Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC.

• Author: Bier, Carol
• Position: Book review

Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC. Edited by C. MICHEL and M.-L. NOSCH. Ancient Textile Studies, vol. 8. Oxford UK and Oakville, CT: OXBOW BOOKS, 2010. Pp. xix + 444, illus. $70.

Textile production comprised the major manufacturing industry of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean, yet it has received relatively little scholarly attention. As garments and furnishings, textiles may provide warmth and utility, but they are also indicators of status, objects of trade and tribute, products of technology, and economic generators. The role of textiles is both pervasive and complex, yielding rich and specific vocabularies that do not easily transcend time and space for contemporary understanding. This brilliant volume offers a compilation of twenty-two papers that result from an exciting collaboration between the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research and a project of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, specifically "The Economy of Wool in the Ancient Near East," which was launched in 2005 by the Histoire et Archeologie de l'Orient Cuneiforme (HAROC). This publication, the eighth in a series of Ancient Textile Studies, arises from an exploratory workshop that took place in Copenhagen in 2009 with sponsorship of the European Science Foundation.

Packed with interesting ideas, critical approaches, and new theoretical frameworks, the papers reviewed here address textile terminologies in different languages and cultures of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. Considering that terminologies are text-based, the editors have taken literally and prudently the third-to-first millennium focus within which written materials augment the archaeological record. But the breadth of the materials covered extends back to the ninth millennium, far beyond evidence of written sources. The collective value of these papers exemplifies the highest scholarly standards and the strength of collaborative scholarship engaging different disciplinary perspectives. The project reflects the visionary guidance of the editors in developing a technological base of understanding through observation, experimentation, and critical evaluation of the archaeological record, and the bringing of this to bear on the interpretation of textual sources. This book lays a new foundation for the study of production, use, and trade of textiles in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. New interpretations of terms, based upon archaeological and textual sources in Egypt. Mesopotamia, the Levant, Anatolia, Cyprus, and beyond provide a strong contemporary platform from which to expand and refine our understanding of ancient textiles.

The concept of "terminology" implies both completeness and a complexity...