Ancient Mediterranean Textile Production

This is the course website for SP25: Ancient Mediterranean Textile Production, Washington University in St. Louis. This course explored ancient methods of creating textiles from the domestication of fiber sources through the finishing of garments and objects. Students read archaeological and literary sources on textile production, viewed images of iconographic evidence and archaeological artifacts, and spent hours in studio learning how to do the techniques they studied.

By providing documentation of the course publicly here, it is my hope that other enthusiasts will be able to learn from our (often clumsy) experimentation and take some inspiration from our work. If you are a teacher interested in running a course like this, I hope you can make use of what we learned about how to incorporate these techniques into the classroom. If you are a fiber arts enthusiast, I hope you can enjoy the scholarly and primary sources collected. If you are a Classicist or academic who knows nothing about textile production, I hope you can take away a new understanding of this facet of the ancient world.

Most of all, I hope you enjoy these resources, just as we thoroughly enjoyed this course!

My name is Bayla Kamens, and I am a PhD student in Classics at Washington University in St. Louis. I am an avid fiber artist, enjoying sewing, embroidery, knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, and a bit of wool prep. I enjoy creating fiber art inspired by the ancient world in various ways, such as my knit hats patterned after Greek vases or the meter of the Odyssey rendered in knit. I also (obviously) am interested in ancient textile production techniques, such as my adventures in warp-weighted weaving and drop-spinning. I am far from an expert in ancient textile production - my technical experience is only a matter of a few years, and on the scholarly side I have much more to read and explore. I have benefited greatly from conversations and correspondence with more experienced fiber artists and archaeologists in the development of this course and my own area knowledge. Any errors or deficiencies remaining are my own.