Session: #788

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
The archaeology of material culture, bodies and landscapes
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each

Title & Content

Title:
Textile Iconography from Europe and Asia
Content:
Producing and using textiles has been an important part of everyday life throughout history. Its uses include the functional such as furnishings, packaging and transport; as clothing, it distinguishes people’s position within society, their profession and religious vocation. At the same time, extant historical textile items, or their fragments, are relatively rare as cloth is by its very nature fragile and therefore a perishable material, particularly within archaeological and some historical contexts. Due to the poor survival rate, there is a lack of comparative material which hampers research of both European and Asian textiles, as a result an interdisciplinary approach is needed to study the different topics textiles relate to, these include, but are not limited to, the analyse of soft furnishings, dress, clothing culture (e.g. social connotations), textile technology, design and patterns. As historical images of textiles from both geographical areas survive in larger numbers than the materials themselves, iconography is one of the main sources for this kind of research.

This workshop will explore depictions of textiles within European and Asian art and how we should interpret them. We warmly welcome papers addressing visual representations of dress, textile tools, and textile production. How different sources are in accord and how, for example, iconography and archaeological finds complement each other. How the depictions relate to our knowledge of past garments or textile techniques. How images of textile production or dress reflect social practices and traditional values. How textile patterns and structures have been used as a form of decoration.
Keywords:
Textiles; Dress; Iconography; Medieval
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no

Organisers

Main organiser:
Dr Alexandra Makin (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Dr. Riina Rammo (Estonia) 2
Dr, Marianna Cuomo (Italy) 3,4
Affiliations:
1. University of Manchester
2. University of Tartu
3. Università degli Studi SuorOrsola Benincasa, Napoli
4. LATEM (Late Antiquity and Medieval Archeology Laboratory)