TEXTILES

EBOOK AVAILABLE

Oxbow Books • 9781789254297 Paperback • b/w illus. • 280 x 216 mm 232 pages • Available Now • £38.00

About the editors:

Wolfram Schier is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin. Prior to that he held positions as Assistant Professor at Heidelberg University and as Professor at the universities of Bamberg and Würzburg. Susan Pollock is professor at the Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie at the Freie Universität Berlin. Prior to that she was Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY.

The Competition of Fibres

Early Textile Production in Western Asia, South-east and Central Europe (10,000–500 BC) Edited by Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock Series: Ancient Textiles Series

A collections of papers on the study of wool and other fibres in ancient textile production.

The central issues discussed in this new collected work in the highly successful Ancient Textiles Series are the relationships between fibre resources and availability on the one hand and the ways those resources were exploited to produce textiles on the other. Technological and economic practices – for example, the strategies by which raw materials were acquired and prepared – in the production of textiles play a major role in the papers collected here.

Contributions investigate the beginnings of wool use in western Asia and south-eastern Europe. The importance of wool in considerations of early textiles is due to at least two factors. First, both wild as well as some domesticated sheep are characterised by a hairy rather than a woolly coat. This raises the question of when and where woolly sheep emerged, a question that has not up until now been resolvable by genetic or other biological analyses. Second, wool as a fibre has played a major role both economically and socially in both western Asian and European societies from as early as the 3rd millennium BC in Mesopotamia, and it continues to do so, in different ways, up to the modern day. Despite the importance of wool as a fibre resource, contributors demonstrate clearly that its development and use can only be properly addressed in the context of a consideration of other fibres, both plant and animal.

9781789255515 £29.95 Oxbow Books 9781789251203 £35.00 Oxbow Books

Scandinavian Late Iron Age Costume Iconography By Ulla Mannering Series: Ancient Textiles Series

A study of iconographic material from the Scandinavian Late Iron Age depicting clothed human figures.

This richly illustrated book presents a selection of the rich and varied iconographic material from the Scandinavian Late Iron Age (AD 400–1050) depicting clothed human figures, from an archaeological textile and clothing perspective. The source material consists of five object categories: gold foils, gold bracteates, helmet plaques, jewellery, and textile. The book contributes with new information on social, regional and chronological differences in clothing traditions from c. AD 400 to the Viking Age.

Oxbow Books • 9781789255478 • New in Paperback 280 x 216mm • 288 pages • August 2020 • £27.50

The Dyer's Handbook

Memoirs of an 18th-Century Master Colourist By Dominique Cardon Series: Ancient Textiles Series

Translation and facsimile reproduction of an 18th-century French manuscript on producing textile dyes.

The Dyer's Handbook concerns a unique manuscript from the 18th century: a dyer’s memoirs from Languedoc, containing recipes for dyes with corresponding colour samples. It is an exceptional document, hugely rare and of great significance not only to textile historians but dyers and colourists today, as thanks to the information in the manuscript the colours can be reproduced exactly, with the same ingredients or reproduced using modern techniques by matching the colour samples.

Oxbow Books • 9781789255492 • New in Paperback 297 x 210mm • 160 pages • October 2020 • £29.95

Silk

Trade and Exchange along the Silk Roads between Rome and China in Antiquity Edited by Berit Hildebrandt Series: Ancient Textiles Series

Multi-disciplinary approaches to the manufacture, trade and status of silk along the Silk Roads.

These papers bring together historical, philological and archaeological research to highlight the use, circulation and meaning of silk as a commodity, gift, tribute, booty and status symbol in varying cultural and chronological contexts between East and West, including technological aspects of silk production.