Final Report Summary - ITEM-E-CONTEXT (Identities and Transformation in the Eastern Mediterranean: Evolution and Continuity of Textile Tools in the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA); 13th - 10th c. B.C.E.) Identities and Transformation in the Eastern Mediterranean: Evolution and Continuity of Textile Tools in the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA); 13th - 10th c. B.C.E.The goals of this research project, which started in June 2014, were to establish a better understanding of the problematic transitional period at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and to advance our knowledge of this poorly understood period by:[1] studying together key aspects of the development of textile technology in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, two periods that belong to different scholarly fields and are not addressed by the same scholars.[2] demonstrating the value of using textile tools and technological changes associated with textile production as marker for population changes and renewal.To do so, the fellow has received training in a new methodology of the study and recording of loom weight by her supervisor M.L. Nosch. The fellow has shared knowledge and discussed textile tools with the other fellows and colleagues at the Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen. She has also participated to the “festival international du Lin” in France and has learned about linen industry but also about traditional flax cultivation, harvest and fibre processing, which are highly relevant for her research. Concerning the transfer of knowledge, the fellow has been sharing her expertise on textile industry in Cyprus and the Near East with colleagues from CTR. This will for instance lead to a joint article with M.L. Nosch and L. Rahmstorf on textile tools (list of publications number 10). As stated in her MC project, the fellow has also used her expertise on Syrian textile tools to study material from Hama kept at the National Museum in Copenhagen, the publication of the material is in progress. The fellow collected data on textile tools in Copenhagen (National Museum), and during field trips to Stockholm (Medelhavsmuseet), London (British Museum) and Paris (le Louvre) in 2014 and 2015. She also travelled to Cyprus in 2015 and collected and documented data in museums. In addition to collecting data in museums, the fellow started to work on unpublished publication notebooks kept in Paris on the excavations conducted at Enkomi (Cyprus) to better understand and interpret the textile tools of the site and their archaeological context. The unexpected amount of textile tools from Enkomi was a significant gain to the project and will in the future lead to either a monograph or a comprehensive paper.During the project, the fellow fulfilled her first objective, which was to provided currently lacking weight and precise measurement information for the ivory and bone shafts from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, as well as measurements of clay loom weights from Cyprus. The fellow also drew and photographed most of the objects that she recorded. The fellow has also started to establish a catalogue of possible distaffs and spindles in metal according to publications.The second objective of the project was to address the possibility of identifying new comers in Early Iron Age northern Syria and Cyprus by examining the archaeological evidence for the introduction of new spinning technologies and shifts in low and high whorl use. For this, the fellow started to study textile tools from Syria and Cyprus in museums. Although, the fellow has not yet been able to analyse all of the data that she collected, she has gained a good understanding of the Cypriot LBA textile industry, its character and extension. The first results and conclusions are published in the paper SAUVAGE, C. & SMITH, J. “Local and Regional Patterns of Textile Production in Late Bronze Age Cyprus”, to be published in Ancient Cyprus Today: Museum Collections and New Research Approaches to the Archaeology of Cyprus (Submitted fall 2015).The fellow is currently working on the publication of Textile tools from Hama and from Enkomi. The fellow intends to publish a monograph or comprehensive paper on the textile Industry at Enkomi, and she is also working on other sites in Cyprus to provide comparison for the rich Enkomi material, and will publish the results in a large peer-reviewed article. For Enkomi, her main results are the identification of textile workshops in the city and in an official building (fig. 1), where the manufactured fabrics were fine, light-weight and narrow. It is for the moment unclear if the domestic productions differ dramatically from those of the artisanal area. However, it seems that sets of terracotta loom weights were produced by a specialized workshop, which tends to make pyramidal loom weights of an identical shape and weights, often found by groups of 7 to 14 pieces. Four types of spindles were identified by the fellow, and by studying material from tombs, the fellow was able to reconstruct spinning sets, and to demonstrate that the same spindle could have been used with whorls of different weights and diameters to produce threads of varying thicknesses. Some of these whorls weight as little as 1 g, and correspond to objects that have so far been discarded in textile studies.During the extent of her project, the fellow has increased her exposure on the international scene by attending several international conferences: 9th ICAANE in May 2014 (in Basel), ASOR conference in Nov. 2014 in San Diego, and “Cyprus in the Museums” in the Stockholm Museum (April 2015). In the fall of 2014 (September-November), the fellow has been travelling in the USA, to join supervisor M.L. Nosch on research stay in the USA, to be trained in textile technology, especially in the new CTR methodology of the functioning of loom weights. This training was necessary to enable the analyses of her collected material. A special gain of this joint training program was that we discovered an assemblage of unpublished Loom Weights from the Getty Villa, and we are now in the course of publishing them together in an international journal. (see list of publications). The first results of this research project were presented in December 2014 at an international workshop in Copenhagen in a joint paper by the fellow and the supervisor. The fellow also organized an international conference with textile scholars in Los Angeles. This gave her the opportunity to extend her international network and present the preliminary results of her project to textile experts. Moreover, the fellow started collaboration with M.-L. Nosch and L. Rahmstorf, on the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age with a special focus on textiles tools in the Eastern Mediterranean (Crete, Greece, Cyprus and the Levant).The fellow was invited to join the GDRI (groupement de recherche international) ATOM (Ancient Textiles in the Orient and Mediterranean) for the period 2015-2018 as a direct result of the MC project. The GRDI is a formalised network between CTR, CNRS and Leicester University.The fellow took leave from the project to obtain more training in teaching courses in archaeology (in Loyola Marymount university), and was subsequently offered a tenured position. Thus she only completed 11.5 months of the planned project.• Provides the address of the project Website (if applicable) as well as relevant contact details.http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/economy/identities_and_transformation/ Powiązane dokumenty final1-hama_material_pl2-copy.pdf final1-hama_material_pl1_-copy.pdf final1-hama_material_pl4-copy.pdf final1-hama_material_pl3-copy.pdf final1-hama_material_pl5-copy.pdf
