Textile production was of greater value and importance to people in the past than any other social craft activity: everyone depended on cloth. As with other craft goods, such as pottery, metal objects, or ivory carving, the large-scale production and exchange of textiles required specialization and some degree of centralization.



This book takes an explicitly economic approach to textile production, focusing on regional centers, most often referred to as palaces, to understand the means by which states in the Aegean and Anatolia financed themselves through cloth industries. From this we can look for evidence of social stratification, inter-regional exchange, and organized bureaucracies. Spanning multiple millennia and various sources of evidence, Burke illustrates the complex nature of cloth production, exchange, and consumption and what this tells us about individual societies and prehistoric economies, as well as how developments in cloth industries reflect larger aspects of social organization.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Iliad 24.229-236
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Framing the Discussion
  • Methodology
  • Spinning and Weaving
    • Plant Fibers
    • Spinning Wool
    • Weaving
  • Minoan Crete
  • Mycenaean Greece
  • Iron Age Gordion
  • Summary
• 2 Prehistoric Textile Production on Crete
  • Cloth and Cultural Complexity
  • Neolithic Knossos
  • Early Minoan Crete and the Emergence of the Palatial System
    • Knossos
    • Myrtos Fournou Korifi and Vasiliki
  • The First Palaces on Crete
    • Inventing Purple
    • Minoan Purple in the Levant and Egypt
  • Administration of Cloth Production
    • Minoan Seal Stones
    • Linear A and Minoan Cloth Production
  • Minoan Textile Tools
    • Spindle Whorls
    • Minoan Loom Weights
    • Spherical Loom Weights
    • Discoid Weights
    • Cuboid Weights
  • Case Studies
    • Praisos
    • Petras
    • Palaikastro
    • Kommos
  • Summary
• 3 Cloth Production in the Mycenaean World
  • Textiles in the Mycenaean Economy
    • Pylos and Knossos
  • Sheep
  • The WOOL Unit
  • The Tarasija System and the Organization of Labor
    • Collectors and Non-Collectors
  • Mycenaean References to Cloth
    • Ligatures
    • Non-Ligatured Ideograms
    • Specific Textile Terms
  • Various Phases of Cloth Production in the Tablets from Knossos
    • Da–Dg Series: Tribute or Census?
    • Dk–Dl Series: Targets and Yields
    • L-Series Tablets
    • Ak and Ap Series
    • Pp Tablets
    • Linen at Knossos
  • Mycenaean Textile Production at Pylos
    • Pylian Wool
    • Pylian Linen
  • Thebes and Mycenae
    • Thebes
    • Mycenae
  • Late Bronze Age Art
  • Summary
• 4 Gordion and Phrygian Cloth Production
  • Phrygians of Gordion
  • Craft Residues
    • Spindle Whorls
    • Loom Weights
    • Ivory and Bone Implements
    • Iron and Bronze Tools
  • Contexts of Production
    • The Elite Quarter
    • The Industrial Quarter
  • Summary
  • Appendix 4.1: Textile Fragments
  • Appendix 4.2: Phrygian Fibulae and Textiles
• 5 Comparative Textile Production and Conclusions
  • Egypt
  • Near East
    • Tell es-Sa’idiyeh
  • New World Evidence
    • Aztec
    • Inca
  • Conclusions: Tying it all Together
• Bibliography
• Index