New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies.
Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women.
Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.
Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods—methods she herself helped to fashion. In a "brilliantly original book" (Katha Pollitt, Washington Post Book World), she argues that women were a powerful economic force in the ancient world, with their own industry: fabric.
New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies. Barber "weaves the strands of mythology and literature, archaeology, ethnology, and documented history into a rich tapestry" says John Noble Wilford, New York Times Book Review. Photos and drawings. Author lectures.
| Preface | 11 | |
| Introduction | 17 | |
| Ch. 1 | A Tradition with a Reason: Why textiles were traditionally women's work | 29 |
| Ch. 2 | The String Revolution: Life in the Palaeolithic | 42 |
| Ch. 3 | Courtyard Sisterhood: Horticultural society in the Neolithic | 71 |
| Ch. 4 | Island Fever: Bronze Age horticultural survivals: Minoans and others | 101 |
| Ch. 5 | More than Hearts on Our Sleeves: The functions of cloth and clothing in society | 127 |
| Ch. 6 | Elements of the Code: Symbolism in cloth and clothing | 147 |
| Ch. 7 | Cloth for the Caravans: Early urban manufacture in the Bronze Age Near East | 164 |
| Ch. 8 | Land of Linen Middle Kingdom Egypt | 185 |
| Ch. 9 | The Golden Spindle: Outworker industries for the elite: The Mycenaeans | 207 |
| Ch. 10 | Behind the Myths: Women's work as reflected in textile myths | 232 |
| Ch. 11 | Plain or Fancy, New or Tried and True: Late Bronze and Iron Age urban industries | 257 |
| Ch. 12 | Postscript: Finding the Invisible: Methods of research | 286 |
| Illustration and Credit List | 301 | |
| Sources | 306 | |
| Index | 323 |
Overview
New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies.
Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women.
Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no ...