From Minos to Midas
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From Minos to Midas

Ancient Cloth Production in the Aegean and in Anatolia

Brendan Burke

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eBook - ePub

From Minos to Midas

Ancient Cloth Production in the Aegean and in Anatolia

Brendan Burke

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About This Book

Textile production was of greater value and importance to people in the past than any other social craft activity: everyone depended on cloth. As with other craft goods, such as pottery, metal objects, or ivory carving, the large-scale production and exchange of textiles required specialization and some degree of centralization. This book takes an explicitly economic approach to textile production, focusing on regional centers, most often referred to as palaces, to understand the means by which states in the Aegean and Anatolia financed themselves through cloth industries. From this we can look for evidence of social stratification, inter-regional exchange, and organized bureaucracies. Spanning multiple millennia and various sources of evidence, Burke illustrates the complex nature of cloth production, exchange, and consumption and what this tells us about individual societies and prehistoric economies, as well as how developments in cloth industries reflect larger aspects of social organization.

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Publisher
Oxbow Books
Year
2010
ISBN
9781842177716
1 FRAMING THE DISCUSSION
Metaphors of spinning and weaving in Greek and Latin literature suggest that a basic understanding of cloth production was common knowledge to ancient audiences. The key role of cloth is revealed by the liberal use of textile metaphors in Classical writing. For example, the Moirai, or three Fates, are personified as old textile workers (Fig. 1): Clotho spins, Lachesis measures the thread of life to varying lengths, and Atropos cuts the threads of an individual’s life (Il. 24.525, Od. 1.17, 3.208, 4.208; Hes. Theog. 217, 904; Pind. Ol. 1.40; Ovid ad Liv. 164, Fast. 6.757). In one famous comedy, (Ar. Lys. 568–70) the playwright compares wool processing and weaving to the proper governance of the city of Athens: problematic citizens are likened to the prickly burrs found in wool that need to be picked off one by one. Another indication of the importance of cloth in Greek society is the peplos of Athena, the ceremonial garment which was woven each year for the goddess, and was arguably the most important cult object in Classical Athens (Fig. 2)(Mansfield 1985; Barber 1992).
Figure 1. Relief of Three Fates in Tegel, Berlin, 2nd century AD (Hauser 1903, p. 99, fig. 48).
Figure 2. East frieze of the Parthenon (Block V), presentation of peplos for Athena, 447–432 BC (Inv. 1816.0610.19 ©Trustees of the British Museum).
Cloth manufacture was certainly an important activity throughout antiquity, and it is often studied to highlight the lives of women in the past. The role of men, however, in cloth production, in reality and myth, should not be over-looked or discounted: even in earliest Greek legend the father of the gods had a craftsmen’s role with an emphasis on cloth production. In the marriage of Zas (Zeus) and Chthonie (Ge), as described in the Theologia by the 6th century Pre-Socratic philosopher Pherekydes of Syros (7, fr. 2, I, p. 48.5 Diels-Krantz), Zeus makes a great and beautiful veil (pharos) embroidered with the earth, Ocean, and Ocean’s palace on it; he presents it to Chthonie, making her his wife (Svenbro and Scheid 1996; Schibli 1990, 50–1). Similarly, the weavers of the first peplos for the Greater Panathenaic festival were two professional Cypriot men with appropriate textile names, Akesas, whose name is probably related to ጀÎșΔστ᜔ς ‘mender’ or ‘tailor’, and Helikon, perhaps related to ‛ΔλÎčÎșτáœčς, ‘twisted/spun’ (Ath. 2.24b; Zen. 1.56, I, p. 22.12 von Leutch-Schneidewin. See also Mansfield 1985, 4, 21–2; Loftus 1998–2000, 13–14; Thompson 1982). Cloth production, contrary to some modern scholarly biases, is not ‘just women’s work’.
Actual fragments of Greek textiles, unfortunately, have rarely survived in the Mediterranean, but the few extant examples indicate a sophisticated knowledge of diverse weaving technologies that were part of a long-lived tradition. The production of textiles prior to the A rchaic period in the eastern Mediterranean is investigated here; in particular, the focus is on organized cloth production in the Aegean and in Anatolia during the Bronze and Early I ron Ages (c. 2700–800 BC). Employing a multidisciplinary approach, this study takes into account archaeological remains, visual culture, and textual sources, to look at cloth manufacture, distribution, and consumption. The manufacture of cloth in palace centers is addressed in order to demonstrate that many aspects of craft production reflect social organization. By studying the distribution of tools, the organization of labor, and the means of mobilization, greater insight is gained into social structures of the past. In premonetary economies, finished textiles often functioned as a kind of currency, and were used as a value good for craft specialists, mercenaries, and overseas trading partners. Within the Aegean and the Anatolian spheres elites exercised control of many craft activities, including the many phases of textile production, in order to maintain and finance social, religious, and military institutions. In the following chapters the economic, political, and social implications of well-developed, centrally controlled textile industries are analyzed within three cultural regions and chronological periods: the Minoans of the mid-third to mid-second millennium BC, the Mycenaeans of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1150 BC), and the Phrygians of the Anatolian I ron Age (c. 1000–800 BC).
Map 1. Minoan, Mycenaean, and Phrygian regions. Adapted from Interactive Ancient Media. http://iam.classics.unc.edu/.
Important distinctions are found among Minoan, Mycenaean, and Phrygian social economies, over a wide span of time, from the Early Bronze Age through the I ron Age. This is fully acknowledged. To speak in terms of cultural similarities within each of these modern determinations is difficult: not every ‘Minoan’, ‘Mycenaean’ or ‘Phrygian’ (however these designations are defined, by ethnicity, language, geography, chronology) was the same, of course, and when material from intermediate zones, such as the Cyclades, the Troad, Ionia and western Anatolia are included, the picture gets very murky indeed.
References in later Greek literature, such as the poetry of Homer, help some in reconstructing contexts for cloth consumption and distribution, such as guest-gifts, war prizes, and funerary offerings (Schoenhammer 1993). A large vocabulary of specialized cloth terms is often paired with metals in contexts of Homeric gift exchange. The shroud woven by Penelope for Laertes plays a key role in the Odyssey, and the skyphos from Chiusi nicely illustrates the most common weaving technology of Homeric Greece and presumably the Bronze Age, the warp-weighted loom (Fig. 3). Before weaving, however, one would need spun thread, another time consuming activity often referred to in ancient literature and shown in art, such as the spinner on the vase by the Brygos Painter in London (Fig. 4).
While it is acknowledged that the Homeric epics are not reliable guides to the culture and habits of Bronze Age Greeks, archaeological data used critically can be shown to reflect objects and practices in the Iliad or the Odyssey. For example, while Homer uses at least a dozen different words to refer to cloth (see Table 4) they fall into two basic types: fancy and plain cloth. These categories roughly parallel the two types described by Aegean scribes and fit the basic outline of textiles known from visual representations. They also adhere to the two types of economic goods in the staple-wealth finance model (D’Altroy and Earle 1985), which can be applied to economies of the prehistoric Aegean and Anatolia. Finely crafted cloth was often the product of Homeric women and was used to display status (Il. 3.125–28; 16.220–224; 22.440–44; Od. 3.349–351; 7.95–97) in the contexts of war, marriage, and death. We might imagine these kinds of textiles looking something like the garments shown on Bronze Age wall paintings from Crete and mainland Greece. The other type is the plainer, every-day textile made by slaves and captives (Il. 1.29–31; 6.456; Od. 7.103–106) for daily use, or produced as an item for tribute or a good to be paid to dependents of the palace, including craftsmen and soldiers. Before pursuing these issues in more detail, an outline of methodology is necessary.
Figure 3. Attic red-figure skyphos from Chiusi, showing Penelope at her loom and Telemachos to the left, by the Penelope Painter, 440–430 BC, Museo Archeologico, Chiusi, Italy (left, photo, ©Scala / Art Resource, NY, for permission fee; right, drawing from FĂŒrtwangler, Reichold, and Hauser 1932, pl. 142).
Figure 4. White ground oinochoe by Brygos Painter, from Locri, 490–470 BC, British Museum Vase D13 (Inv. 1873.0820.304 ©Trustees of the British Museum).
Methodology
The field of textile studies is truly multidisciplinary: some archaeologists have approached the study of textiles as socio-cultural anthropologists, building theoretical models from ethnographic parallels and comparing these observations to the archaeological record (e.g., Parsons 1975; Smith and Hirth 1988; Parsons and Parsons 1990; Brumfiel 1991; Costin 1991; 1993; Anderson and Nosch 2003). Others have focused their examinations on specific classes of textile tools (Carington Smith 1975; 1992; Dabney 1996), including specialized studies of the spindle whorl (e.g., Balfanz 1995; Crewe 1998). Some scholars, particularly those working in the Near East where records are abundant, have looked exclusively at textual documents related to textile production (Jacobsen 1970; Waetzoldt 1972; Dalley 1977; Ribichini and Xella 1985; Sollberger 1986; Szarzynska 1988; Völling 2008), while others have relied on a combination of textual and archaeological evidence for studying cloth manufacture and labor within complex economies (Murra and Morris 1976; Murra 1989; Stein and Blackman 1993; McCorriston 1997). Kemp and Vogelsang-Eastwood (2001) for example, have thoroughly examined aspects of New Kingdom Egyptian textile technology and production methods and found that there was a complex interrelationship between public and private spheres when it came to cloth manufacture.
Ideally, we would like to have archaeological evidence from a well-excavated political and economic center that includes workshop facilities preserving textile equipment in situ. In addition, we would like administrative records from this same site that describe the raw materials, their sources, the production targets, the ultimate destination of the finished products, the objects traded in return, and the organization of the labor used to make these goods. In the Aegean and Anatolia, however, a complete picture like this is an archaeological fantasy. As it is, the data sets related to textile production are limited and vary greatly. The primary sources of evidence preserved for us are the tools associated with cloth production, the inscribed documents recording the administration of this industry and its exchange, and the visual arts which depict the finished product in use.
In this book two general questions are addressed: how was textile production within the Minoan, Mycenaean, and Phrygian territories organized, and how does this organization reflect broader aspects of cultural development? The examination of one craft activity in detail will better inform us about the general structure of the production system, from the acquisition of raw materials to the final distribution of finished goods. Although there are differences in time and place between centers in the Aegean and in Anatolia, textiles were a source of wealth for these regional authorities. Once the production of cloth is understood it is possible to place that product within the context of the overall political economy. This information can also be compared to other industries, such as food production, pottery manufacture, and metallurgy, in order to confirm or refute suggestions about social complexity.
As Stein and Blackman (1993, 30–1) state, ‘the organizational context of craft production reflects both the institutional structure of the state and the nature of the state’s interaction with the broader, more heterogeneous society in which it functions.’ To investigate the organization of craft activities, the context, concentration, scale, and intensity of production require examination. Concentrated deposits of craft residues, such as raw materials, tools of manufacture, craft debris, unfinished and finished goods, are all indicative of specialized production. Administrative documents, when they can be deciphered, facilitate this investigation. The consumption of textiles is more difficult to study than the production, but this topic is addressed by examining representations of cloth in art and literature to understand their function and cultural context.
In the eastern Mediterranean, during the Bronze and I ron Ages, generally speaking, regional authorities administered the phases of production, from the acquisition and preparation of raw materials to the subsistence of the personnel and the distribution of the final product. This of course does not exclude independent household production which must have also played an important economic role, but this aspect is nearly invisible in the archaeological record preserved for us in the areas under discussion. The evidence we have from the Bronze and I ron Ages is highly incomplete, but, following Zagarell (1986, 420) who looked at Mesopotamian economies of the third millennium, I would apply his view to the Bronze Age Aegean and I ron Age Anatolia: I believe most of the exchanges were on the community-to-community level rather than on a individual merchant-to-merchant level. Similarly, I believe ‘power is seen as an expression and reflection of community/state productive power and administrative control’ (Zagarell 1986, 420). Craft specialization is defined as repeated, surplus production of one type of good (in this case, cloth) by attached, dependent specialists for exchange directed by a central authority (the palace). By quantifying the distribution of certain tools concentrated within a workshop complex of a regional center and assessing evidence for standardization we can locate specialized production. In some cases it is likely that workers were not free laborers but were slaves or prisoners captured in war and employed by the state, in other cases they may be highly skilled and valued craftspeople. Raw materials (primarily wool and flax) and component elements (dyes, perfumed oil, and decorations) are transformed into valuable property at the disposal of the ruling authority. The palace directs consumption of the finished product, for military, ideological and poli...

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