HHIA03513U HIS, AFLYST: Aegean Textile Archaeology and script
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Aegean Textile Archaeology and script
In recent years, significant progress has been made in our
understanding of ancient textile technology and how textiles were
used by people of the past to display status, age, gender etc. This
development is particularly visible with regard to the Bronze Age
Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, where societies, from a domestic
and small-scale craft production, developed centralised and
controlled industries around the various palace centres.
This course will present and explore contemporary archaeological,
historical and philological international research into ancient
clothing, textile production and consumption in the Aegean and
eastern Mediterranean region. A special emphasis is put on the
relationship between textiles and ancient scripts, both in terms of
content and how scripts appear in connection with textile
production. The areas to explore are especially the Hittite textile
cultures and script and Minoan and Mycenaean textile cultures and
scripts, with perspectives on neighbouring areas such as Cyprus,
and the Old-Assyrian documentation. One of the innovations of the
Bronze Age was the establishment of extensive textile trade
networks which are documented in official records and in private
letters between merchants and textile producers. This documentation
from the ancient Near East continues to shed new light on how
textile production and textile trade played a decisive and
fundamental role in ancient societies.
This course presents the on-going research and results of the
Centre for Textile Research, an interdisciplinary centre of
excellence located at the Saxo Institute. Currently, research in
the field is being undertaken by archaeologists, historians and
philologists from a range of countries, who in this course will
collaborate to analyse archaeological textile remains in
conjunction with the written sources and images of dress and
textile tools at our disposal. Some of Europe’s foremost scholars
in the field will present their research and specialised knowledge
to the students during the course, and these guest lecturers
include:
• Dr. Joanne Cutler: Minoan textile production and Linear A
• Dr. Malgozata Siennicka, Textile production of the Early Bronze
Age Aegean
• Dr. Hedvig Landenius Enegren: Cypriot textile production in the
archaic age and scripts in Cyprus in the 1st millennium BCE
• Dr. Salvatore Gaspa, Assyrian textiles
• Dr. Berit Hildebrandt, Meaning and symbolism of Homeric textiles
• Dr. Cécile Michel, Textile manufacture as documented in the
Old-Assyrian letters
• Dr. Miguel-Angel Andres Toledo, Indo-European textile terminology
• Dr. Benedetta Bellucci, Hittite iconography of textiles and dress
• Dr. Matteo Vigo, Hittite texts concerning textiles and ritual
practices
Most lectures concern the 2nd mill. BCE but there are
perspectives into the 1st mill., when we include Cypriot, Assyrian
and Homeric evidence. Initial focus will be on the basics of
textile technologies and textile terminologies to provide the
students with the necessary background. This will include hands-on
experience, to learn and experience the basics of the technology.
Insight into how the production of textiles took place across the
Mediterranean area will then be presented, as well as the place and
function of textiles in cult, religion and mythology.
The second part of the course will explore ancient textile
production across the Mediterranean area with a predominant focus
on the Hittite and Minoan/Mycenaean worlds. Written evidence will
be used to stress and outline the hitherto rather neglected
significance of textiles, dress, and their production in the
ancient world. A new angle to the theme is the inclusion throughout
the course of scripts as a material and conceptual link to the
primarily non-domestic textile manufacture; we will review
concurrent evidence for textiles and script and how scripts react
and adapt to the complex rendering of textiles by the means of
verbal and non-verbal (logograms) expressions, often rooted in
iconography.
Finally, the course also includes studies of Bronze Age dress in
relation to identity, gender, social rank, ethnicity, economic
power and age.
Course objectives (clarification of some
of the objectives stipulated in the curriculum):
The course aims to give students a methodological understanding of
how to combine archaeological, iconographical and written sources
when exploring a specific topic. Each lecture will demonstrate and
discuss how this can be achieved. This will enable students
specifically to:
• understand ancient textiles, their production, functionality and
significance as an integral part of ancient technology, religion
and society.
• address and discuss textiles and clothing in relation to identity
studies, both specifically in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean
Bronze Age but also on a more theoretical level which can be
applied to other areas and times.
• acquire knowledge of the current international textile research.
• acquire knowledge of theories relevant for textiles and clothing
from material culture studies and other relevant theoretical
approaches concerning gender and identity, and apply them to
material culture and iconography of the Aegean and eastern
Mediterranean.
• acquire knowledge of theories concerning the emergence of script
and apply them to the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age.
• acquire practical skills in ancient textile production
techniques.
Please note that all lectures are compulsory and that students are strongly encouraged to take the final examinations. All prospective students are welcome to an informal interview before lectures start with M-L Nosch and E. Andersson Strand. This interview will take place 3-5 February 2014.
Please note that these books are available in the university libraries, in KB and are at your disposal in the Centre for textile Research reading room.
- Elizabeth Barber: Prehistoric Textiles. The Development of
Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, with Special Reference to
the Aegean. Princeton University Press, 1991.
- Ancient Textiles. Production, Craft and Society. Eds.:
Carole Gillis & Marie-Louise Nosch. Oxbow Books, 2007.
- Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and
Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC. Eds.:
Cécile Michel & Marie-Louise Nosch. (Ancient Textiles Series
8). Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2010.
- KOSMOS. Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze
Age. 13th international Aegean conference held at Copenhagen, April
2010. Eds.: Marie-Louise Nosch & Robert Laffineur. Aegaeum
33 (2012).
- Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near
East. Eds.: Henriette Koefoed, Marie-Louise Nosch, Eva
Andersson Strand. (Ancient Textiles Series 12). Oxbow Books,
Oxford, 2013.
- C. Brenique, M. Tengberg, E. Andersson Strand and M.-L. Nosch:
Préhistoire des Textiles au Proche-Orient/ Prehistory of Textiles
in the Near East. Paléorient 38.1-2 – 2012 Pluridisciplinaire
Review of Prehistory and Protohistory of Southwestern and Central
Asia. 2012.
Further bibliography will be provided on the first day of the course and via ABSALON.
- Category
- Hours
- Class Instruction
- 42
- Total
- 42
- Credit
- 15 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Other
Criteria for exam assesment
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- HHIA03513U
- Credit
- 15 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree MasterBachelor choice,Full Degree Master choice
- Duration
- 1 semester
- Placement
- Spring
- Schedule
- THURSDAYS: 9AM-12AM
In the Centre for Textile Research: Amager Fælledvej 56, entrance Orbit, 2nd floor in the library - Study board
- Study Board of Archaeology, Ethnology, Greek & Latin, History
Contracting department
- SAXO-Institute - Archaeology, Ethnology, Greek & Latin, History
Course responsibles
- Marie Louise Bech Nosch (nosch@hum.ku.dk)
- Eva Birgitta Andersson Strand (evaandersson@hum.ku.dk)