Textiles and Seals: About the relation ship between textile production and sealing practices in Bronze Age Greece and the new evidence from the casts of textile impressions on clay
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23858/PA69.2021.2555Keywords:
Greece, Bronze Age, textile production, seals, sealing practices, textile imprints on clayAbstract
This contribution discusses the evidence of textile impressions preserved on the undersides of clay sealings from Bronze Age Greece. A collection of modern casts taken from these sealings, stored in the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel in Heidelberg, is currently being analyzed by the author. The assumed reliability of textile impressions as a source of knowledge about the qualities of actual textiles and raw materials used to produce them has been verified by a series of archaeological experiments and comparative analysis of modern raw materials of various origin. Results ofthe analysis of 199 casts from two Aegean sites: Lerna in Argolid and Phaistos on Crete, have provided new evidence for technical uses of textile and organic products in the daily storage routine and sealing practices, as well as for the specific parameters of threads, cords, and fabrics impressed on clay. Due to the relatively large number of textile imprints, it is possible, for the first time, to make site-specific comparisons of textile production on the basis of products and to track
technical developments in textile manufacturing throughout the Aegean Bronze Age.
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