Table of Contents

Introduction (Henriette Koefoed, Eva Andersson Strand, Marie-Louise Nosch)

1. Functions and Uses of Textiles in the Ancient Near East Summary and Perspectives (Catherine Breniquet)
2. The Emergence of the Ghassulian Textile Industry in the Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Period (c. 4500-4000 BCE) (Janet Levy & Isaac Gilead)
3. Textile Production in Palatial and Non-Palatial Contexts: the Case of Tel Kabri (Nurith Goshen & Assaf Yasur-Landau & Eric H. Cline)
4. Textiles, Value, and the Early Economies of North Syria and Anatolia (David R. A. Lumb)
5. Technology and Palace Economy in Middle Bronze Age Anatolia: the Case of the Crescent Shaped Loom Weight (Agnete Wisti Lassen)
6. Her Share of the Profits: Women, Agency, and Textile Production a Kültepe/Kanesh in the Early Second Millennium BC (Allison Karmel Thomason)
7. Visualising Ancient Textiles – how to make a Textile visible on the Basis of an Interpretation of an Ur III Text (Eva Andersson Strand & Maria Cybulska)
8. The Costumes of Inanna/Ishtar (Bernice Jones)
9. Considering the Finishing of Textiles based on Neo-Sumerian Inscriptions from Girsu (Richard Firth)
10. Tapestries in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages of the Ancient Near East (Joanna S. Smith)
11. Spinning from old Threads: The Whorls from Ugarit (Caroline Sauvage)
12. Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Innovations in Mediterranean Textile Production at the End of the 2nd/Beginning of the 1st Millennium BCE (Laura B. Mazow)
13. Textile Production and Consumption in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Salvatore Gaspa)

About the Author

Marie-Louise Nosch is Director of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen and Research professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen. Eva Andersson Strand is Associate Professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen.

Reviews

Each study provides increased clarity to the complex understanding of the meanings behind textiles and the roles that they played in ancient societies. -- Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and H Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and H In all the book is a well-balanced collection of papers, blending interpretive overview and specialist analysis - often in the same article. -- Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian S Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian S Indeed, there is a great deal that is of interest in this book, and overall, one is struck by how sophisticated the study of textiles and textile production in the ancient Near East has become. If I could urge a long-term goal upon its practitioners, it would be to move beyond their specialized analyses in order to render their sophisticated understanding in a comprehensive and synthetic presentation. -- JAMES WEINSTEIN BASOR