Project description
Textile production in Ancient Egypt
Textile production played a significant role in Ancient Egypt’s economy. The EU-funded EgYarn project will identify the main protagonists of textile manufacture (women, men, slaves or private entrepreneurs) and show how domestic and non-domestic production interacted in the New Kingdom. The project will analyse textiles, tools and fibres in order to understand production mechanisms; through the use of experimental archaeology, it will provide fundamental clues about ancient fibres, how tools were used and what qualities of thread and textile could be produced using these instruments. Furthermore, the project will initiate and design a European collections database of New Kingdom tools and textiles now stored in European museums.
Objective
The EgYarn project will study the textile production of New Kingdom Egypt (1550-1070 BCE). It offers a remarkable opportunity to understand a largely unexplored sector of Ancient Egypt’s economy and society of Ancient Egypt, making use of outstanding finds of textile tools, textiles and written sources.
The project will enable in-depth comprehension of the chaîne opératoire, identify the main protagonists of textile manufacture (women, men, slaves or private entrepreneurs) and show how domestic and non-domestic production interacted. It will reveal the place of New Kingdom textile practises with respect to Mediterranean and African Late Bronze Age traditions. Lastly, it will build a European collections database of the New Kingdom tools and textiles stored in European museums, bringing them back together again more than a century after their discovery.
Textiles, tools (spindles, whorls, parts of looms) and fibres will be analysed in order to understand production mechanism, while archaeological contexts and textual sources will furnish precious data about the organisation of textile manufacture. Experimental archaeology will provide fundamental clues about ancient fibres, how tools were used and what qualities of thread and textile could be produced using these instruments. Key sites are Deir el-Medina and Gurob, but the project will also encompass textiles and tools from other New Kingdom sites now kept in European museums.
Through the EgYarn project, I will reinforce my research methodology and strengthen my knowledge of textile analysis, becoming an all-around textile researcher, able to address every issue raised by archaeological textiles. The project will give me the opportunity to acquire expertise in teaching at an academic level and participating and organising seminars/workshops, developing my international network in both textile archaeology and Egyptology.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryancient history
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managemententrepreneurship
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextiles
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyarchaeology
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Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
1165 Kobenhavn
Denmark