Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

Clothing In Transition: Social, Symbolic, And Legal Aspects Of Garments From Prehistory To The Early Byzantine Period, Tina Boloti, Francesca Scotti, Cristina Cumbo, Petra Linscheid

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Since ancient times, garments served a wide range of purposes: Either functional, providing protection by covering the body, or symbolic, as an element of non-verbal communication and marker of identity. In particular, this stimulates the development of specific characteristics in shape, decoration, or material composition, which generate distinctions among garments, as acknowledged by Roman jurists too.

These distinctions are determined by various factors. One important factor is the social meaning of clothing: There are garments for public life, garments expressing rank, garments suited for special professions, or garments intended for sacred/priestly rites reflecting particular religious symbols. And, of course, clothes …

Understanding Gold Textiles: Case Studies Of Gold Threads From The Bronze Age And Antiquity In Europe, Karina Grömer, Francesca Coletti, Francisco B. Gomes, Kayleigh Saunderson

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

The production of textiles, in terms of weaving techniques, has a long history in Europe, and dates back to the Stone Age, the time during which the first farming communities arrived in the Mediterranean and Central Europe, in the 7th/6th millennium BC. The first evidence of textile tools, like spindle whorls and loom weights, demonstrate that people made an important step forward in mechanizing this craft, not only twisting fibers and interlacing strands purely by hand, but also inventing tools to increase efficiency. Through the development of textile techniques, we see the unleashing of enormous creative power that stimulated even …

“What’S In A Name?” Toponyms And Loanwords In European Textile Cultures, Dimitra Andrianou, Klara Dankova, Nade Genevska Brachikj, Angela Huang, Meghan Korten, Elena Miramontes, Jasemin Nazim, Marie-Alice Rebours, Joana Sequeira

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Textiles as man-made products have been exchanged over distances for millennia. They can and have been produced almost anywhere; they are also, as a product, highly differentiated and quickly adjustable to changing demands. This brings with it naming practices to communicate about the goods in question. Textiles are labeled so that people can form expectations about them and rely on the reputation tied to the product’s identity. The terminology of textiles and textile items arises and develops in unison with technical innovations, discoveries, fashions, and trade patterns. Although the occurrence of toponyms e.g., in preindustrial trade (10th to 18th century …

The Terminology Of Soft Furnishings In Ancient Babylonia, Greece, And Rome: A Comparative Approach, Dimitra Andrianou, Elena Miramontes, Louise Quillien

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Various kinds of textiles were used to furnish domestic spaces in Antiquity, such as curtains, covers, hangings, pillows, cushions, mattresses, rugs, tapestries, tablecloths, and towels. These objects have practical and everyday functions, they embellish and add to daily comfort in the house and speak to the owner’s prosperity. Being made of perishable materials, furnishings have, on the whole, not survived in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Apart from a few excavated pieces of textiles found in tombs, our information comes primarily from written testimonia and iconography.

It is thus essential to consider soft furnishings in their own right, in order …

Textiles, Dress And Politics: A Diachronic Perspective Through The Case Studies Of Ancient Rome And Medieval Iceland, Meghan Korten, Zofia Kaczmarek

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

People dress for more than just aesthetic reasons. Over the centuries, dress became a sign of human civilization, allowing us to identify the origin, gender, and status of the wearer. Textiles and clothing influence our body, posture, movements, and the way we are perceived by society. Textiles are also a tool used by people to further their agenda, that is why they found their place in the political life of many ancient and modern societies.

According to Michel Foucault, power can be understood as a set of activities influencing the life of the other: It provokes, forbids, or permits, but …

Presenting Past People: Storytelling Through Prehistoric Garment Reconstructions, Floor Huisman, Anna Zimmermann, Ronja Lau, Karina Grömer

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

This paper argues that we need to focus on past people (rather than just objects) in our narratives and museum displays to engage museum visitors more effectively. It will demonstrate that we can use a combination of well-researched physical and digital prehistoric garment reconstructions to implement more people-centered approaches also used in living history, which bring the past to life and allow visitors to literally come face-to-face with long-dead people. In this way, visitors can relate to past people on an emotional level, which helps them to learn much more about past life than many traditional displays. After outlining how …

Frontmatter For Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, And Culture Across Millennia, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Louise Quillien, Kalliope Sarri

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Title and copyright pages, Acknowledgments, Contents, Prefaces.

We believe this volume has the potential to contribute to the advancement of European scientific excellence and competitiveness, fostering a deeper understanding of the cultural, technological, and societal significance of textiles and clothing in shaping European identity and heritage through the millenia. We hope that the anthology will find a wide and interested readership, and that it will inspire many new research projects in the field of textile history.

Technical And Technological Analyses Of Excavated Textiles, Christina Margariti, Judith Goris, Petra Linscheid, Agata Ulanowska

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Textiles are particularly complex and labor-intensive structures, thus their constructive elements, such as fibers and yarns, as well as the final textile products (e.g., threads, cords, fabrics, and applied decoration) reveal a range of important technical, technological, and sociocultural information. In this paper, we discuss the analysis of excavated textiles at two levels:

1) Technical analysis that offers basic information about the qualities of examined textile samples.

2) Technological analysis that provides insights into technology, social relations of production, and the level of craft specialization or production modes.

Both analyses offer new evidence for environmental resources, sustainability, trade, and exchange, …

Investigating Organic Colorants Across Time: Interdisciplinary Insights Into The Use Of Madder, Indigo/Woad, And Weld In Historical Written Sources, Archaeological Textiles, And Ancient Polychromy, Paula Nabais, Cecilie Brøns, Magdalena M. Wozniak

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Organic dyes have been used from the earliest times to provide color primarily to textiles, but also as a colorant in painting. Such organic dyes could create a wealth of colors, depending on the availability and know-how of resources. These dyes are usually organic in nature, and primarily obtained from different plant sources. Unfortunately, the characterization of natural organic colorants in textiles and artworks is still a challenge. The difficulty of analyzing these materials is sometimes allied to the frequent impossibility of micro-sampling, and the frailty of the objects. Many techniques, such as HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) and SERS (Surface-Enhanced …

Towards Textile Narratives: A Cross-Over Perspective On Textile Imagery In Statuary, Iconography, And Literature, Leyre Morgado-Roncal, Juliane Müller, Marisa Kerbizi

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Textiles and clothing constitute a fundamental element of our cultural past, present, and future. Therefore, they were also represented in many mediums, such as iconographic depictions and literature. Images are a source of visual and mental illustration and are often dependent on the viewer’s perspective. As a result, the representations of textiles convey social constructions and their cultural perception. Their study is the focal point of this article: The ways in which textiles and clothing are described by the imagery shown in Greek and Roman statuary and iconography, as well as in contemporary Albanian literature and mythology.

Representations illustrate the …

Young Romans: Status, Dress, And Gender, Mary Harlow, Lena Larsson Lovén

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

The demographics of the Roman world suggest that it was a world full of children. Demographers argue that in order simply to maintain population levels in a period where life expectancy was very short by modern standards, and infant mortality high, a woman should, on average, have six children, on the assumption that not all would live to adulthood. Despite much research in the last fifty years, children still remain partly invisible in the Roman world. This is primarily because they leave little evidence produced by themselves and are seen through the prism of adult eyes. Inevitably, given the nature …

Narrative And Material Tools Of Resistance: Mobilizing Textile Crafts, Heritage, And Fashion In The Context Of The Invasion Of Ukraine (2022–2023), Magali-An Berthon, Sophia Hayda, Tetiana Krupa, Yuliia Lazorenko, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In 2022–2024, textile and fashion scholars came together to write an anthology sharing a new vision of European history as seen through textiles, in the COST Action EuroWeb. During this period, the continent was still dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and was then faced with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Contemporary European history will be markedly defined by the ongoing war in Ukraine. One remarkable aspect of this conflict is the way textiles and dress appear daily in a variety of media outlets, mobilized as visual and semiotic means to communicate issues of war …

A Sensory Perspective On High-Ranked Women’S Dress In The 8th To 4th Century Bc In The Mediterranean And Central Europe, Karina Grömer, Susanna Harris, Audrey Gouy, Cecilie Brøns

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In the late 20th century, the study of western science was dominated by a philosophical approach to evidence as text and meaning. In archaeology, material culture was treated like text, to be read through systems of signs, symbols, and indices put together in syntax. For studies of dress, this was influential in understanding dress as a cognitive system compiled to create identities and meaning. In this approach, textiles, fastenings, hairstyles, and gestures are presented as signs and symbols used to form a statement about identity, to be read by others. There was a focus on the visuality of dress and …

Divine Or Demonic? A Social Approach To Epilepsy From Greco-Roman Antiquity To The Early Middle Ages, James Nicholas Sumrall

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to evaluate how epilepsy was defined, perceived and understood in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as how these ideas were adapted and changed during the early centuries of Christianity. To this end, the thesis is divided into six parts. The Introduction briefly explains epilepsy and discusses how the social approach method can be applied to the disease. Chapter I introduces the Hippocratic understanding of epilepsy and outlines the Greco-Roman religious concepts of pollution and purification, which frequently informed ancient perceptions of epilepsy. The first chapter also analyzes the general relationship between disability, disease and divine selection …

Teaching And Testing Textual Analysis In Reacting To The Past: Thucydides And Jigsaw Method Discussion, Cary Barber

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

The activity this work presents is designed to both strengthen and evaluate students’ ability to think critically about ancient texts within a Reacting to the Past gaming environment (specifically in the game ‘The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C.’). The activity is part of a preliminary set of assignments meant to improve students’ sense of the game’s historical, social, political, economic, and religious context. Moreover, the activity helps to ensure that students can incorporate texts appropriately into speeches, writings, and general gameplay.

Using the Jigsaw Method of discussion, I organize students into ‘numbered’ (I, II, III, etc.) groups of …

The Corvus, The Roman Boarding Device, Jacob Stickel

Classics Ancient Science Fair

The Roman's made many technological advancements, many of which were of a military nature. This presentation discusses the creation, use and other aspects of the Corvus, a Roman invention for naval warfare.

The Woman's Role In Human Reproduction And Generation According To Ancient Greek And Roman Philosophers, Olivia Miller

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

From the Greek archaic period to the end of the Roman Empire, theories of reproduction and inheritance developed as new philosophers and medical practitioners tackled fundamental issues of generation and sex. Without tools to help them see the complex chemical and cellular processes of the body, ancient thinkers relied on their own observations and commonly-held beliefs about sex and gender to understand the human body. Until the Roman Empire, dissections and similar forms of clinical study were strictly taboo, with the result that the Greek philosophers could not conduct close investigations into human anatomy. Instead, they relied on their own …

Ancient Medicine, Matt Henson

Classics Ancient Science Fair

The ancient Greek’s understanding of medicine including anatomy was quite rudimentary to begin with. However, figures like Hippocrates and Herophilus of Chalcedon, were aware of certain things others were not, and they utilized their time to research how the human body functions. Much of the study of the human body came from injuries inflicted on people. Physicians would examine the injuries in order to form a better understanding of the human body. This would give a basis to study the human body, but without advanced technology and possibility of autopsies would hinder the ability for the physicians to truly understand …

Ancient Aqueducts, Zachary Helm

Classics Ancient Science Fair

This presentation discusses the science behind the Roman Aqueducts. It discusses a wide variety of advances and updates they developed.

The Mechanical And Scientific Significance Of The Ships Of Nemi, Troy Frazier

Classics Ancient Science Fair

In 1929 the first of the two Nemi ships breached the waters of lake Nemi, seeing the surface of the lake for the first time in centuries. To recover the two ships, a pair of pleasure ships created under the rule of Caligula, an attempt was made to drain lake Nemi. This proceeded and in 1931 the second ship exceeded the water level as well. Over the course of this recovery of these sunken ships and prior attempts and findings a treasure trove of information was uncovered, expanding the understanding of the mechanical feats accomplished during the Roman Empire.

Roman Aqueducts, Rachel Caughey, Krista Long

Classics Ancient Science Fair

Access to safe, clean drinking water is essential for any city’s survival. This was especially difficult but still necessary for cities in antiquity. Rome was able to construct conduits that provided enough water to supply its citizens and clean the sewer systems. This was an engineering feat that was unsurpassed by other states in the ancient world.

Pharmaceuticals Of The Ancient World, Jennifer Swabb

Classics Ancient Science Fair

This presentation discusses the various aspects of pharmaceuticals within the ancient world. It begins with discussing the foundations in plants, and analyzes the changes over time. It also discusses some major contributors, and some major plants used in the past.

Equatorial Sundials In The Ancient World: Construction And Applications, Alyssa Stark

Classics Ancient Science Fair

Time is an easy concept on the surface. Most people comprehend the idea of a year, month, week, day, and second. This was not the case for the ancient populations who lived before us. One of the earliest methods for determining time throughout the day was utilizing shadows which were cast from objects. Tall trees, due to their sedentariness, were great tools in early time telling. Ancient people would have observed these shadows much earlier than we have record for. However, the idea of time telling using shadows continued long past the ancient world.

Sundials are the tool created to …

Comparison Of Euthytone And Palintone Capabilities, Gregory Ryherd

Classics Ancient Science Fair

This presentation is a comparison between two different long range siege weapons. The poster presentation compares their usage, practicality, and other various aspects of the weapons.

Pliny The Younger & Mt. Vesuvius, Taylor Huxlrey

Classics Ancient Science Fair

Pliny the Younger's letters painted a beautiful picture of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. His letters are thought to have allowed modern volcanoligists to discover information about the eruption and the destruction of Pompeii. This presentation discusses how impactful these letters truly were.

Roman Medical Instruments, Mickayla Hite, Kendall Westmor

Classics Ancient Science Fair

This poster presents information about a variety of Roman Medical Instruments. It includes Scalpels, Cauteries, Forceps, Gynecological Instruments, Probes, Bleeding Cups, and Materials.

The Ancient Greek Trireme: A Staple Of Ancient Maritime Tradition, Joseph York

Classics Ancient Science Fair

This poster presented information on the Greek Trireme. The Ancient Greek Trireme was a staple ship of Greek naval warfare, and played a key role in the Persian Wars, the creation of the Athenian maritime empire, and the Peloponnesian wars.

Archimedes Catapult, Dominick West

Classics Ancient Science Fair

This presentation discusses various weapons used in the past. It starts with discussions of the belly bow, torsion springs, and catapults that use the spring.

A Philological Examination Of Eratosthenes’ Calculation Of Earth’S Circumference, Kelly Staver

Classics Ancient Science Fair

A Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes calculated an accurate measurementofthe Earth’s circumference, that being 250,000 stades orclose to Earth’s actualcircumference of40,120 km,¹ in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egyptcirca 240 B.C.E. To do this, Eratosthenes’utilized the distance between Alexandria and Syeneandgnomon measurements taken in Syeneand Alexandria at noon on the summersolstice.

The Cosmos According To Ptolemy, Benjamin Smith

Classics Ancient Science Fair

In the second century AD, Claudius Ptolemaeus, the astronomer from Alexandria, would provide a geometric conception of the cosmos with the ability to predict planetary motion, in what would be known as the Ptolemaic, or Geocentric, Model of the Universe. Prior to Ptolemy, the notion in ancient astronomy was that the cosmos was ”perfect”; the heavenly bodies must move along the perfect curve (a circle) as the perfect shape (a sphere). Yet, irregularities occur in observing the planets in concentric circles alone. Ptolemy’s answer, building upon Hipparchus and Aristotle, would present an eccentric system in which the heavenly bodies move …