Textiles in Ancient Egypt: a view from the New Kingdom

Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi

Mødedato: Torsdag 6.10 2022 Kl. 17.30 – døren låses 17.20!

Antikmuseet på Aarhus Universitet,
Victor Albecksvej, Århus C, bygning 1414

Textiles in Ancient Egypt: a view from the New Kingdom, v. Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi, Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoc at the Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen

Textiles in Ancient Egypt, as well as in other ancient societies, were used for multifold purposes: from dressing the people to furnishing the house, from religious ceremonies to wrapping and covering the bodies of the deceased.

In Pharaonic Egypt, textiles were made primarily of linen, and they still impress modern scholars with their extreme fineness and the high craftsmanship of their creators. There are no doubts that textiles and their production occupied a very important role of the Egyptian economy.

But what are the sources that we can use to understand the New Kingdom textile industry? Which objects have preserved, what can they tell us and how can we study them to learn as much as possible?

This presentation will give an overview of the available sources, archaeological and textual, that can offer a picture of the textile production in the New Kingdom. Furthermore, it will focus on a case study, Deir el-Medina, to highlight the potential of a complete approach on the topic but also the limits of the materials under study.