yielded a great number of reel-shaped loom weights together with some troncoconical and bell-shaped, while in the following Iron Age III the doughnut-shaped specimens were predominant. This paper will discuss the corpus of loom weights from Tell Mishrifeh considering their typological, quantitative, contextual and chronological aspect. It will attempt to establish connections with finds from other Levantine sites in order to shed more light on changes of warp-weighted loom weaving techniques.
Relations; The weights of the warp-weighted loom from Tell Deir 'Alla
Mrs Jeannette Boertien (University of Groningen)
Loom weights are an interesting artifact to trace the use of the warp-weighted loom. The warp weighted loom is a western invention that traveled all over Europe and via Greece and Anatolia into the Levant to form the base for a strong Levantine textile tradition. Until a few years ago by 'loom weights' we generally understood rounded or conical terracotta or stone weights, which however had a hole from which they could be suspended. It is only recently that terracotta objects in the form of reels/spools have began to be recognized as loom weights. These weights from Syria form the missing link in the journey of the warp-weighted loom (Cecchini 2000) from Europe, via Greece (Cyprus) and Anatolia to Syria and into the Levant. The perforated clay loom weights from Tell Deir 'Alla in the Jordan Valley show an interesting link to the material from Syria. A small piece of textile reveals what kind of textile was produced on the warp-weighted loom in this region. But did they use reels /spools in the Jordan Valley?
Textile tools, Abu al-Kharaz, Jordan
Prof Peter M. Fischer (Gothenburg University, SCIEM 2000/Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)
Excavations at Tall Abu al-Kharaz in the Central Jordan Valley produced substantial evidence of textile production from the Early Bronze Age IB to the Iron Age II, viz. from roughly 3100 to 600 BC. Looms, spindle whorls, loom weights, awls and other textile-production-related tools have been found in large numbers. Outstanding amongst these finds are the remains of two wooden, vertical, warp-weighted looms and numerous textile-production-related tools from a burned down house from Early Bronze Age II, i.e. from around 3000 BC. The importance of textile production and the differences in textile-production-related tools between the three main periods at the site are discussed.
Changes in Fiber use and Spinning Technologies on the Iranian Plateau: A Comparative and Diachronic Study of Spindle Whorls ca. 4500-2500 BCE
Prof Irene Good (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA)
Spindle whorls are a ubiquitous artifact, yet can often be elusive in their interpretation. Nomenclature inconsistencies make comparative studies challenging, and lack of information or detail on primary context can compromise efforts to reconstruct the organization of textile production. Given these limitations, several important technical studies of spindle whorls have recently appeared in the literature, allowing a broad comparative study to take place for the Iranian Plateau. This paper examines whorls from several sites, from Sarazm in northwestern Tajikistan to Cheshmeh Ali in north-central Iran, from the mid-fifth to the later third millennium BCE, to find broad trends in spinning technology over time and across space. Insights from ethnoarchaeological studies and from analysis of enigmatic artifacts often associated with spindle whorls in this region raises several questions, namely does a unique spinning toolkit exist? Is there a marked change in spinning after the use of wool became widespread, and if so is this visible in corresponding changes in the form, weight and material of whorls? Finally, what can be said about the notion of spindle whorls being a marker of identity on the Iranian Plateau?
The Adoption of Textile Economy in the Southern Levant during the Chalcolithic Period (ca. 4,500-4,000 B.C.E.)
Ms Janet Levy and Prof Isaac Gilead (Ben Gurion University of the Negev)
Formative spinning in the Southern Levant in the Pre pottery Neolithic was carried out without mechanical aids. The gradual adoption during the Neolithic period with crude whorls, initially of stone and subsequently of fired clay led to qualitative and quantitative improvements in yarn production. The evolution of the hand spinning process, culminated during the Chalcolithic period with the universal acceptance of lightweight, discoid, sherd whorls and the dropped spinning technique. Experimentation in western Asia during the Pre Pottery Neolithic period with flaxen yarn gave rise to labour intensive, utilitarian fabrics in twined and soumak technique and decorative and looped structures primarily restricted to loci of ideology (e.g. Nahal Hemar). Darning, the only technique suitable for mechanization, gave rise during the Pre Pottery Neolithic period to various tensioning devices, initially with shed rod only and ultimately with heddle technology. During the course of the 5th millennium the convergence of rapidly spun, uniform yarn, the development of heddle technology, access to adequate supplies of raw material and the appropriate economic environment led to the adoption of the textile economy. The technology was grafted onto and integrated into the subsistence regime of the Ghassulian villages and hamlets of the Southern Levant. Textiles, all linen, no longer restricted to loci of ideology became a quotidian element of domestic reality.However, the sited with the largest fibre tool and product repertoires, those of the northern Negev and the Judean Desert, are beyond the cultivation range of rain-fed flax. The presence of innovative tools in Jordan Valley sites and classical references to the concentration of flax cultivation in this region, suggests that this was the axis of dissemination of both technology and raw materials. Low intensity barter existed between the cultivators and the consumers, possibly and probably via the intermediaries, themselves consumers: the Chalcolithic communities which inhabited either seasonally or permanently the caves of the Judean Desert.
Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Innovations in Mediterranean Textile Production at the End of the 2nd/Beginning of the 1st Millennium BCE
Dr Laura B. Mazow (East Carolina University)
Bathtubs, which appear in Cyprus and the southern Levant in the 12th century BCE, have usually been interpreted as basins used for bathing and/or purification rituals. A review of their find-spots, however, demonstrates that 'bathtubs' are often found in industrial locations. The discovery of a 'bathtub' in association with a variety of weaving instruments at the Philistine site of Tel Miqne-Ekron suggests that some of these large tubs may have functioned within the manufacture and production of textiles. In this paper I present evidence suggesting that bathtubs were used for fulling wool, a specialized craft which begins in the Late Bronze Age, in association with a number of new weaving technologies. The identification of fulling in the archaeological record of the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages corresponds with a suite of other innovations in textile technologies that appear at this time in the Eastern Mediterranean basin and reflect changes in both textile manufacture and scale of production
Textile production in Bronze Age palace economies
Prof Marie-Louise Nosch (The Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen)
Producing a textile includes many steps: fibre preparation, spinning, loom set up, weaving and finishing. Furthermore, many decisions have to be made: what type of fibres to use and how they should be prepared, what type of yarn and of what quality, what type of weaving technique etc. The choices are unlimited and depend on the result you wish to obtain and what the finished textile will be used for. Several types of textile tools are necessary for this textile chaîne opératoire. In this presentation I will discuss the possibilities and limitations of the interpretation of textile production from the presence and absence of finds of textile tools from archaeological excavations in Bronze Age Mediterranean sites. Producing a textile includes many steps: fibre preparation, spinning, loom set up, weaving and finishing. Furthermore, many decisions have to be made: what type of fibres to use and how they should be prepared, what type of yarn and of what quality, what type of weaving technique etc. The choices are unlimited and depend on the result you wish to obtain and what the finished textile will be used for. Several types of textile tools are necessary for this textile chaîne opératoire. In this presentation I will discuss the possibilities and limitations of the interpretation of textile production from the presence and absence of finds of textile tools from archaeological excavations in Bronze Age Mediterranean sites.
Court Attires in Early Syrian Ebla, Technological Observations & Textual and Iconographic Evidence
Dr Luca Peyronel and Prof Frances Pinnock (Universita di Roma)
The intervention will present an attempt at reconstructing the different types of ceremonial dresses in use in Early Syrian Ebla for the king, officers, and court ladies, as well as all the possible informations concerning spinning, weaving, and clothes making which may be inferred from the textual and visual evidence, and from the archaeological datum.
Luca.Peyronel@iulm.it
frances.pinnock@uniroma1.it
The textiles from the royal tomb of Qatna and their importance for archaeological research
Mrs Nicole Reifarth (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg)
In 2002 the royal tomb of the palace of Qatna (Tell Mišhrife / Syria) was discovered. The palace dates back to the late Bronze Age (t.a.q. 1350 BC). Two monolithic stone sculptures in front of the tomb, as well as the numerous ritual objects and jewelry made of amber, gold and diverse gemstones, royal cylinder seals and reams of pottery and alabaster vessels impressively emphasize the highest social status of the buried people. Compared to this magnificent spectrum of grave goods, the preserved textile remains must inevitably appear quite inconsiderable, as they can be identified only at closer examination. Over thousands of years, the millimetre-sized fragments were subject to an uncommon process of mineralization into gypsum (calcium sulfate dehydrate) with no apparent preservation of the organic fibers. The small fragments are therefore hard to distinguish from the surrounding sedimentary layers of soil since coloration and texture are very similar. Only the use of a microscope reveals finest textile structures and even bright colors. So far more than a dozen different fabric types were investigated and their significant features underline the elitist status of the buried people. The textiles are characterized by there extraordinary high yarn count, possible only by spinning of ultra-fine yarn made of highest quality raw material. Fabrics of comparable yarn count are known exclusively in royal context, like the Pharao tombs in Egypt. Several fabrics are showing multi-colored tapestry weave can therefore be considered to be the oldest evidence of the kilim-technique in the Ancient Near East. Outstanding in this context is the by far oldest detection of true shellfish purple for dying these precious fabrics in a strikingly wide spectrum of colors from blue via violet to pink. Against the background of the generally few findings of textile remains in the Ancient Near East, this paper aims to emphasize the high potential and the need of scientific examinations and standardized documentation of even tiniest textile fragments.
Spinning Animal Fibres at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad?
Ms Tineke Rooijakkers (MPhil, Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies)
The tell of Sabi Abyad is in a number of ways an amazing excavation. It is comparatively small but at the same time it is very rich in finds. Most importantly, it seems that there were several settlements that were occupied over a long period of time, from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic until the Late Bronze Age. What is of interest to us is that around 6300 BC a remarkable change can be noticed in the spindle whorls. Whereas in the layers prior to this date, almost no objects are found that can be defined as a spindle whorl, they are quite abundant in post-6300 BC layers. In fact, when we look beyond just this tell, we see that this very same change can be noted in excavations around the Middle East. It seems that spindles where invented, or at least first used on a large scale in the Late Neolithic. But why at this time? The answer again seems to lie in Sabi Abyad; sherds with milk-lipids were discovered in the post-6300 BC layers, and the culling pattern of the animals also suggests a move away from just meat-exploitation. Apparently Neolithic man was starting to realise the use of secondary products. In other words, my hypothesis is that in Tell Sabi Abyad and throughout the Middle East, animal fibres were first spun around 6300 BC, and that the spindle whorl was 'invented' to spin these. Although flax was used from an earlier period onwards, this fibre could be spun by hand and through the mouth, while the short staple wool of the early ovids must have been very hard to spin in this way, as it falls apart without continuous tension. Up until this point researchers have been very vague as to the first spinning of animal fibres, either assuming that domesticated sheep or spindle whorls meant that wool was spun, or thinking that only the fleece of the later woolly sheep could actually be spun. I propose that the first spinning of animal fibres can be dated to around 6300 BC.
Spinning from old threads: Schaeffer collection from Ugarit at Saint Germain en Laye (France).
Dr Caroline Sauvage (ISAW - New York Univesity, USA)
The recent discovery of an inscribed unpublished spindle-whorl in the collection from Schaeffer's early excavations at Ugarit preserved at the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale (MAN) of Saint Germain en Laye allows us an unparalleled opportunity to study spinning in Ugarit. An Ugaritic inscription on the whorl, confirms its identification as a spinning tool and greatly advances our knowledge of this so far understudied craft industry at Ugarit. This object belonged to a batch of clay, stone and bone spindle-whorls. The study of this small collection and its comparison with already published material will allow us to review fundamental evidence of spinning at Ugarit and to enlarge our knowledge of this domestic activity through the review of texts, and ceramic, stone, bone, ivory and metal objects. Spinning techniques are culturally determined (Barber; Crewe). In the ancient Mediterranean, several spinning techniques co-existed: the low-whorl technique, attested in Bronze Age Anatolia, Cyprus and the Aegean, and the high-whorl technique attested in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Ugarit and the Levant were thus located at the crossroad of these two major techniques. It is thus worthwhile to review the material and technical attestations of spinning from the unpublished collection of the MAN. More broadly, the study of spinning in Ugarit and comparison to other Levantine sites will further our knowledge of the technical aspects of this household industry. This will allow us to establish at least partial evidence for diffusion of knowledge and cultural habits in the Levant.
Tapestries in the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Ancient Near East
Prof. Joanna S. Smith (Princeton University, USA)
The second millennium bce in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean was a time of expanding travel and exchange, particularly for those traveling by sea. Among the most influential of arts during this time were textiles, second only in value to precious metals and sometimes valued above them. Clothing style signified a person's age, gender, wealth, or even origin. Cloth coverings for furniture and cloth for ship sails underline the everyday and special purpose functions of textiles. Multicolored textiles could be created in several ways, such as through weaving, embroidery, and sewing. Among these methods was weaving in the tapestry technique. From texts, cloth fragments, and, most importantly, the tools and spaces of textile manufacture we can trace the development of tapestries first in Syria, then in Egypt, and eventually in the Levant and Cyprus. With their potential to form large and elaborately patterned wall decorations, tapestries became portable elements of interior design that could create spaces of prestige wherever their owners might have needed them. This paper explores material evidence for tapestries in the Late Bronze Age into the early Iron Age, especially on the island of Cyprus.
Weaving with crescent shaped loom weight
Ms Agnete Wisti Lassen (Denmark)
The function of crescent shaped clay objects, commonly found in Bronze Age excavations in Anatolia, is after many years of discussion still uncertain. That they could have been used as loom weights is one of the most persistent interpretations, although this too has been disputed. In 2007, I carried out an archaeological experiment with a batch of these crescent shaped objects reconstructed on the basis of finds from Karahöyük Konya and Demircihöyük. In the experiment, I was able to show that these objects function very well as loom weights, and, indeed, have certain properties that make them especially suited for twill weaving. The amount of archaeological textiles that have been recovered from Bronze Age Anatolia is pitifully low, although a single piece of twill woven textile has been recovered from the Chalcolithic layers at Alishar. An investigation of the iconographic evidence is more fruitful, and on the basis of depictions of dress on seals and moulds from the Middle Bronze Age, I suggest that twill was in fact in use in Anatolia, and perhaps represent an important ethnic marker for the Anatolians, as opposed to the Assyrians and many other peoples, who lived in Anatolia at the time.
Textile Production in Palatial and Non-palatial contexts: The case of Tel Kabri
Dr Assaf Yasur-Landau (Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies Haifa University, Israel),
Prof. Eric Cline (George Washington University) ,
and Ms Nurith Goshen (Israel).
Despite more then a hundred years of intensive archaeological research, none of the Middle and Late Bronze Age Canaanite palaces excavated have yielded evidence for palatial workshops of any type. At the same time, economic texts, dealing with palatial production, are also conspicuously missing from Canaan. This is in sharp contrast to the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces in the Aegean as well as palaces in Syria, in which workshops for the production of metal objects, ivory, glass, faïence, pottery, and stone vessels, as well as economic documents, testify to the important role of the palatial sector in the economy. Similarly, the large-scale palatial production of textiles is a common trait of palaces in both the Aegean and the northern Levant. At Tel Kabri, ample evidence of textile manufacture was discovered both in the old excavations, conducted by Prof. Aaron Kempinski of Tel Aviv University and Prof. Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier of Heidelberg University, as well as in the renewed work on the site, led by Prof. Eric H. Cline of The George Washington University and Dr. Assaf Yasur-Landau of Haifa University. The spatial distribution analysis of the finds makes it clear that textile production was taking place both in the Middle Bronze Age palace as well as in private houses of the same period. Even tough the two bear some differences, it is clear that both represent a rather small scale, non-industrial production. Furthermore, a similar pattern emerges from examination of the find contexts of loomweights from other Canaanite Middle Bronze Age sites, such as Jericho and Beth Shean. When put in a broader context of textile-working in the southern Levant, one can argue that the palatial industry of Tel Kabri was essentially that of a large household, aiming to serve its residents rather than an external market.
assafyasur@hotmail.com
ehcline@gwu.edu
nurithgoshen@hotmail.com