Workshop Program
September 25-27th, 2023, Romania

Monday, September 25th — Muzeul Textilelor, Building B, Băița, Hunedoara County

Monday sessions will be streamed live on the EuroWeb YouTube Channel.

9:00—Departure from Deva to Băița

Meeting points (Mercedes, white color, no. HD-02-PCB):

8:45 Hotel Wien;
9:00 in front of the Museum Civilizatiei Dacice si Romane

9:40-10:00am
Florica Zaharia and Irina Petroviciu: Welcome and Introduction

Part I
Moderator: Florica Zaharia

10:00-10:45am
Keynote speaker Erilda SELAJ: Albanian Traditional Garments and Textiles; an overview of their typology

10:45-11:05am
Enxhelina HARIZI: Weaving Fabrics in Northern Albania

11:05-11:25am
Coffee break

11:25-11:45am
Vassiliki NIKOLOVIENI: Sersigkas: The female dress of Missolonghi – Greece, 19th century

11:45-12:05pm
Gerasimoula Ioanna NIKOLOVIENI: Looking at the dynamic of Traditional Ecological Knowledge for the research and the exhibition of traditional textiles from modern Greece

12:05-12:25pm
Katrin KANIA: Medieval Women’s Headwear in Middle Europe

12:25-12:40pm
Florica MĂȚĂU: Craftspeople, artefacts, and institutions. The general picture of traditional textiles in the eastern part of nowadays Romania

12:40-1:00pm
Questions

1:00-2:15pm
Lunch at “La Dragus” (including transportation from and back to the event)

Part II
Moderator: Erilda SELAJ

2:30-3:10pm
Ana URSESCU: Chromatics within the Romanian household textile industry – recovery and revitalization

3:10-3:50pm
Irina PETROVICIU: Dyes in traditional textiles from Romanian collections

3:50-4:10pm
Florica ZAHARIA: The traditional woman’s blouse of Pădureni

4:10-4:30pm
Coffee break

4:30-4:45pm
Questions

4:45-5:15pm
Florica ZAHARIA: tour of the exhibition Visible Textile Heritages: Traditional Costumes from Romania and Japan at the Muzeul Textilelor

5:45pm—Departure for hotels in Deva

Tuesday, September 26th—Muzeul Textilelor, Building B, Băița, and Building C, Hărțăgani Hunedoara County
9:00—Departure from Deva to Băița (same meeting points, same hours)

9:30-10:30am Muzeul Textilelor, Building B, Băița
Viewing Romanian textile fibers selection
Viewing costumes from Romania and neighboring countries

10:30-10:50am
Coffee break

10:50-11:00am
Travel to Hărțăgani village

11:00-1:00pm
Florica ZAHARIA: Hemp fiber technology in the context of the traditional farm

1:00-2:15pm
Lunch at “La Dragus” (including transportation from and back to the event)

2:15-5:00pm
Ana URSESCU and Irina PETROVICIU: The colorful world of natural dyes (dyeing workshop based on local flora and recipes)

Festive dinner at the Building C/MT in Hărțăgani village

8:00pm Departure for Deva

Wednesday, September 27th—ASTRA Museum, Sibiu

10:00—Departure from Deva to Sibiu (same meeting points, 9:45 and 10:00)
12:00—Arriving in Sibiu ASTRA Museum

12:30-1:30
Free time, or participate in CApP Workshop 1: Textile and jewellery craftsmen techniques and mysteries, Part 1

1:30—2:30pm
Lunch at the ASTRA Center for Heritage or at the Hanul Tulgheș

2:30-4:00pm
Participants could attend Workshop 1: Textile and jewelry craftsmen techniques and mysteries, coord. Rodica Ispas, Elena Pascu, Maria Ciucă, Ioana Corduneanu & Victoria Geutskens, Part 2

4:15-6:00pm
Technical Guided Tour – The “ASTRA” Museum of the Traditional Folk Civilization – Open Air Museum

6:15-6:30pm —Departure for Deva or to hotels in Sibiu

Full programme available here.

Book of Abstracts available here.

EuroWeb, in collaboration with the Ecole française d’Athènes, the University of Florence and the INSTAP SCEC, is organising a one-week training school on hands-on approach to textile tools. The objective of the course is to familiarise trainees with the textile technology and, specifically, with the functionality of textile tools. The abundant archaeological evidence for textile production from the Bronze Age site of Malia on Crete is our case study. The training school offers short introductory lectures, hands-on learning, and experimental/experiential activities. The trainees will study and recreate Minoan textile tools, and will learn to spin and weave using them and how to document them.

Malia TS short programme

Bucharest, 17 – 19 May 2023

“War is the father of all things”, proclaimed Heraclitus of Ephesus in the late 6th century BC.

The main aim of this conference is to explore how appropriate this sentence is in the field of prehistoric and ancient textiles. While no definite answer should be expected in such a new interdisciplinary branch of study, the examination of a few key questions could lead us to a better general approximation of the influence that war had on the production, acquisition and consumption of textiles throughout millennia: what effects had the military needs on the social and economic systems of production and acquisition of textiles items? Did military developments trigger technical innovation in the field of textiles production? Did wars and conquests change textiles consumption habits?

While the answers to these questions should shed a new light on the history and archaeology of textiles in Europe and the Mediterranean, they will also contribute to one of the most neglected aspects of military logistics and technology in the prehistoric and ancient studies, which still lags behind the study of foodstuffs, metal items and payment in the military field.

Thus, we hope to bring together scholars with expertise on textiles, as well as on war and warfare in order to deepen the understanding on both fields through a joint endeavor.

We encourage the submission of abstracts of no more than 300 words, by the 31^st of December 2022, at textilesandwar@gmail.com, on the following indicative topics:

– From sails and ropes to tents and metal armor linings: written and unwritten evidence for textile items used by the military;

– Taxes, tributes, contracts or specialized workers? Systems of production and acquisition of garments and other textile items for the armies;

– Elite cloaks and standard uniforms: the military rank and status expressed through textile items;

– Economic and cultural effects of military campaigns in the field of textile acquisition and consumption.

ORGANISERS

Liviu Iancu (The Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization, Bucharest)

Francesco Meo (The University of Salento)

CONFERENCE LANGUAGE

English

FEES

No fee is required for participation

VENUE

The Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization

2A Boulevard Mareșal Constantin Prezan, 011452

Bucharest, ROMANIA

CONTACT INFORMATION

Liviu Iancu, Francesco Meo

textilesandwar@gmail.com

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

https://institutlevant.ro/en/textilesandwar

Textile Production, Consumption and Trade in Iron Age Europe

19-20 May 2022 – Muro Leccese (Italy)

Organised by Working Group 4, open to all the WGs
Organisers: Francesco Meo and Francisco B. Gomes

Textile production is one of the main cultural, economic, and social components of any ancient society. The study of textile tools and their uses in the different stages of textile manufacture, as well as of the fabrics themselves, has led to a deeper understanding of the production processes involved and of the social and cultural choices underlying textile production, leading to a growing interest on the subject of ancient textile production, consumption, and trade.

For millennia, most households produced cloth on a small scale for their own consumption. The social changes brought about during the early first millennium BC heralded the development of an increasingly specialized luxury and surplus textile production on a larger scale.

The Iron Age is therefore a key period for the understanding of textile techniques and technologies. As these are often culture-specific, this conference aims at exploring textile production, consumption, and trade in the different European Iron Age societies in order to compare them and develop an integrated panorama of Iron Age textile cultures and their interactions.

In more detail, the conference will focus on several aspects:

• how the different phases of textile production were articulated during the Iron Age societies;
• if there were technical and technological innovation in some societies and in which context they originated;
• if and how the products change and in which geographical and social contexts;
• how textile production was regulated;
• if there are evidences of textile trade and how it was structured;
• and if there are suitable theoretical frameworks to compare data from so many different cultures in the same period.

The Conference will take place in person in Muro Leccese, but those who are unable to attend can still follow the proceedings through Zoom.

PROGRAMME

DAY 1 – 19 MAY 2022
SESSION 1
10.00-10.30 OPENING & WELCOME

10.30-11.15 Iron Age Textile Cultures of Mediterranean Europe: technology, tradition, aesthetics and identity
Margarita Gleba (University of Padua, Italy)

11.15-11.30 DISCUSSION

11.30-12.00 COFFEE BREAK

12.00-12.45 Textile production in the Aegean, c. 1100–500 BC: change, regionalism, and comparisons with neighbouring areas
Bela Dimova (British School at Athens)

12.45-13.00 DISCUSSION

13.00 LUNCH

15.00-17.00 EUROWEB MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING – Prince’s Palace, Muro Leccese

DAY 2 – 20 MAY 2022

SESSION 2

10:00-10.30 From Economy to Identity: Towards an Integrated Approach to Textile Production and Consumption in the Iron Age of Southern Portugal
Francisco B. Gomes & Íris Dias (University of Lisbon, Portugal)

10.30-10.50 Threads of Change: Textile Production during the Early Iron Age in Eastern Iberia
Ricardo Basso Rial (University of Alicante, Spain)

10.50-11.10 DISCUSSION

11.10-11.40 COFFEE BREAK

11:40-12.00 Weaving techniques and social aspects in Iron Age settlements of Southern Italy
Francesco Meo (University of Salento, Italy)

12.00-12.20 Textile Production, Consumption and Trade in Iron Age in Smelting Sites at Timna, Israel
Orit Shamir (Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel), Vanessa Workman (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Naama Sukenik (Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel) and Erez Ben-Yosef (Tel Aviv University, Israel)

12.20-12.40 DISCUSSION

12:40 LUNCH

SESSION 3

14:00-14.45 A period of innovation – textile techniques in the 1st millennium BCE in Central Europe
Karina Grömer (Natural History Museum of Vienna, Austria)

14.45-15.00 DISCUSSION

15.00-15.30 COFFEE BREAK

15.30-15.50 Two Early Iron Age warp-weighted looms at the site of Kaptol, Croatia
Julia K. Fileš Kramberger (Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia)

15:50-16.10 Influences of the Roman Empire on the Textile Economy during the Roman Period in Poland
Magdalena Przymorska-Sztuczka (Archaeological Museum in Biskupin, Poland)

16:10-16.30 DISCUSSION

16:30 CLOSING OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

***

The full programme of the Ancient Fashion Week at Muro Leccese (16th – 20th of May) can be found here.

The focus of this conference is to understand how different modes and scales of textile production were articulated across time and space. In fact, and whereas modes and contexts of textile production in specific periods and regions are known or under study in their respective research fields, comparisons across time and space are still lacking, and this meeting aims to begin bridging this gap.

In more detail, the conference will focus on several aspects: how the different phases of textile production were articulated, how modes of production change through time, what was the real impact of technical and technological innovation in past societies, how the type of product (luxury, for mass consumption) relates to the mode of production, how textile production was regulated, how the export market influenced the organisation of textile production, and if there are suitable theoretical frameworks to compare our research on different periods and areas.

EuroWeb offers the platform to undertake such a time-transcending study of textile production. The conference, focussing on pre-industrial European fabric production, invites EuroWeb members and other researchers to contribute to the discussion of continuities, parallels and changes in textile production. The production process will be considered as a whole, from the selection of plant fibres and their farming or sheep races for wool, until the dyeing process, the making of the fabric and respective finishing processes.

The 24 papers which will be presented in this conference will consider the forms of organisation of production – household production, workshops, putting-out systems and factories are a few well-known keywords on the discussions that come to mind. Case studies will be presented illustrating different modes of productions,  considering their context and impact on the respective societies.

From the Household to the Factory – Program and Book of Abstracts