Brendan Burke - From Minos to Midas: Ancient Cloth Production in the Aegean and in Anatolia

Published by
Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK

Brendan Burke 2010

ISBN 978-1-84217-406-7
EPUB ISBN: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

This book is available direct from

Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK
(Phone: 01865-241249; Fax: 01865-794449)

and

The David Brown Book Company
PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA
(Phone: 860-945-9329; Fax: 860-945-9468)

or from our website

www.oxbowbooks.com

A CIP for this book record is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burke, B. (Brendan)
From Minos to Midas : ancient cloth production in the Aegean and in Anatolia / Brendan Burke.
p. cm. -- (Ancient textiles series ; v. 7)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84217-406-7
1. Textile industry--Aegean Sea Region--History--To 1500. 2. Textile industry--Turkey--History--To 1500. 3.
Textile fabrics, Ancient--Aegean Sea Region--History--To 1500. 4. Textile fabrics, Ancient--Turkey--History
-To 1500. 5. Aegean Sea Region--Antiquities. 6. Turkey--Antiquities. 7. Aegean Sea Region--Economic
conditions 8. Turkey--Economic conditions I. Title.
HD9868.A34B87 2010
338.476770093809013--dc22

Front cover: Boeotian black-figure skyphos. Circe and Odysseus with loom
(Ashmolean AN18961908, G249, with permission, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford).

Back cover: Odysseus and Circe (Walters 189293, plate 4)

Ancient Textiles Series Editorial Commitee:
Eva Anderssen, Margarita Gleba, Ulla Mannering
and Marie-Louise Nosch

Printed in Great Britain by
Short Run Press, Exeter

from inside he took out twelve robes surpassingly lovely
and twelve mantles to be worn single, as many blankets,
as many great white cloaks, also the same number of tunics.
He weighed and carried out ten full talents of gold, and brought forth
two shining tripods, and four caldrons, and brought out a goblet
of surpassing loveliness that the men of Thrace had given him
when he went to them with a message, but now the old man spared not
even this in his halls, so much was it his hearts desire
to ransom back his beloved son.

(Iliad 24.229236, Lattimore trans.)

CONTENTS

PREFACE

The field of textile studies, taking wide account of numerous types and uses of cloth in societies around the world, is multifaceted. As two organizers of a conference on textiles stated, On a world-wide scale, complex moral and ethical issues related to dominance and autonomy, opulence and poverty, political legitimacy and succession, and gender and sexuality, find ready expression through cloth (Weiner and Schneider 1989, xi). This book, however, is more narrow in focus and, before I describe what it is, I believe it is necessary to make mention of what this book is not. Although I consider myself a field archaeologist, in no way does this book present a comprehensive catalogue of textile tools for archaeological seriation and stratigraphy. I hope that it is a useful tool for excavators in the Mediterranean but it is not meant to be a field-guide. This book does not focus on costume and adornment, and is not an archaeology of the body, where textiles express various negotiations of individual and group identities in specific social contexts, such as gender, age, social rank, and ethnicity (Chapin 2008; Colburn 2008; Joyce 2005). It does not profess any replication experiments based on depictions in art, nor does it try to recreate the fashion of peoples in the past (Marinatos 1967; Jones 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009; Lillethun 2003; Marcar 2005). I should also stress that I am not a fiber specialist, and have no significant background in chemistry or even the intricacies of hand-weaving. I acknowledge that some of the material presented here should be studied in much more depth, in particular the textile remains from Gordion. Although my knowledge is limited on the subject of textile science, there is much left to be learned.

Admittedly I am not particularly concerned with what people wore, but rather, I look at how people in the past mobilized resources, organized labor, and produced cloth for exchange. I am particularly interested in what the organization of production tells us about individual societies and prehistoric economies. My objective is to assemble as much evidence as possible, disparate though it may be, and to present a coherent picture for organized cloth production on a scale beyond the household level at regional economic centers in the Aegean and in Anatolia. This book covers over 2000 years of evidence. Although it may seem to elide geographical boundaries and chronological periods, I am well aware of the distances between Early Minoan Crete and Iron Age Gordion. And in defense, my efforts to study the materials at hand are limited by the nature of the data itself: textiles are generally ephemeral, and the tools of production are rarely considered aesthetically pleasing, nor are they a prime object of study in archaeological publications.

The unifying feature of this work is that the included data show some evidence for standardization and centralized production. The investigation here confines itself to three main sources of information: excavated craft residues (artifacts), administrative documents (seals, sealings, tablets), and, to a much lesser degree, visual and literary culture, to illustrate the complex nature of cloth production, exchange, and consumption, and how developments in these reflect larger aspects of social organization.

This book takes an explicitly economic approach to textile production, a social craft activity that was of greater value and importance to people in the past than the production of painted clay pots, metal tools, and objects carved from precious materials: everyone depended on cloth. As with other craft goods, such as pottery, metal objects, and ivory carving, the large-scale production and exchange of textiles required specialization and some degree of centralization. Therefore, the focus of my study is on regional centers, most often referred to as palaces, to understand the means by which a state financed itself with cloth industries. From this we can look for evidence of social stratification, inter-regional exchange, and organized bureaucracies. A working hypothesis is that aspects of the textile industry are particularly suited to centralized, palatial control. Textile production is labor intensive and involves many different processes, including the mobilization of agricultural resources, the preparation of raw materials, skilled manufacturing, storage, and distribution, all of which are best administered under the direct control of a regional economic center or palace.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Two institutions are credited with help in the conception, research, and completion of this book: the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. At UCLA, I became a much better archaeologist for having studied with Jim Hill, Tim Earle, and Richard Leventhal. At the American School, Willie Coulson, John Camp, and Charles Williams made me a more thorough and competent classicist. Sarah Morris was consistently guiding and directing me at both institutions and her influence on my scholarship is pronounced. I value greatly her thoughtful mentoring and, now, her collegial friendship. I warmly thank Elizabeth Barber, whose expertise on textile production and cloth deeply informs this work: my hope is that this book makes some addition to the major advances in textile research she has spearheaded throughout her career. Elizabeth Carter and Brent Vine, as original committee members, were also helpful in preventing me from making major errors. Any that remain belong, of course, to me. Since completion of the dissertation on which this work is based, new sources of evidence have come to light and several ideas have been rethought.