Track 1: Perspectives on Dress History: Understanding the past and finding the big picture
Chair: Ulrike Beck
Ulrike leads the BMBF-funded research project InnoTexGes at the University of Arts Berlin, where she investigates clothing production related to the social and economic context. In addition, Ulrike investigates problem-solving in the ancient textile industry by applying new scientific methods to material culture. Therefore she interlinks textile- and design research with data science.
Keynote lecture by Karina Grömer
Visuality – Body language – Identity.
Recreating Prehistoric Dress from Central Europe (2nd and 1st millennium BCE)
The history of textiles and clothing can be traced back to the Stone Age, and dress has served as an important medium to inform others of social rank and identity ever since. Conspicuous jewelry is a major feature of the European Bronze and Iron Ages between 2300 and 400 BC, and catches the eye in museums as well as in books. Prehistoric people liked to adorn themselves with long pins, massive bracelets, elaborate collars and spiked belt buckles in bronze and sometimes gold. A series of different sources underpin suggestions of how dress might have looked like in Bronze and Iron Age Europe: placement patterns of jewelry in graves from Central Europe; iconography; textures of Bronze and Iron Age Age textiles, including hundreds of textile fragments from the salt mines Hallstatt and a group of completely preserved garments from Denmark. The appearance of the resulting outfits is discussed, focusing on perception, visual appearance and the interplay between clothing, dress accessories, textures, decoration, colors, and glittering bronzes. We also discuss how it, and its visual appearance may have affected the movements, and how she was perceived by their contemporaries. At least, we look at prehistoric textile production, how this was done thousands of years ago. What tools have been used, what kinds of textiles, fabric qualities, patterns have been achieved.
Karina Grömer is the director of the Department of Prehistory, Natural History Museum Vienna. She studied Prehistoric Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology at the University of Vienna in Austria. Habilitation thesis (2019): “Archaeological Textile Research – Technical, economic and social aspects of textile production and clothing from Neolithic to the Early Modern Era”. She is specialized on interdisciplinary and integrated analysis of textiles, research on textile tools and reconstruction of prehistoric costume. Her research covers a timespan from c. 2500 BCE till 1000 CE and a geographical area from Central Europe to Iran.
Lorena Ariis
Analysing, Reconstructing, Modelling and Testing Historical Clothing and Craftsmanship
In 2018 I had the opportunity to study three Roman loom weights, with an irregular discoid shape, coming from an archaeological excavation of a Rustic Villa from the II-IV century A.D. (courtesy of the Piedmontese Archaeological Superintendence). The remains of rooms perhaps intended for weaving activities had been identified on the site and the loom weights were deposited in a pit, but no trace of the loom remained. Normally a Roman Warp-weighted Loom was weighted by more than eight loom weights, in this case it was a question of how a Loom weighted by only three weights could work. I took up the challenge for a textile archeology experiment. I analyzed Roman and Pre-Roman looms from iconography, from archaeological excavations and from weaving experiments with Warp-weighted Looms, without however finding a solution on the use of heavy loom weights. I thought of reconstructing a vertical loom with poles that rest on quadrangular bases and have two beams, which can move during weaving, with the three weights attached to the lower one. I made replicas of the weights, precisely replicating the material, shape and exact weight in grams. I rebuilt a loom and passed to the testing phase of different Textile samples made with wool yarns obtained according to the wool manufacturing process of the Roman period. The first textile test was a 1/1 Tabby with a 2-4mm diameter thread. The second test is in progress, but I will present a preview of the warping phase here. The test is performed with the finest wool thread, 1-2 mm in diameter, hand-spun and with a yellow-orange-red color gradient, and with the insert of a decorative Chain made with a Heddle Rigid Comb and golden metal thread. The colors and materials are based on remains of textiles from Pompeii and Roman frescoes, where the use of veils and ribbons using golden thread and bright colors is highlighted. I am currently working on the warp of the loom, tying the threads to three Heddle sticks to prepare for weaving a Twill 1-2.
Lorena Ariis is an archaeologist, from Austria, collaborating with Italian and international Museums, with extensive experience in excavating and studying archaeological finds from Prehistory to the Middle Ages. I have always been passionate about ancient textile techniques, textile tools and historical clothing. I have experimented with ancient techniques such as tablet weaving, nalbinding, embroidery, weaving in different looms, sprang, sewing, twining. I am an expert in spinning and wool processing, and I also personally build the weaving looms and work with clay. I am currently collaborating on a project of the NHM in Vienna, studying and collecting data on ancient textile tools preserved in Austrian museums.
Susanne Beck
„That I have come to you – I clothe myself in six-weave linen!“ Cloth and Clothing in the Egyptian Book of the Death
Cloth and clothing played an important role in daily life in Ancient Egypt. Besides getting along in the everyday world, the ancient Egyptians immensely prepared for their lives in the hereafter. Not only provisions of food had to be arranged for the afterlife but also every other equipment one could wish for including clothing. The talk will analyse cloth and clothing in the funerary text with a special focus on the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead outlining the different contexts, in which garments are named and used.
Susanne Beck studied Egyptology and Arabic and Middle Eastern cultures at the University of Leipzig, Germany, from 2005–2011. She received her PhD in 2015 and her habilitation in June 2022. She has worked as Curator at the British Museum, London, and currently at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Since March 2022, she is the mission director of the Saqqara Saite Tombs Project in Egypt. Susanne Beck’s research interests focus on magic-medical texts, demonology, religious and funerary beliefs in Ancient Egypt, besides museology.
Lisa Gayet
Analysis of the Egyptian Clothing and Outline of its Functions during Antiquity
The paper develops the place, importance and significance of clothing in the ancient Egyptian civilization. Egypt is the country for which we have found the oldest dress. It is a so-called ‚tunic dress‘, discovered at Tarkhan, near Fayoum, dating from around 3400 to 3100 BC. Unfortunately, as the clothes and other textile fragments that have been found intact are still very rare today, the analysis of the costume of the time must also pass through an iconographic study of the paintings and sculptures found in the tombs or in the temples. However, since Egyptian pictorial art is extremely codified, idealized, traditional and subject to aesthetic canons, it is rare that these images are exact representations of their daily life, and therefore of their clothing. However, in spite of this discrepancy in reality, the artists applied themselves to respecting certain hierarchical and artistic rules, which of course evolved over the course of the reigns and dynasties. In addition to the hieroglyphic inscriptions, it is these aesthetic canons that help in an analysis of the attributes and functionalities of the garment.
This paper will then propose a descriptive and functional analysis of Egyptian clothing, through an iconographic and material study from the Old to the New Kingdom, on individuals from royalty, nobility, as well as the more modest Egyptian.
Lisa Gayet is a PhD student in Egyptology at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier III, and attached to the ASM (Archéologie des Sociétés Méditerranéennes) research laboratory, the subject of this thesis is the non-royal female garment and adornment, its description and funerary function, in the New Kingdom tombs. The study aims to reveal the function of clothing and its link with the place and social status of women in Egyptian society.
Doaa Abdel Motaal Ahmed
Women Fashion Depictions in the Tomb of Petosiris at Tuna El Gebel
Dress is not only material for covering the body but can also seen as an artifact. Dress is therefore a cultural and social indicator. Clothing in daily life, in religion or rituals activities contribute to better understanding an important feature of life in the ancient world. It has the potential to deepen our appreciation of the many various roles dress plays in ancient art and current literature often provide only ‘snapshots’ of this notion It mainly shows the types of tunices in use, but a detailed examination of dress can tell much more. The scenes in the tomb of Petosiris represent a great inspiration regarding the way in which the figures are dressed, giving a great variety of fashion for both males and females. The main aim of this study is to highlight the different depictions of women dress in the tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel in Minia through displaying the different representations. This study is depending on a descriptive and analytical methodology to achieve its aims. Results of this study reveal that the tomb represents a fashion show for all community classes.
Doaa Abdel Motaal Ahmed is an assistant Professor, Tourist Guidance Department, Faculty of Tourism & Hotels, Minia University, Egypt; Reviewer in the International Journal of Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality, Fayoum University, Egypt; Reviewer in Minia Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, Minia University, Egypt; Supervisor of themes submitted for the fulfillment of the Master and PHD degree in Tourist Guidance. And giving sessions in the history & archaeology of the Graeco-Roman period in Egypt.
Astrid Klein
From Caftan to Bedding: Patterned Silks and Buddhism in Kucha on the Northern Silk Road
Many patterned fabrics in the paintings of the Buddhist caves of Kucha seem to represent silk, but two patterns don’t decorate only the donors’ caftans, as is usually the case: 1) the check-pattern is depicted as the robe of special monks or as coverlet, 2) the tree-leaf pattern is not worn by any monk but appears as a discarded robe used as „bedding“. Comparison with textile finds suggests that these are representations of two types of silk: (1) a possible „Buddhist” patterned twill weave made of coarse silk floss, and (2) a warp-faced compound tabby with a hair-fine inner warp thread, probably a new Sino-Sogdian development in Turfan in the 6th century.
With the help of comparisons with written sources and textile finds the talk presents a proposal according to which both fabrics were primarily produced for the nobility and only left it through donations. That their production method nevertheless played a role in monastic use is indicated by the paintings and their correspondence to monastic rules.
Astrid Klein has a doctoral research position at the academy project “Buddhist Murals of Kucha on the Northern Silk Road” of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities. She holds a BA in Sinology and a MA in East Asian Art History from the Freie Universität Berlin. Klein‘s research focuses on clothing and textile patterns in the visual and material culture of Central Asia.
Morgan Lemmer-Webber
Weaving it all together, Women’s Roles in the Roman Textile Industry
Scholars have often viewed the domestic and commercial divide in textile production along gendered lines, associating domestic production with women in the context of the ideal of feminine virtue and commercial production with men working in centralized production centers. A large body of scholarship focuses on the domestic production of textiles as a feminine attribute in the Greek world that is carried over into Italic and Republican Rome. Scholarship on textiles in the Roman Imperial period, however, focuses predominantly on the increasing commercialization of the textile industry. This presentation looks at women’s roles in textile production in the Roman Empire, utilizing archaeological, epigraphic, literary, administrative, and visual evidence. Using the cottage industry model, I explore the continued roles of women’s labor in the Roman textile industry, exploring the links between domestic production and commercial distribution.
Morgan recently completed her PhD in Art History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her primary area of focus is Roman art and material culture with an emphasis on the historical under-representation of women, particularly as seen through their roles in textile production and portrayals in artwork and material culture. This presentation is distilled from her dissertation topic. She is the co-founder and director of FOSS & Crafts Studios LLC.
Heidi Köpp-Junk
Dance and Clothing in Ancient Egypt – The Earliest Evidence
The female dancer clothed with an apron on the ostracon now in Turin is very popular – but how was the clothing of male and female dancers before that?
The earliest depictions of dancers in Egypt are attested in the Neolithic Period about 5000 BC. Already ca. 3000 BC male and female dancers with clothing are shown, wearing different aprons and various long dresses. The female sistra players in the tomb of Nunetjer (ca. 2500 BC) wear a skirt, while the female dancers, depicted in the same scene, are dressed in the typical long dress with one or two straps over the shoulder. These gowns are long and they seem to be clinging dress, but from other scenes it becomes obvious, that they are cut wide to allow sweeping dance steps. Other female dancers are shown with apron and two sashes across the upper body. The clothes allow a very agile dancing style, be it for men or women.
The lecture analyzes the period from 3000-1000 BC with a focus on the earliest evidence, discussing the change of the dresses in the course of time as well the contexts in which they were worn.
Dr Heidi Köpp-Junk is an assistant Professor in Egyptian Archaeology at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw. She studied Egyptology, Prehistory and Ethnology at the University of Göttingen, worked at the Universities of Tübingen, Göttingen, Trier, Münster, for different museums (British Museum London, RPM Hildesheim, Museum for Prehistory Halle, Völklinger Hütte, MNHA Luxembourg) and excavated in Germany and Egypt. Research topics: Travel, water, music and clothing in ancient Egypt.
Track 2 — Pattern Recognition: Structuring data methodically
Chair: Martin Jess
Martin Jess lives and loves data digitalization. Due to his background in software engineering and data management in combination with art history, he takes a great interest in the intersection between design research and information technology. His passion is to understand innovational strategies and to support and facilitate knowledge discovery by using standardized workflows. Martin Jess earned a Master of Science from the Martin Luther Universität in Halle. In his ten years of work experience in digitalization as software engineer and data management expert, he contributed in various economic fields. Recently he was part of the team for the Swiss Covid-19 Research Project Registry. In his current research he focusses on designing and implementing data management platforms for artefacts in the field of archaeology and art history.
Keynote lecture by Ulrike Beck
Pattern Recognition: How to Structure Data Methodically, Create a Repeatable Reconstruction Method & understand Clothing & Motion in a Mathematical System.
As the physicist Neil de Grasse Tyson says: „Science literacy is not so much about what you know, but how your brain is wired for thought and asking questions.“ The same applies to data structures. Efficient data structuring is not about acquiring the most considerable amount of stray facts. Instead, it is about collecting, wiring and structuring the data intelligently to recognize the hidden and unobvious patterns. Furthermore, it is about methodically testing new ideas and hypotheses, finding reliable evidence, and implementing specific and repeatable methodological standards to connect and interlink the research results with other fields.
This talk is about pattern recognition and methodological standards to find the hidden insights that go far beyond an individual object or a specific group of sources. Furthermore, it will discuss how to interlink scientific methods and research results with other researchers, scientists and research fields.
Ulrike Beck leads the BMBF-funded research project InnoTexGes at the University of Arts Berlin, where she investigates clothing production related to the social and economic context. In addition, Ulrike investigates problem-solving in the ancient textile industry by applying new scientific methods to material culture. Therefore she interlinks textile- and design research with data science. Beck understands clothing production as a complex task, which is solved by converting creative ideas into a mathematical concept and applying it to a specific problem. Therefore, her research focusses on pattern recognition and translating the consistent logical language of the dress into comparable data models.
Magdalena M. Wozniak
“Made in Nubia: the Meinarti kilim case-study”
Meinarti is an island located immediately north of the Nile’s Second Cataract, circa 350 km upriver from Philae. The site played an important role in the Nubian trade control policy. In the medieval written sources, it was described as a control point for traffic on the river and as the occasional residence of the eparch of Nobadia. The excavations at Meinarti were conducted from 1963 to 1964 under the auspices of UNESCO as part of the Nubian Salvage Campaign. More than 50 fragments of a kilim piece were retrieved from an occupation layer dated to the 14th c. CE. However, the conservation process of this remarkable fabric took place much later, between 2017 and 2019, in the frame of the “Nubian Textiles” project (POLONEZ/MSCA Co-Fund). The paper presents the multidisciplinary approach displayed to document and better understand the context of production of this textile, which represents an exceptional piece of heritage of north African nomadic communities.
Magdalena M. Wozniak is an archaeologist and a textile specialist. Her research focuses on textile production, cloth consumption and the role of textiles in the visual expression of identity in medieval Sudan. She holds a PhD in Archaeology from Paris-Sorbonne University. In 2016-2019 she was awarded a POLONEZ post-doctoral grant for the project “Nubian Textiles: craft, trade, costume and identity in the medieval kingdom of Makuria.”
Marta Zuchowska
Fibres and Textiles in Palmyrene Costume: Archaeological and Iconographic Evidence.
Palmyra, a commercial city located on the eastern merges of the Roman Empire is one of the rare places where the numerous archaeological textiles dated to the Roman Empire have been preserved. Over 500 textile objects have been collected from the Palmyrene tombs, including multiple types of locally produced and imported fabrics made of wool, linen, cotton and silk. Unfortunately, most of the extant textile objects are preserved as small pieces and do not allow for identification of the shape and style of the garment worn by the citizens of Palmyra. However, a great number of funerary reliefs representing the citizens of the city, preserved in the Palmyrene tombs, help to reconstruct the typical Palmyrene costume. The objective of the present paper is a multidisciplinary analysis of iconographic and archaeological sources aiming to recognize how the diverse fibres and types of weaves were used in the Palmyrene clothing and garment.
Marta Żuchowska, archaeologist and orientalist, completed her PhD at the Faculty of History,University of Warsaw. Her present research focuses on textile archaeology and the function of textiles in the economy of the past societies. She was a member of the Polish Archaeological Mission at Palmyra. Currently she leads the research project: “Textiles in the Palmyrene Iconography” financed by the National Sciences Centre of Poland.
Catarina Costeira, Alina Iancu
The EuroWeb Digital Atlas of European Textile Heritage: The Challenges of a Common Project
The Digital Atlas of European Textile Heritage is one of the most important deliverables in the COST Action 19131 EuroWeb – Europe Through Textiles: Network for an integrated and interdisciplinary Humanities. The Atlas will be enriched with archaeological, historical and ethnographical data by specialists that are part of the EuroWeb network and is intended to be a dissemination tool that will highly increase the accessibility of information into this field. This presentation aims to reflect on the importance of building this European database comprising material remains on spinning, sewing, dyeing, weaving and other aspects related to cloths and garments from Prehistory to the Present.
The general features of the Atlas will be outlined while the inherent challenges and the opportunities that such a major project brings for the European Textile Heritage will be explored (e.g. access to data, free redistribution of information, collaboration between institutions and project members, opportunities for dissemination of the European national textile heritage). Furthermore, the importance of The Digital Atlas of European Textiles and Dress will be highlighted in the context of the recent progress in the field of archaeological textiles in particular and historical textiles in general. Finally, a preliminary overview on the EuroWeb Digital Atlas outcomes will be presented.
Catarina Costeira is PhD researcher at Uniarq – Centre for Archaeology of the University of Lisbon. Her research focuses on weaving and textile technologies of the 3rd millennium BCE in Southern of Portugal. Since 2020 she has been actively involved in the COST Action EuroWeb, a network dedicated to textile and dress heritage in which she is national MC member and she integrated the management committee of the Digital Atlas of European Textile and Dress.
Helena Loermans
Research and Reconstructions of Historic Canvases. How to structure Data and Weave Drafts?
The words ‘oil on canvas’ seldom prompt us to remember that the canvas is a woven textile, with a richly informative history of its own.It’s where patterns have been preserved between the paint and the lining for hundreds of years.The weave draft, a code which gives specific information for each pattern and fully identifies it, not only contributes to a better understanding of how these textiles were produced, it also allows us to confirm identical patterns as well as distinguish subtle differences.
Both the research and reconstructions of support canvases with a woven pattern in paintings by Titian, El Greco, Velázquez and Caravaggio as well as the first steps in creating a data base will be highlighted in the presentation. The author, inexperienced in structuring of data, is looking forward to discussing this multifaceted challenge.
Loermans is founder of Lab O, a laboratory for the research and reconstruction of canvases of old master paintings, Odemira, Portugal. She is a former laboratory technician engaged in experimental research at the Nijmegen University, The Netherlands Loermans has presented her work at the CIETA conference; Krefeld 2019; Conserving Canvas Symposium at Yale University, 2019 and online presentations 2020-2022
Maria Diletta Pubblico
Interweaving Bandages to dress votive Animal Mummies: The Recurring Wrapping Patterns in Ancient Egyptian Craft
Between the Third Intermediate Period and the Roman Period (1069 BCE-380 ADE), votive animal mummies were donated by the worshippers to the gods as votive offerings, and they were buried in sacred necropoleis throughout Egypt. In the 19th century, these sites were exploited in order to collect and then ship animal mummies to Europe where they were auctioned as fertilizer. Nevertheless, many specimens survived and became part of museum collections. Due to these vicissitudes, there is often no information on where they came from and/or when they were produced. In contrast to other forms of Egyptian material culture, animal mummies do not have an epigraphic apparatus that normally helps in reconstructing their story. However, the mass production of these objects promoted a certain degree of craft specialisation and changes at both a chronological and geographical level, especially in terms of wrapping techniques and styles. My research aims to investigate the mummies’ bandage patterns, which represent the sole iconographic apparatus of these artefacts, through the development of an innovative interdisciplinary methodology that integrates traditional research approaches with new technologies in order to demonstrate that they are markers of specific periods and workshops. In doing so, the study is set to fill the gap in current knowledge on the contextual data of votive animal mummies, allow a glimpse into the production techniques and evaluate the economic weight of wrapping in terms of both labour and raw materials. This paper aims to present the methodology and the expected results of this study.
Maria Diletta Pubblico is PhD in Egyptology and Teaching Assistant at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. Her main field of interest is animal mummies. She worked on that topic in several museums worldwide. She is currently collaborating in preparing a catalogue of animal mummies held at the Museo Egizio in Turin and she is drafting a monography on cat mummies kept at the University Museum in Naples.
Laura B. Mazow
Teaching with Humor in Ancient Ur: At the Fullers as a Guide for Finishing a Textile
Challenging for reconstructing textile processing is interpreting references to crafts that are no longer practiced and whose specialized vocabulary is no longer understood. Reference to such an activity is found in the Neo-Babylonian text At the Fullers. The text is traditionally read as a humorous dialogue between a fuller and a difficult customer. Wasserman’s (2013) analysis identifies this text as didactic literature: its main point less its humor than its desire to teach. The challenge, however, is that many words are craft-specific and don’t appear elsewhere or have a different common meaning. Furthermore, is the dialogue comedic because the directions are absurd, the instructions are provided out of order, or it uses non-conventional terminology—any of which would conflict with text’s presumed pedagogical purpose.
In this study, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and experimental studies support new interpretations of key words that enable us to recognize three areas of concern: the fringe, the shrink, and the nap. The fuller’s responsibilities to control for shrinkage and texture are crucial to the textile’s final shape, size, and feel. However, the fulling process, which matts the woolen fibers, can result in undesirable felted fringe. Thus there is much tension between the initial speaker, who I argue is a weaver, and the fuller as each has little regard for the other’s expertise. This tension creates some acerbic retorts that are both literally and figuratively funny, while at the same time instructing on those issues that would be of primary difficulty to someone learning the craft.
Wasserman, Nathan. 2013. Treating Garments in the Old Babylonian Period: “At the Cleaners” in a Comparative View. Iraq 75: 255–277.
Laura Mazow is an archaeologist and Associate Professor at East Carolina University in North Carolina, USA. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. She has excavated in Israel and Jordan, and her current research specializes in the study of wool processing technologies. She leads an on-going collaborative project to investigate the function of ancient bathtubs as possible instruments for wool scouring and fulling.
Jane Malcolm-Davies
Structuring Reconstructions: Recognising the Role of Interdisciplinary Data in Methodical Dress Research
This paper explores a theoretical framework for the reconstruction of dress as a scholarly research method. It has been argued that ‘experimental history’ can draw upon similar methods to those used in experimental archaeology. However, ‘researchers, curators and conservators who have engaged in hands-on, experimental remaking of historical dress for decades have largely done so on an ad hoc basis’. For reconstruction to be scientific, it must be systematically employ well researched evidence from a variety of sources. The triangulation of data – well established in natural and social science – rigorously cross references evidence from a range of investigative methods. It produces a firm fix on the material under scrutiny and produces more credible results than those reliant on only one or two sources. The challenge is that different types of evidence demand specialist approaches, including quantitative and qualitative methods, which are not the traditional tools of dress history. Accurate reconstruction also demands interdisciplinary collaboration: from the interrogation of fibres at the molecular level; the collection of observational data at the micro level; and the study of how garments were worn at the macro level.
This calls for new ways of working with integrated methodologies in pragmatic multidisciplinary teams, which include experts from the humanities, sciences and craft.
Dr Jane Malcolm-Davies is associate professor of textile analysis at the University of Copenhagen in the interdisciplinary parchment project Beasts2Craft. Jane leads Knitting in Early Modern Europe, an initiative begun during her Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship at the Centre for Textile Research. She is co-director of The Tudor Tailor, a team of researchers who publish resources aiming to promote the accurate reconstruction of historic dress.
Jonas Holm Jæger
Viking Age Sheep and the Potential of Biomolecular Methods
Wool textiles were in high demand during Viking Age Southern Scandinavia. With the introduction of the sail during this period it is believed to have been followed by an intensification of sheep husbandry aimed at wool production. Unfortunately, current morphological methods for the species separation of ovicaprine mandibles, the basis for a mortality profile-based analysis of flock management practices, are not reliable on a species level.
ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) is a palaeoproteomic tool used for species identification of archaeological remains based on the identification and analysis of collagen peptides from a wide range of materials, including bone and teeth. ZooMS provides unambiguous species IDs and in combination with being fast and inexpensive it constitutes a very suitable alternative to current morphological methods for the separation of sheep and goat mandibles. As the difficulties regarding species separation of ovicaprine remains is notorious in zooarchaeology, a detailed description and characterization of Viking Age sheep husbandry and wool production has long been a difficult if not close to impossible endeavour.
Here I present an evaluation of ZooMS compared to morphological species IDs provided through morphological methodologies. The results show remarkable discrepancies between the two methods and provide an ample opportunity to reassess our current methods and interpretations in regards to sheep and goat husbandry during the Southern Scandinavian Viking Age.
My name is Jonas Holm Jæger. I am currently a PhD student at the SAXO Institute at the University of Copenhagen. My research combines archaeology and molecular biology to study zooarchaeological remains in order to understand Viking Age sheep husbandry.
Francisco B. Gomes
Dressing the Southern Portuguese Iron Age (8th-2nd centuries BCE): Sources, Challenges and Methodological Insights
Compared to other areas across Europe and the Mediterranean, research on Iron Age textiles and dress in Southern Portugal remains underdeveloped. Among other limiting factors, the lack of preserved textile remains has until recently discouraged any in-depth discussions on this topic, which, save for some rare exceptions, has remained largely unaddressed in local scholarship.
In recent years, however, this has begun to change, and a clear trend towards a greater interest for the economic, social and cultural role(s) of textiles and dress in the regional Iron Age can be traced in recent work. The challenges, however, remain considerable, and only through an integrated and interdisciplinary approach can this trend be further developed.
This presentation aims to reflect on what such an approach could look like, and to contribute to the design of a research agenda suited to fully explore the potential of the existing data, to expand our knowledge base and to make an impact in the way the regional Iron Age is currently perceived and conceptualized.
The potential sources for a reconstruction of regional Iron Age textile and dress cultures will be reviewed, and it will be argued that such a reconstruction would greatly benefit from an integrated approach which explores all steps of the textile chaîne opératoire, from fibre procurement and transformation to textile making, and finally to wear and discard. Possible methods to explore these sources will be highlighted, including novel experimental and experiential approaches, collaborative research with craftspeople and the deployment of digital tools.
Francisco B. Gomes is a Junior Researcher at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon/ UNIARQ – Centre for Archaeology of the University of Lisbon, where he conducts research on the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of the Southern Iberian Peninsula, focusing particularly on its relationships with the Mediterranean world. He is a member and researcher of COST Action EuroWeb – Europe through Textiles.
Track 3 — Creating the Future: Responding to Society
Chair: Bianca Herlo
Bianca Herlo is a design researcher and lecturer based in Berlin. She is working in the field of social design at the Berlin University of the Arts and leading the research group „Inequality and Digital Sovereignty“ at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society. Bianca teaches design at various universities and has been chair of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF) since 2021.
Keynote lecture by Gesche Joost
Smart Wearable Computing
Gesche Joost, Professor of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts, is a researcher, founder, political advisor and tech consultant. She focuses her work on the digital transformation and its implications on our society both in her research practice and on the policy level. She runs a research lab at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence specialized in human-computer-interaction and wearable computing and is part of the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin.
From 2014 to 2018, she served as the German government’s Federal Internet ambassador to the European Commission. Since 2015, she is member of the supervisory board of SAP, ING and ottobock. In 2016, she founded Calliope gGmbH, a non for-profit organization offering digital learning to children.
Margarita Rozhkova
The Head. When crude oil and embroidery meet.
“the head” is a result of the six-week residency in Lustenau, Austria, dedicated to research into African lace – machine-embroidered textiles imported to Nigeria from Lustenau, Austria. „the head“ is a reflection on the notion of African lace as ethnologically misleading and incomplete in its glamorous overshadowing the complexity and ambiguity involved in its formation. It is embodied entanglement of Nigerian post-colonial new rich’s self empowerment with Lustenau’s market ambitions. The work is purposeful fetishization of the cultural artefacts and symbols that stand for the means of production, empowerment, and worship. The head refers to one of the bronze Heads of Ife (the cultural and commercial center of the Yoruba people), unearthed in Nigeria in the beginning of twentieth century and that is still kept in the British Museum. It has become a symbol of beauty, pride, and controversy due to the denial of their creators’ capacity to produce such a work. The head (ori) has generally a sacred meaning in the Yoruba culture. The scarification of the head is hand-embroidered. The head piece placed on the head is inspired by the traditional hat (Radhaube) of the region Vorarlberg where Lustenau is situated. Originally hand-embroidered, for “the head” it was machine-embroidered in one of the local embroidery companies.
The project also resulted in a two-channel video work based on found footage and archive material, kindly provided by the DOCK 20 and SMA-K galleries in Lustenau.
Margarita Rozhkova is a fashion designer with the focus on developing concept-based textiles based in Berlin, Germany. Her educational background includes cultural studies and fashion design. She is interested in working with an archive, be it place-specific or fashion heritage in general. The most recent experiences related to that are the Artist Residency in Lustenau, Austria and her project Moiré Physique. The former deals with the history of the local machine embroidery industry, while the latter looks at Western fashion history and aims at envisioning future trends.
Georgina Koschke, Simone Syhre, Friederike Fröbel
Operator Jacket: A smart jacket that assists people who need to organize or move in larger crowds
The Operator Jacket is meant to support festival stewards who have to organise or move in larger crowds. For example, in case of emergency or accident, especially when things need to happen quickly and a car is impractical. The Operator Jacket was developed within a user study in the three-year MYOW (Make Your Own Wearables) research project. Aim of the project was to use and try out the MYOW toolkit. The jacket is intended to demonstrate the full range of the MYOW hardware and software. The toolkit intends to enable all kinds of makers to develop smart textile projects. It is based on the MYOW platform which is designed to assist users with little or no expertise in the field of smart textiles and wearables. Users are able to design their own wearable products and equip them with technical elements such as sensors and actuators.
The Operator Jacket was created by four students of clothing technology and fashion design. Using the MYOW platform, inputs and outputs were designed through a graphical interface. A software automatically generates the code to run on a microcontroller, as well as the garment cut. The conductive tracks are then transferred onto the smart garment. In the case of the operator jacket, our design features an IMU-Sensor (Inertial Measurement Unit) which acts as alarm trigger, and a light sensor that turns on particular LEDs automatically and a textile on/off switch.
Georgina Koschke will complete her B.Sc in clothing technology at the University of Applied Science Berlin with an intership at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) in the research group Interactive Textiles this year. She was a participant of the MYOW (Make your own wearables) user study where she got inspired to write her bachelor thesis about textile based conductive traces.
Simone Syhre completed her B.Sc in clothing technology at the University of Applied Science Berlin in 2022 and is currently beginning her M.Sc right there. The former costume designer also participated in the MYOW (Make your own wearables) user study where she found her passion for combining art and technology through design and usability in Smart Clothing.
Luisina Silva Blanc
The Female Voice in Dowries and Wills of Colonial Spanish America
In colonial Mexico and Peru clothing operated as a cultural marker that indicated the linage, class, and socio-economic status of the wearer. Government and church authorities constantly attempted to classify and control the colonial population and distinguish individuals according to their appearance. The lack of documents written by women and stories told from a female perspective have significantly affected how women have been perceived in the Latin American colonies.
In my presentation I will introduce legal documents to expose the female voice, learn about their taste, and consumer practices. The dowry and the testament were two types of important sources marking crucial moments in a woman’s life: marriage and death. These types of documents, regardless of the quantity or quality of items they mention, allow us to learn about the material culture of the time, how women performed their identities, and their consumption practices. I will pay special attention to key information found in such documents that show the importance of clothing as well as the resistance from women to follow the strict rules imposed by the government authorities and catholic church.
I will also introduce some challenges of working with colonial archives that are representations of the systems in which they were created and advance the discussion on looking further than official stories.
Luisina Silva Blanc is an independent scholar based in New York, with expertise in fashion studies, colonial Latin America, and material culture. She earned a Ph.D. in Humanities at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona in 2019. Her interdisciplinary research focused on how individuals from colonial Latin-American consumed and built their identities through appearance. Luisina holds a MA from The Graduate Center, CUNY, a BA in Visual Arts from the SUNY at Old Westbury, and a BS in Communications from Universidad Católica del Uruguay.
Sau Nam Mading
Sarong Revolution: A Revolution Against Both Myanmar Regime Leaders and Taboo on Women’s Clothing
This paper will answer the question, “How can we redefine the negative concept of women’s clothing that promotes patriarchal values at the expense of devaluing womanhood?” I have been made aware of Western Colonized Christianity by experiencing patriarchy and authoritarianism in my church. Like me, Myanmar women are also aware of the inseparable connection between their struggle for gender justice and political liberty, thus, they have been actively involved in the Spring Revolution began on February 1st, 2021. I have learned that Myanmar women’s particular movement, called “Sarong (Htamein) Revolution” during the “Spring Revolution” is a useful model for decolonizing the patriarchal church and society and the negative view of women’s clothing. In the first part of the paper, I will introduce the social-political and religious background of Myanmar. Then I will describe a Myanmar word, phon, which is understood traditionally as the power, glory, and holiness of man. Because of the view that only men have phon since they were born, women are viewed as subordinate to men in every place. I will state a new interpretation of phon that erases the negative view of women and women’s clothing and its implication in the Sarong Revolution. In the last section, I will claim that a new interpretation or a new concept of clothing that is found in the Sarong Revolution set women free from different kinds of oppression and allows them to lead in nation-building. I will use decolonial and postcolonial approaches for my argument.
Sau Nam Mading was born and raised in Myanmar as part of the Kachin-ethnic group. She received her M.Div. and M.Th from Myanmar Institute of Theology and received her MA (Theological Studies) from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas. She is a Ph.D. student at DU/Ilifff Joint Doctoral Program in the Study of Religion. Sau Nam is a former educator at Kachin Theological College and Seminary in Myanmar and plans to study post-colonial, feminist, and practical theology for her doctorate.
Uxía Otero-González
«Being a Woman» and Dressing Women in the Spanish Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975): The Normative Femininity and its Sartorial Embodiment
Dressing is one of the ways in which gender identity ––but also class, and age, among others–– can be concreted, expressed, and made visible due to its performative capacity. Dress constitutes a historical analysis tool that allows to verify how and to what extent ideal gender models were embodied (sartorially), ergo the complex dialectic between discourses and practices, in a specific historical context. Through clothing, my presentation explores normative femininity —that is, a model of «being a woman» constructed as desirable and fixed as «norm(al)»— within the spatiotemporal coordinates of Franco’s Spain (1939-1975). For that purpose, I confront normative discourses —legislation, school manuals, Catholic doctrinal texts and dress codes, character-building literature, or feminine magazines— with the sartorial memory —oral history, family photo albums and wardrobes— of the women who lived in Franco’s times. Therefore, I interweave a wide and varied set of historical sources that make up my analytical corpus to color and texture the monochrome images of Francoism. My study spans from the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to the twilight of dictator(ship) in the 1970s with special attention to the 1950s, a decade often underestimated but significant due to the international rehabilitation and the transition to a society of consumption. My main contribution is to combine sartorial studies with gender history to analyze the Franco regime and its (re)modeling over almost forty years.
Uxía Otero-González has recently completed her PhD in Contemporary History (Summa Cum Laude, University of Santiago de Compostela , 2022). As a predoctoral researcher, she has presented her work at various international conferences, carried out international research stays —at the Florida International University in Miami (2018) and the Instituto das Ciências Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa (2019)—, as well as published in indexed journals (e.g., Journal of Religious History).
Martin Jess
Defining the Future Research
Martin Jess lives and loves data digitalization. Due to his background in software engineering and data management in combination with art history, he takes a great interest in the intersection between design research and information technology. His passion is to understand innovational strategies and to support and facilitate knowledge discovery by using standardized workflows. Martin Jess earned a Master of Science from the Martin Luther Universität in Halle. In his ten years of work experience in digitalization as software engineer and data management expert, he contributed in various economic fields. Recently he was part of the team for the Swiss Covid-19 Research Project Registry. In his current research he focusses on designing and implementing data management platforms for artefacts in the field of archaeology and art history.