Textiles and Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean (Ancient Textiles) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1785706721 ISBN 13: 9781785706721

Publisher: Oxbow Books, 2017

Synopsis

Twenty-four experts from the fields of Ancient History, Semitic philology, Assyriology, Classical Archaeology, and Classical Philology come together in this volume to explore the role of textiles in ancient religion in Greece, Italy, The Levant and the Near East. Recent scholarship has illustrated how textiles played a large and very important role in the ancient Mediterranean sanctuaries. In Greece, the so-called temple inventories testify to the use of textiles as votive offerings, in particular to female divinities. Furthermore, in several cults, textiles were used to dress the images of different deities. Textiles played an important role in the dress of priests and priestesses, who often wore specific garments designated by particular colours. Clothing regulations in order to enter or participate in certain rituals from several Greek sanctuaries also testify to the importance of dress of ordinary visitors. Textiles were used for the furnishings of the temples, for example in the form of curtains, draperies, wall-hangings, sun-shields, and carpets. This illustrates how the sanctuaries were potential major consumers of textiles; nevertheless, this particular topic has so far not received much attention in modern scholarship. Furthermore, our knowledge of where the textiles consumed in the sanctuaries came from, where they were produced, and by who is extremely limited. Textiles and Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean examines the topics of textile production in sanctuaries, the use of textiles as votive offerings and ritual dress using epigraphy, literary sources, iconography and the archaeological material itself.

About this title

About the Author

Cecilie Brøns is a post-doctoral researcher at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. She has a PhD in Classical archaeology from the National Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. Her research interests include ancient textiles, ancient polychromy, pigments and dyes, colours of antiquity, ancient Greek cult and religion and votive offerings. Her first book, Gods and Garments: Textiles in Greek Sanctuaries in the 7th to the 1st Centuries BC, appeared in this series in 2016.

Marie-Louise Nosch is Director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen and Research Professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen. She is the editor of many titles in the Ancient Textiles series.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1785706721
• ISBN 13: 9781785706721
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Brøns Cecilie, Nosch Marie-Louise