The thread of life, women and textiles

 

Archaeologists have historically divided time into the ages of "hard technology" with such terms as “Stone Age”, “Bronze Age” and “Iron Age”. These technologies, it is claimed were fundamental to human ‘progression’. Of course, Egyptologists have seen kings and dynasties as more important and so use these to break up periods of time.[1]

But, what if we explore replacing the three age division of stone, bronze and iron to: something like the ages of “pottery” and “flax”?[2] An interesting idea. But just how important were textiles? Here I only look at ancient Egypt.

We know that textiles were used for clothing, furnishings burial wrappings, votive offerings, sails, and much more. Linen was important in the deification of the deceased and the gods carry cloth reinforcing that idea. Wages were paid in food, but also in metalwork and textiles. Textiles kept the Egyptians warm, were important in religion, allowed them to sail the Nile, were used as items of prestige and social display. Cloth was valuable, mended and re-mended.

Amulet (c. 4cm high showing Imsety holding a piece of cloth. Egypt Centre collection PM7).

There is evidence that the Egyptians themselves recognized the importance of textiles. Hella Küllmer has written on the phenomenon of women of early Bronze Age Egypt being rewarded for their weaving.[3]The hieroglyph for weaver, which represents a sceptre, designates the weaver as ‘one who is adorned’ or ‘rewarded’ and suggests the high status of weavers. Women are shown being given costly ornaments for their services, something which does not appear in later representations. It has been claimed  that the depictions of women weavers receiving necklaces were a public recognition of their worth, and furthermore  that the payment of weavers can be equated to payment given to  tomb workers of this date. 

Tomb of Akhethotep. In the second and third sections down, women weavers are rewarded with necklaces for their work, 2400-2300BC (see Junkeriza V: Die Mastaba des Snb (Seneb) und die umliegenden  figs. 8-12) 

Women engaged in such activities would have had a certain amount of financial independence and thus have been more able to build their own tombs. Even in domestic production. Around 1900, a male head of a household, Heqanakht, was able to rent fields with income from cloth woven in his household and presumably also supply the household with cloth.[3] Around 1500BC, one woman accumulated enough surplus to buy goods such as slaves.[4]

But, we don’t usually think of textiles as being central to historic development. Could this be because, before c.1300BC, it was women of ancient Egypt who tended to do most of the spinning and weaving? Around this date the vertical loom, a more complex affair than the horizontal loom, was introduced. Years of practice manipulating warp and weft in using the horizontal loom gave way to more emphasis on controlling a machine. Arguably, the new did not make fancy weaving more possible, but rather made it a little easier. Women did use these new looms, but men were now introduced into the weaving process.

In many societies textile production has been the female preserve, particularly spinning, less so weaving. The world over, deities associated with spinning and weaving have been female. And, traditionally, women's work is not so valued as that of men; though rewards such as those given to female weavers discussed above, show it was not always so.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb shows us Howard Carter disappointed that a certain casket contained not rolls of papyri but linen; that opening the king's sarcophagus was at first disappointing because the body was shrouded in linen.[6] Ancient Egyptian tomb robbers, however, frequently took the expensive linen from tombs. And in the tomb of Tutankhamun, statues, as well as the mummy were made sacred with mummy wrappings.

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[1] Yes, time is a continuum, but we often have to use a name to refer to a period so that other people know what we mean.

[2] https://lithub.com/what-if-we-called-it-the-flax-age-instead-of-the-iron-age/?fbclid=IwAR1_Ey5fEROYzvHRtdPV-K5sCJQrKOoC-2eDg1l5ND_zri9Bi89R6BYPxoA

[3] Küllmer, H. (2007), ‘Marktfrauen, Priesterinnen und, Edle des Königs’ Untersuchung über die Position von Frauen in der sozialen Hierarchie des Alten Ägypten bis zum Ende der 1. Zwischenzeit’, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Hamburg.

[4] Wente, E.F. (1990), Letters from Ancient Egypt. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 58–9. 

[5] Eyre, C.J. (1998), 'The market women of pharaonic Egypt', in Grimal, N. and Menu, P. (eds), Le commerce en Égypte anciene. Cairo: Imprimerie de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, pp. 173–92.8, 178.

[6] St Clair, K. (2019), The Golden Thread. How fabric changed history. London: John Murray. pp. 37–39.