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From Use-Wear to User: Working with Literary Sources on Worn Textile Tools

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Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology ((IDCA))

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Abstract

Focussed on Greek and Roman textile production, this paper argues that attentive reading of textual sources effectively complements our understanding of user-tool relationships in antiquity, when informed by archaeological and experimental investigations alongside the text’s literary context. While the class and gender bias of ancient literary sources place them at one remove from many production contexts and literary aesthetics determine their expression and content (often at the expense of information about craft processes, raw materials, etc.), these texts originate in a historical context where textile production could be experienced as part of everyday life. Thus, literary texts provide a valuable bystander’s view on Graeco-Roman textile crafts and the information they provide can be fruitfully employed in textile research. This does, however, require a fully interdisciplinary approach, including not only understanding of archaeological and craft-historical evidence but also of literary and stylistic aspects.

Through case studies centred on Greek Hellenistic epigrams featuring workers involved in textile production (Anthologia Palatina 6.247; 7.726 and 6.47; 285; 288) the paper tests this hypothesis by examining the extent to which user attitudes displayed in literary texts correlate with user attitudes to tools suggested by archaeological evidence, such as use-wear and tool inscriptions, and experimental archaeological evidence. Through close readings, the paper demonstrates that literary tool users assess and relate to their tools in terms of functionality and efficiency in securing a desired output, as well as economic dependency, even if their depiction is shaped also by other contemporary cultural concerns.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Translations from Greek and Latin are my own unless otherwise noted. Abbreviations of titles and authors of Classical texts follow the Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon and Thesaurus Linguae Latinae respectively.

  2. 2.

    The tri-partite description of their handling of loom parts and tools in Ov. Met. 6.54–56 has a similar paratactic structure centred on the verbs uincta est (‘is bound’, 6.55), secernit (‘divides’, 6.55), inseritur (‘is inserted’, 6.56).

  3. 3.

    E.g. Ov. Met. 4.36; Stat. Theb. 11.401; Tert. Psych. 364; Claud. 1.177.

  4. 4.

    Cf. also Sofianou 2012: 80–82; Marchesini and Migliavacca 2018: 236–238 and Kleibrink 2018: 170–172 on surface decoration on loom weights as guiding the weaver in set-up and pattern replication. Conversely, many pre-firing marks on loom weights are connected to production rather than use, cf. F Beltrán Lloris and M Beltrán Lloris 2012: 136–139 with further bibliography. Gleba 2008: 137–138 highlights the range of different functions of decoration on loom weights.

  5. 5.

    By contrast, references to wear traces in dedicated clothing is comparatively frequent, Petsalis-Diomidis 2018: 424–427, esp. 472 n. 33.

  6. 6.

    καμαξ is usually taken as a repeated reference to the pin beater, cf. LSJ s.v. καμαξ 5.

  7. 7.

    For tools used in other crafts as worn, A.P. 6.103; 297.

  8. 8.

    On the importance of focalisation in literary dedicatory epigram generally, Day 2019: 27–32; cf. Petsalis-Diomidis 2018: 424–427.

  9. 9.

    Gow and Page 1965: 427 translates the phrase simply as ‘weave’, cf. LSJ s.v. μιτόομαι. My interpretation relies on the specific meaning of μίτος as ‘heddle’ in combination with the downward motion implied by καθ´ἱστῶν, recalling how the weaver fixes the starting border to the cloth beam during set-up.

  10. 10.

    Daughters in A.P. 6.39.1–2; 160.7; 288.1; 289.1–2. Cf. also A.P. 6.286; 287. The pattern is inverted in A.P. 6.284 and adapted in A.P. 6.174 (Coughlan 2016: 44–45).

  11. 11.

    OLD s.v. bonus 6 and 10b (res bonae ‘wealth’); ThLL s.v. faustus 1 and 2, e.g. Arnob. Nat. 4.5; Plaut. Pers. 632.

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    Acknowledgements

    Without the input of experienced craftspeople, no academic could attempt to discuss the representation of craft processes. As many times before, I mention with gratitude Ida Demant (Land of Legends) and Barbara Köstner (Xanten Archaeological Park) as well as Jennifer Beamer (Leicester). Lampeter colleagues have offered valuable feedback on versions of this paper: thanks especially to Louise Steel and Ruth Parkes. I am also indebted to Benjamin Cartlidge (Liverpool) and to the staff at the Fondation Hardt pour l’étude d’antiquité classique in Geneva for helping me access scholarship when the Covid-19 lockdown prevented travel. Finally, I am grateful to my colleague and partner Errietta Bissa: at once the harshest critic and the most patient reader. Needless to say, remaining errors are my own.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Faculty of Humanities, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, UK

      Magdalena Öhrman

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    1. Magdalena Öhrman
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    Correspondence to Magdalena Öhrman .

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    Editors and Affiliations

    1. Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

      Agata Ulanowska

    2. Department of Prehistory, Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

      Karina Grömer

    3. Textile Research, Laboratory Department, Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels, Belgium

      Ina Vanden Berghe

    4. Faculty of Humanities, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, UK

      Magdalena Öhrman

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    Öhrman, M. (2022). From Use-Wear to User: Working with Literary Sources on Worn Textile Tools. In: Ulanowska, A., Grömer, K., Vanden Berghe, I., Öhrman, M. (eds) Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92170-5_10

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92170-5_10

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