Cloth culture in Early Egypt: Textile techniques, production and uses from the Neolithic to Early Dynastic period

Dickey, Alistair (2021) Cloth culture in Early Egypt: Textile techniques, production and uses from the Neolithic to Early Dynastic period. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

This research diachronically explores two main themes pertaining to Neolithic, Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptian woven cloth: thread technology and weave quality. The aim was to explore the development of, and similarities and/or differences expressed through both features in woven cloth that comes from both mortuary and domestic, and elite and non-elite settings. This assessment would also lay the foundation for comparison with woven cloth from later Egyptian and contemporaneous regions. The first theme principally explored was a study of thread production and the technique of splicing. The aim was to present the first systematic study of spliced thread technology in early Egyptian woven cloth, accessing samples from across several sites, including the recently excavated elite and non-elite cemeteries at Hierakonpolis. An examination of weave quality was undertaken from a quantitative standpoint by using both thread density and thread diameter data to assess the quality of woven cloth. The results from this study have shown that early Egyptian thread technology across all the sites studied used the technique of splicing for thread production, with two forms being recognized: continuous and end-to-end. Evidence also re-confirms that there was a change approximately in the late Naqada I / early Naqada II from using predominantly continuous splicing to using end-to-end splicing. The data also shows a change in twist direction of the single-element of the plied threads but the relationship between splicing technique and twist change is nuanced. This identification of spliced thread technology presents the opportunity for re-consideration of the processes involved in the ancient textile chaîne opératoire. The primary indicators of weave quality show that thread density increased from the Neolithic to the Early Dynastic, while the average diameter dropped from the Neolithic to Predynastic but less so from the Predynastic to Early Dynastic. Indeed, statistical analyses shows a strong correlation between thread density and thread diameter, meaning the higher the thread count the finer the thread diameter. By the 1st Dynasty the evidence from the elite mastaba tombs at Tarkhan show how adept the production of woven cloth had become, with high thread densities and fine diameters.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy)
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	06 Sep 2022 09:59
Last Modified:	08 Apr 2024 16:54
DOI:	10.17638/03152772
Supervisors:	Foxhall, Lin Shaw, Ian Criscenzo Laycock, Gina
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3152772