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"Textile fabrics, Medieval."
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Medieval clothing and textiles. 18
The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. The essays collected here continue the Journal's wide-ranging and eclectic tradition. Topics include literary evidence for linen armour; serial production in late medieval silks; the inventory of Isabella Bruce's bridal goods; the depiction of women textile workers in the frescoes of the Salone of the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua, Italy; ideal female beauty in the Middle Ages and the means used to attain and assess it; and social status as evidenced by clothing and textiles in the Scottish royal treasurer's accounts of the mid-sixteenth century.
BOOK
The Valkyries’ Loom
In The Valkyries' Loom , Michèle Hayeur Smith examines
Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in
the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North
Atlantic in the ninth century AD. While previous researchers have
overlooked textiles as insignificant artifacts, Hayeur Smith is the
first to use them to understand gender and economy in Norse
societies of the North Atlantic.
This groundbreaking study is based on the author's systematic
comparative analysis of the vast textile collections in Iceland,
Greenland, Denmark, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, materials that
are largely unknown even to archaeologists and span 1,000 years.
Through these garments and fragments, Hayeur Smith provides new
insights into how the women of these island nations influenced
international trade by producing cloth ( vaðmál ); how they
shaped the development of national identities by creating clothing;
and how they helped their communities survive climate change by
reengineering clothes during the Little Ice Age. She supplements
her analysis by revealing societal attitudes about weaving through
the poem \"Darraðarljoð\" from Njál's Saga , in which the
Valkyries-Óðin's female warrior spirits-produce the cloth of
history and decide the fates of men and nations.
Bringing Norse women and their labor to the forefront of
research, Hayeur Smith establishes the foundation for a gendered
archaeology of the North Atlantic that has never been attempted
before. This monumental and innovative work contributes to global
discussions about the hidden roles of women in past societies in
preserving tradition and guiding change.
eBook
Arabic Script on Christian Kings
Isabelle Dolezalek is the recipient of the 2018 ICMA Annual Book Prize. Roger II’s famous mantle and other royal garments from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Sicily prominently display Arabic inscriptions. While the phenomenon is highly unusual in the context of Latin Christian kingship, the use of inscriptions as a textile ornament was common and imbued with political functions in the Islamic courts of the medieval Mediterranean. This case study of the inscribed garments from Norman Sicily draws attention to the diverse functions of Arabic textile inscriptions using various contextual frames. Such a contextual approach not only highlights the specificities of the Norman textile inscriptions and emphasises the practical and political choices underlying their use at the Sicilian court, it also pinpoints the flaws of universalising approaches to transcultural ornamental in circulation in the medieval Mediterranean. This new perspective on the royal garments from Norman Sicily draws from a variety of disciplines, including Islamic and European art history, the history of textiles, epigraphy, legal history and historiography, and aims to challenge established notions of cultural and disciplinary boundaries.
eBook
Advantages and limitations of micro-computed tomography and computed tomography imaging of archaeological textiles and coffins
We have recently studied northern Finnish archaeological textiles extensively using computed tomography (CT) imaging. These textiles have been found in inhumation burials from the Late Medieval church of Valmarinniemi in Keminmaa and the Postmedieval church of Haukipudas. In this article we discuss the advantages and limitations of CT imaging based on three case studies. Based on the research objectives and the size of studied items, we utilised three different CT scanners: clinical systems and micro- and nano-scale X-ray microscopes. We were able to visualise a child’s coffin and a doll inside, which is a larger scale sample. We were also able to study and reconstruct the complicated structure of a tablet-woven band, as well as identifying individual fibres when examining smaller textile samples with submicron resolution. Even though we observed some limitations in the image quality, we conclude that computed tomography has great potential in the research of archaeological textiles in both 3D and cross-sections and is often easier and more informative than conventional microscopic or other archaeological methodologies.
Journal Article
Traditional Knowledge of Textile Dyeing Plants: A Case Study in the Chin Ethnic Group of Western Myanmar
Traditional knowledge of the plants used for textile dyeing is disappearing due to the utilization of synthetic dyes. Recently, natural products made from plants have gained global interest. Thus, preserving traditional knowledge of textile dyeing plants is crucial. Here, we documented this knowledge by interviewing 2070 informants from 14 communities of the Chin ethnic group of Myanmar. The Chin communities we interviewed used a total of 32 plant species for textile dyeing from 29 genera in 24 families. Chromolaena odorata, Lithocarpus fenestratus, and L. pachyphyllus were the most important dye species. The most common responses described dyes that were red in color, produced from leaves, derived from tree species, collected from the wild, and used as firewood ash as a mordant to fix the dye to the fabrics. According to the IUCN Red List of threatened species, one species was registered as Data Deficient, 20 species still needed to be categorized, and 11 species were categorized as Least Concern. This study will help re-establish the use of natural dyes, encourage the cultural integrity of the indigenous people, and serve as an example for other communities to preserve their traditional knowledge of plant textile dyes.
Journal Article
Networks of trade and exchange along the Israeli Silk Road: the silk and cotton finds from Nahal Omer, Negev Desert
Excavations at Nahal Omer, an Early Islamic way station in the Negev Desert (sixth to ninth centuries AD), have yielded exotic textiles such as silks and cottons. Through a new study of these textiles, this project investigates the trade networks and global connectivity along this little-known artery of the Silk Road.
Journal Article
Colorants Detected by HPLC-PDA in Textiles from 13th Century Lieto Ristinpelto, Finland
Organic colorants of textiles found in the female burial of Lieto Ristinpelto, SW Finland, were analyzed by HPLC-PDA. The textiles’ visible colors varied from different brownish shades to blueish, greenish, and reddish hues. The aim of the chromatographic analysis was to deepen the current understandings of the dyes used in Finland at the transition between the 12th and 13th centuries AD, i.e., at the beginning of the local Medieval period, and to contribute important new information about dyes and clothing from this less-known period of textile history of Finland. The textile finds consisted of a bronze spiral ornamented shawl, an apron tied at the waist, two tablet-woven bands, and a diagonally plaited band with plaited tassels. A unique find was a textile possibly made using the sprang technique. Other textile finds were an orange wool tabby and twill fragments. Analysis of thirty samples from fourteen different textiles indicated that woad colorants were present in most samples, accompanied with lichen compounds, and dyer’s madder was in two visually orange fragments. The visually reddish samples contained luteolin, but no red colorants.
Journal Article
Iconic Costumes
This richly illustrated book presents a selection of the rich and varied iconographic material from the Scandinavian Late Iron Age (AD 400-1050) depicting clothed human figures, from an archaeological textile and clothing perspective. The source material consists of five object categories: gold foils, gold bracteates, helmet plaques, jewelry, and textile tapestries and comprises over 1000 different images of male and female costumes which are then systematically examined in conjunction with our present knowledge of archaeological textiles. In particular, the study explores the question of whether the selected images complement the archaeological clothing sources, through a new analytical tool which enables us to compare and contrast the object categories in regard to material, function, chronology, context and interpretation. The tool is used to record and analyze the numerous details of the iconographic costumes, and to facilitate a clear and easy description. This deliberate use of explicit costume shapes enhances our interpretation and understanding of the Late Iron Age clothing tradition. Thus, the majority of the costumes depicted are identified in the Scandinavian archaeological textile record, demonstrating that the depictions are a reliable source of research for both iconographical costume and archaeological clothing. The book contributes with new information on social, regional and chronological differences in clothing traditions from ca. AD 400 to the Viking Age.
eBook
Stripes, Checks, and Flowers: Textile Patterns in the Murals of Lepakshi, South India
More than 500 persons populate the narrative paintings on the ceilings of the Virabadhra Temple in Lepakshi, Andhra Pradesh, built under the Vijayanagara ruler Achyutaraya during the first half of the sixteenth century. The costumes donned by the gods and people in the paintings can be taken as representatives of textiles en vogue during the sixteenth century. They demonstrate not only trade connections within India but also testify to imported textiles from Ottoman Turkey or Safavid Iran. The painted textiles show a wide spectrum of patterns. Some of them bear a close similarity to extant cotton textiles produced in Gujarat for export to Egypt and Indonesia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Others were manufactured in workshops along the Coromandel Coast for export to Indonesia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By comparing these extant textiles with the painted ones, possible techniques are suggested for the Lepakshi fabrics.
Journal Article