Towards engendering textile production in Middle Bronze Age Crete, paper at the ‘Textiles & Gender: Production to wardrobe from the Orient to the Mediterranean in Antiquity’ conference, Nanterre, 4-6 October 2018, organised by C. Michel, M. Harlow and L. Quillien (programme download) (original) (raw)
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PV VII organisers: Macarena Bustamante Álvarez, Elena H. Sánchez López and Javier Jiménez Ávila, Granada, 2-4 October 2019
The complexity of textile production and larger scale redistribution of textiles required producers to use elaborate scheduling patterns, skills and management methods. In the Aegean Bronze Age, the organisation of textile production has been traced through archaeological discoveries of production spots, such as households, specialised workshops and dye-works, and Late Bronze Age written documents, specifically Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean palaces. However, the initial system of administrative practices based on the use of seals, which in later periods (c. 2100-1200 BCE) was complemented by writing systems, has not yet been investigated in relation to textiles. Thus, it is the focus of the research project ‘Textiles and Seals. Relations between Textile Production and Seals and Sealing Practices in Bronze Age Greece’ (NCN SONATA 13, UMO-2017/26/D/HS3/00145) that I am leading at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. The abundant, yet largely ignored evidence from imprints of textiles that are preserved on the undersides of lumps of clay stamped by the seals, provides unique information about the qualities of actual fabrics, as well as various uses of textiles in everyday life and administrative practices. An assemblage of silicone casts of the undersides of the sealings from Phaistos, Crete, which is kept in the Archive of the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, University of Heidelberg, will constitute a case study for further consideration in this paper.
2022
The “Textiles and Seals” research project investigates the complex relationships between textile production and seals and sealing practices in Bronze Age Greece. These relationships can be tracked by analysing the combined evidence from seal-impressed textile tools, textile imprints on the undersides of seal-impressed clay lumps and textile production-related imagery. The main research questions posed by the project attempt to explain the use of textiles in sealing practices and the use of seals in the administration of textile production, as well as the possible meaning of iconographic references to textile production on seals. In order to facilitate these tasks, an online database was built specifically for this project through the services of the Digital Competence Centre of the University of Warsaw. Although data entry has not yet been completed, the “Textiles and Seals” database has already proved to be a powerful research tool. In this paper, the structure of the database and the possibilities of its search engines are briefly demonstrated. The paper discusses how the “Textiles and Seals” database facilitates the tracking of correlations within the examined evidence, based on a statistical search of a significant number of records and hitherto unexplored combinations of data.
Workshop Production, Distribution, and Groups in Stamp Seal Research: Old problems, Innovative Solutions, project Stamp Seals in Southern Levant and the University of Zurich, 9–10/02/2023, Zurich
For more than 100 years Aegean glyptic, with a published corpus of more than 10,000 seal faces, has been widely explored as a valuable source of information about many aspects of life in Bronze Age Greece. However, multiple relationships between textile production and seals and sealing practices have remained largely unnoticed. Therefore, mapping and interpreting these relationships, revealed through textile production-related imagery on seals, seal-impressed textile tools and textile imprints on the undersides of clay sealings, became the main goal of the research project ‘Textiles and Seals’, funded by the Science Centre of Poland (ref. no. UMO-2017/26/D/HS3/00145, 2018–2022). As part of the ‘Textiles and Seals’ project, the present author has partially examined a remarkable collection of textile imprints preserved on the undersides of clay sealings stored at the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel Archive in Heidelberg (CMS) and published the results in an open access ‘Textiles and Seals’ database (https://textileseals.uw.edu.pl/database/). This collection comprises imprints of technical textiles, i.e., a means for tying, wrapping, hanging and storing, such as threads, cords, fabrics, thongs, leather pieces, wickerwork and basketry or matting. All of them were occasionally impressed on objects subjected to sealing, such as pegs or knobs on doors and chests, rims of vases, wickerwork jar covers, baskets, small packets of inscribed parchment, etc. In this presentation, I would like to discuss if and how these textile imprints can answer questions about the habitus of individuals involved in sealing practices. Specifically, I will analyse potential relationships between the types of textile products and their quality, the types of sealed objects, the manner of tying and wrapping, and the range of seals impressed on the front of the sealings. Phaistos, an important Middle Bronze Age administrative centre on Crete with abundant finds of sealings, provides a case study for these considerations.
K. Żebrowska (2020), Textiles and Seals: The use of seals with the sheep motif in Bronze Age Greece, in: M. Bustamante-Álvarez, E.H. Sánchez López, J. Jiménez Ávila (eds.), PURPUREAE VESTES VII. Textiles and Dyes in Antiquity. Redefining Ancient Textile Handcraft. Structures, Tools and Production Processes, Proceedings of the VIIth International Symposium on Textiles and Dyes in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Granada, Spain 2-4 October 2019), Granada, pp. 425-430. This paper presents the preliminary results of research concerning seals with textile motifs used in the Aegean region during the Bronze Age (ca. 3100 – 1075/1050 BCE) carried out within the project Textiles and Seals: Relations between Textile Production and Seals and Sealing Practices in Bronze Age Greece conducted by Dr Agata Ulanowska. In the 2nd millennium BCE, the Aegean witnessed the emergence of a complex, centrally administered economic system basing on wool – the raw material provided by ‘woolly animals’ and used in textile production. A group of Cretan seals mostly dated to the Middle Bronze Age II-Late Bronze Age I (ca. 1875/1850 – 1470/1460 BCE) that bear depictions of sheep was chosen as a case study to investigate the ways in which these specific objects were used, and to examine what relations, if any, existed between the selected iconographic motif and the use of these artefacts. Reccurent use of seals with sheep motif is attested e.g. in administrative practices at the palatial level. Nevertheless, at the present stage of research, it cannot be linked directly to the administration of textile production.
The aim of this poster is to present the preliminary results of a research carried out within the project “Textiles and Seals. Relations between Textile Production and Seals and Sealing Practices in Bronze Age Greece” (financed by the National Science Centre, Poland, conducted by Dr. Agata Ulanowska) and concerning seals with textile motifs used in the Aegean region during the Bronze Age (c. 2650-1200 BC). Hitherto, the analysis of the imagery of more than 250 selected seals and impressions allowed to re-evaluate the previously distinguished motifs and identify several recurring iconographic references to textile production, as well as the different stages of its chaîne opératoire. Among them were representations related to the type and preparation of raw materials, textile tools, and the technologies of spinning and weaving used in the process. This study also enabled the distinction and classification of repeating combinations of textile motifs present either on one or more seal faces within the investigated repertoire. Such approach permitted to deepen our understanding of how textile production was reflected in the imagery of the Aegean glyptic and explore it as a sources of textile knowledge. A group of seals bearing the motif of a sheep was chosen for the purposes of this presentation as a case study in order to investigate the ways in which these specific objects were used and check what relations, if any, existed between the depicted motif and the use of these seals.
For more than 100 years Aegean glyptic has been widely explored as a valuable source of information about many aspects of life in Bronze Age Greece. Intensive research has been undertaken into the sphragistic use of seals, their remarkable iconography, as well as symbolic and talismanic function of seals. Iconographic depictions that may be related to textile making have been recognised only recently, demonstrating that the relevant evidence is available and advanced iconographic studies of textile production in the Aegean glyptic art are promising. These recent observations, revealed motifs that possibly depict loom-weights and the warp-weighted loom(s), motifs referring to raw materials, such as woolly animals or fibre plants, as well as symbolic references, e.g. spiders. In my new research project investigating complex relations between textile production and Aegean seals and sealing practices, I aim to re-examine the imagery of glyptic with a reference to the recently enhanced knowledge of textile technology in Bronze Age Greece and to search for multiple relations to textile production. In this paper, I will discuss the key methodological issues required by this study, such as the basic conventions and constraints that exist in Aegean glyptic iconography, as well as methods and assumptions I adapt in order to decode the motifs potentially related to textile production. This will include comparative studies of iconography of textile production and, specifically, small-scale representations in Mesopotamian glyptic were several references to various sequences of textile making have already been discussed in detail by Catherine Breniquet. The question whether any repetitive patterns of display of motifs and more complex iconographic programmes may have existed (and how to recognise them), will also be addressed.
Session EAA #232: Dressing Europe: Mapping and Disseminating European Textile Heritage through Digital Resources, organisers: C. Costeira, F.B. Gomes and A. Iancu, 2022
Impressions of technical textiles: threads, cords and woven fabrics, as well as leather thongs, mats and basketry, preserved on the undersides of clay sealings from Bronze Age Greece comprise an important, yet so far largely untapped, source of textile knowledge. A large number of such impressions, documented in plasticine and silicone casts of the undersides of clay sealings by the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegeln (CMS) team and stored in the CMS Archive now in Heidelberg, has been examined within the ‘Textiles and Seals’ research project and published in an open access ‘Textiles and Seals’ database (https://textileseals.uw.edu.pl/database/). In this contribution, I would like to demonstrate new research possibilities related to the evidence recorded thus far, focusing on how this data can answer questions about individuals involved in sealing practices and their potential preferences for securing the sealed objects in a certain manner. Recognising technical textiles that might have been repeatedly used in the sealing practices at a specific site is another challenge to be discussed in this paper. Finally, I would also like to comment on possible dissemination strategies in relation to research and evidence that seems to be highly specialist and, at first glance, not attractive to a general audience.
Conference: DYNAMICS AND ORGANISATION OF TEXTILE PRODUCTION IN PAST SOCIETIES IN EUROPE, THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST, 2019
Clay textile tools, e.g. spindle whorls and loom weights, constitute the most abundant archaeological evidence for studies of textile production in Bronze Age Greece. Their shape, weight and parameters resulting from the geometry of their forms, indicate what range of products may have been produced using them. Though the threads and fabrics produced with them have disappeared, study of these tools allows inference on their parameters (e.g. were they fine or coarse, weft- or warp-faced, or balanced). At the same time, the distribution of various forms of textile tools that are classified as specific tool types, has been analysed with regard to the transmission of textile knowledge and skills, and the socio-cultural processes that were possibly associated with these transfers. The practice of seal-impressing and marking certain textile tools, specifically loom weights, although attested throughout the entire Bronze Age, has until now not attracted more focused scholarly attention. In this paper, an overview of the observed practices is presented and an attempt is made to adopt a more systematic approach to investigating this phenomenon. Middle Bronze Age Malia, Crete, will be a case study for presenting the prospects and limitations of our understanding of the practice of impressing seals on the textile tools. The research presented here results from the project ‘Textiles and Seals. Relations between Textile Production and Seals and Sealing Practices in Bronze Age Greece’ (NCN SONATA 13, UMO-2017/26/D/HS3/00145), that I am currently leading at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw.
M. Bustamante-Álvarez, E.H. Sánchez López and J. Jiménez Ávila (eds) 2020 PURPUREAE VESTES VII. Textiles and Dyes in Antiquity. Redefining Ancient Textile Handcraft. Structures, Tools and Production Processes, Granada, 413-424, 2020
The abundant, yet largely ignored evidence from imprints of textiles, threads and cords that are preserved on the undersides of lumps of clay stamped by seals, provides unique information about the qualities of actual fabrics, as well as various uses of textiles in everyday life and administrative practices. The assemblage of silicone and plasticine casts of the undersides of the clay sealings from Phaistos in Crete that is kept in the Archive of the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, University of Heidelberg constitutes an excellent collection for such studies. The textile imprints on the CMS casts are currently being analysed as part of the research project ‘Textiles and Seals. Relations between Textile Production and Seals and Sealing Practices in Bronze Age Greece’. This contribution briefly discusses the nature and qualities of textile imprints on clay, while the impressions of threads, cords, leather thongs, textiles and mats, wickerwork or basketry from Middle Bronze Age Phaistos in Crete, are the case study for specific considerations on the qualities of textile products used in the site-specific sealing and storage practices
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