Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia. Anthology of COST Action “CA 19131 – EuroWeb”. Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Louise Quillien, & Kalliope Sarri (eds.). Zea Books, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2024
Since ancient times, garments served a wide range of purposes: Either functional, providing prot... more 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 that differ between men and women or stages of life. Social meaning subdivides clothing
within a society, with legal implications. Another factor is “fashion”; tastes that change over time, and that clothing adapts to. New norms, socioeconomic conditions, innovative techniques, and foreign influences introduce changes in fashion and transitions in clothing. Fashion subdivides clothing on a chronological or regional level.
Looking backwards in history, changes to clothing are difficult to detect and to date. It is even more challenging to trace the factors causing these changes. This article will present four case studies of clothing in
transition: From Prehistory, the Roman Age, the Early Christian Era, and the Early Byzantine Period. Across these four periods, it can be observed that both similar and dissimilar factors shaped clothing transitions. The sources analyzed are written evidence, Roman legal
sources, iconographic sources, and material finds.
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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 that differ between men and women or stages of life. Social meaning subdivides clothing
within a society, with legal implications. Another factor is “fashion”; tastes that change over time, and that clothing adapts to. New norms, socioeconomic conditions, innovative techniques, and foreign influences introduce changes in fashion and transitions in clothing. Fashion subdivides clothing on a chronological or regional level.
Looking backwards in history, changes to clothing are difficult to detect and to date. It is even more challenging to trace the factors causing these changes. This article will present four case studies of clothing in
transition: From Prehistory, the Roman Age, the Early Christian Era, and the Early Byzantine Period. Across these four periods, it can be observed that both similar and dissimilar factors shaped clothing transitions. The sources analyzed are written evidence, Roman legal
sources, iconographic sources, and material finds.
Πλάι στο θεματολόγιο και την εικονογραφία των πλουμιστών αυτών ενδυμάτων ιδιαίτερη έμφαση θα δοθεί στο κατά πόσον αυτά παρέχουν ενδείξεις συσχετισμού με συγκεκριμένα τελετουργικά δρώμενα στα οποία συμμετέχουν γυναίκες. Επιπλέον, κατά πόσον προσδίδουν συγκεκριμένες ιδιότητες στις γυναικείες μορφές που τα φορούν, πέραν της προφανούς εκλέπτυνσης και πολυτέλειας που αποπνέουν, με όρους σημειολογικούς και ανθρωπολογικούς.
Ritual offering of cloth and/ or clothing to the gods, encountered in many parts of the ancient Greek world should be included among the cults which “may have blended to a large extent” in the Aegean, since it is attested already in the 2nd millennium BCE. Thanks to several representations focused on the “sacred dress” in various artistic media (seals, frescoes etc.), and despite their uneven distribution, this religious practice can be detected unceasingly from the late Middle until the end of the Late Bronze Age, with the earliest certain attestation coming from MM III Knossos palace (the famous pair of miniature faience robes from the Temple Repositories). Following the Minoans, the Mycenaeans adopted, and in all probability adapted, the aforementioned ritual; Linear B tablets from Knossos and Pylos provide evidence for textile offering to both male (Enosidaon, Poseidon) and female deities (da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja, po-ti-ni-ja, pe-re-*82).
The lack of pertinent evidence for about four centuries, after the collapse of the Mycenaean world until the late 8th century BCE, could be spanned by the well-known Homeric passage (Iliad, 6.288-304), referring to Hecuba’s offering of an elaborated peplos to the goddess Athena? And if so, are we entitled to support the continuity of this particular ritual from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BCE?