The textile chaîne opératoire: Using a multidisciplinary approach to textile archaeology with a focus on the Ancient Near East

Abstract

Knowledge of textile history, including fibre, technology, tools etc, is essential and absolutely necessary for our understanding of the past. Textile research has become an important field of archaeology and has an enormous potential, being able to tell us about economic, social, chronological, and cultural aspects of past societies. Due to poor preservation conditions, few textiles have survived in the Near East. However, the few existing fragments, in combination with other sources, provide evidence of a well-developed knowledge of how to use fibres for producing textiles. Furthermore, the analyses demonstrate that several types of plant and animal fibres were used in textile production. Flax fibres and sheep wool are considered to be the two most important textile fibres from Neolithic to modern times. Information gathered from the analysis of textiles suggests that it is highly plausible that the different stages of processing fi bres were similar across ancient Eurasia even if it is, of course, important to consider that different climate zones will affect both the need for and access to fi bres. Archaeobotanical and zoo ostelogical material also provide information on the use of textile fi bres. Additionally, different types of installations (e. g. retting pits, workshops) and textile tools (e. g. mallets, spindles, looms) would have been used and even if many tools were made of perishable materials textile tools such as spindle whorls and loom weights are well known from archaeological contexts. Therefore, this paper will give a basic framework for textile production that will provide important insights into the procurement and processing of plant and animal fibres and briefly on spinning and weaving. This will be accomplished with information from archaeological and written sources used in combination with ethnography and experimental archaeology.

Bronze Age wool: provenance and dye investigations of Danish textiles

“…Textile production involves a long series of time-consuming processes, starting with the procurement and preparation of the raw materials, followed by spinning and weaving. Textiles, therefore, represent a complex châine opératoire , including different steps that might vary depending on the final product (Andersson Strand 2012; Sofaer et al . 2013).…”

Hats and titles: Maya courtier dress and hierarchy in the late Classic Maya court

“…We need to look at dress as a material culture complex with the body as a complex artifact that we can study with standard archaeological methods. European scholars have been applying chaîne opératoire methods (Lemonnier 1986), like behavioral chains (Schiffer 2016), to dress for some years (Andersson Strand 2012;Harlow and Nosch 2014). Various Mesoamericanists have looked at the material culture of weaving, specifically spindle whorls, but few have looked at how cloth was used to create clothes.…”

Fiber Spinning During the Mapungubwe Period of Southern Africa: Regional Specialism in the Hinterland

“…Cotton though seems to have been the most important and widely used plant fiber throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa (Iseki 2010, p. 9). Regardless of the source, preparing and spinning fibers is a labor-intensive process (Strand 2012). Southern African historical records state how cotton and other wild fibers first need their seeds to be removed, after which the fibers are then teased out by plucking it on a small bow (Van Warmelo 1940, p. 102).…”