Margarita Gleba

• BS, MA, PhD
• Associate Professor at University of Padua

Leather was one of the most important materials of nomadic Scythians, used for clothing, shoes, and quivers, amongst other objects. However, our knowledge regarding the specific animal species used in Scythian leather production remains limited. In this first systematic study, we used palaeoproteomics methods to analyse the species in 45 samples of...

The fibres and fabrics of Must Farm Late Bronze Age pile-dwelling are an internationally important body of material. As a Bronze Age fibre and fabric assemblage it is unique in Britain, and rare across Europe. The assemblage contains 155 charred plant fibre artefacts. These finds are referred to as the ‘fibres and fabric’ assemblage because they co...

The present study aims to present an interdisciplinary investigation of the sample of materials conserved at the Archaeological Museum of the Civic Museums of Udine, dating to the Iron Age. This analysis has included the typological study of the artefacts, their chronological and cultural framing, detailed examination through photographs and macrop...

Lo studio dei contesti funerari antichi richiede una pluralità di approcci e di metodi di indagine che possano esplorare la ricchezza delle diverse evidenze – materiali e immateriali, organiche e inorganiche – che concorrono alla formazione dei palinsesti funerari. In questa sintesi, vengono discussi i recenti dati ottenuti dallo studio interdiscip...

The paper presents the results of the analyses of about 30 mineralised textile samples from Roman Veneto region (North-East Italy), which were investigated using conventional textile analytical methods and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). They were predominantly preserved on bronze or iron objects (but also on alabaster) that were found in funer...

Archaeological evidence of pre- and protohistoric textiles is relatively limited. Neolithic and Bronze Age pile-dwelling sites in the circum-Alpine area, as waterlogged contexts, favored the preservation of fabrics in charred and waterlogged state. From the pile-dwelling sites of Eastern Switzerland (Neolithic-Bronze Age) and north Italian settleme...

Some of the earliest evidence of textile production in Northern Italy comes from an advanced stage of the Neolithic (5th–4th millennium BCE). It is at this time that loom weights and spindle whorls become widespread on numerous archaeological sites. The contexts that have provided useful information are primarily located in humid areas and are ofte...

This contribution examines the Iron Age textiles (8th−4th century BCE) kept at the Dolenjski muzej in Novo mesto, Slovenia, with the aim of identifying their raw materials, technologies, functions and social significance and situating them in a wider European context. The primary textile weave identified is a wool twill, which is typical for the Ha...

The poster presents results of the microscopic analysis of flax samples systematically collected during the successive phases of flax processing, following traditional method of retting, braking, scutching and heckling. We propose that the different thicknesses of the fibre bundles and the types of processing debris observed in various stages durin...

Archaeological evidence of prehistoric flax processing is very limited: only at Must Farm in the UK, a Late Bronze Age site dated c. 850 BCE, the evidence of the complete operational chain has been identified (presented in NESAT XIV by Harris and Gleba). Generally, semi-finished products such as fibre bundles or balls of thread are the most common...

The funerary practices of the 4th and 3rd millennia cal bc are marked by the widespread use of megalithic architecture in most of the Iberian Peninsula, alongside major social transformations taking place during the Copper Age. At the same time, we find a proliferation of collective burials in natural caves located in mountainous areas of southern...

This entry provides an overview of the main cultures of the Steppe and Forest-steppe belts of Eastern Europe, geographically delineated between the Danube and the Volga Rivers, including the entire littoral of the Northern Black Sea, during the early Iron Age, which is approximately dated between the 10th and the 4th centuries BCE. Among the most n...

This entry provides an overview of the main cultures of the Steppe Nomadic Cultures of the Lower Volga, Lower Don and Southern Urals in the 6th–3rd centuries BCE. These include the so-called Sauromatian culture, the Filippovka horizon and the Early Sarmatian Prokhorovka Culture. The main focus is on the archaeological data, including burials and th...

Using the organic artefacts from the fourth-century BC grave at Bulhakovo in southern Ukraine, this article discusses the economics of the perishable material culture of the Scythians of the Pontic Steppe region. Thanks to the survival of organic materials (wood, leather, textiles), the burial provides important information about the complex networ...

Sails and textile technology played a key role in enabling mobility and thus shaping historical phenomena such as migration, trade, the acquisition and maintenance of imperial power in the ancient Mediterranean. Yet sails are nearly absent from analyses of ancient fleets, even in extensively studied cases like that of Classical Athens. This paper e...

Textile production is among the most fundamental and more complex technologies in human prehistory, but is under-investigated due to the perishable nature of fibrous materials. Here we report a discovery of five textile fragments from a prehistoric (fourth-third millennium cal BC) burial deposit located in a small cave at Peñacalera in Sierra Moren...

The aim of this report is to provide a summary of the latest developments in the textile archaeology of Greece and the broader Aegean from the Neolithic through to the Roman period, focusing in particular on recent research on textile tools. Spindle-whorls and loomweights appeared in the Aegean during the Neolithic and by the Early Bronze Age weavi...

Large and complex settlements appeared across the north Mediterranean during the period 1000–500 bc, from the Aegean basin to Iberia, as well as north of the Alps. The region also became considerably more interconnected. Urban life and networks fostered new consumption practices, requiring different economic and social structures to sustain them. T...

The article is focusing on the re-assessment of two linen 2/1 twill fragments from the early excavations of Hallstatt in Austria, which were for a long time assumed to date to the Bronze Age. The new 14C data presented here prove that the pieces are early modern, dating to about 1600 CE. Then new dating and reassessment of the possible find context...

The pile-dwelling sites around Lake Garda in northern Italy, datable primarily to Early Bronze Age, provide important information regarding the spinning and weaving of linen and other vegetable fibres. In these settlements, not only tools for textile production in clay, bone-antler and wood, but also fragments of fabrics were found. In addition to...

In this paper, we attempt to trace checks and ‘tartan-like’ patterns in prehistoric Mediterranean, Central and Northern Europe, the techniques in which they were created, and their possible significance. Key finds come from burials, salt mines and bogs in Italy, Austria and Scandinavia, and span in date the 1st millennium BC. Checked pattern could...

The paper presents preliminary results of a new analysis of textile assemblage from the Caolino necropolis at Sasso di Furbara (Cerveteri), Italy, which is one of the largest and most important Iron Age textile corpora known from Italy. The material was found in 1953 by construction workers in a wooden monoxile boat, interpreted as a cenotaph. The...

Clothing has been regarded as one of the main identifying criteria for the Scythians – nomadic peoples who roamed the steppes of Eurasia during the 1st millennium BC – in Greek and Persian iconography and written sources. Textiles, felt and leather surviving in Scythian burials provide a rich source of information about the materials and techniques...

This chapter reflects on the contribution of interdisciplinary approaches to studying archeological textiles and, in particular, highlights the more recent focus on the cultural dimensions of early textiles. The manufacture of textiles, like few other materials, requires both conceptual, abstract knowledge and practical or procedural know‐how, and...

This paper discusses some of the insights that have been gained from the study of the textile tools from the Etruscan settlement of Poggio Civitate di Murlo and coeval textiles recovered from the adjacent cemetery site of Poggio Aguzzo di Murlo. Over 1,600 textile tools (including spindle whorls, loom weights, and spools) are analysed from a functi...

Scythian archers are invariably depicted carrying a quiver in ancient iconography and the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote of Scythian archers flaying the right arms of their dead enemies and using the skin to cover their quivers, yet little is known about the construction and materials of Scythian quivers. The survival of numerous fragments...

Leather, felt and textiles which have survived in Scythian burials from southern Ukraine provide a rich source of information about the materials and techniques used by the Scythians for the construction of their clothing and other practical objects. Furthermore, traces of pigment indicate that these items were colourful, providing information that...

The paper provides a short overview on textile preservation, analytical techniques, production sequence, and contexts of production in the Bronze-Early Iron Age Iberian Peninsula. It is intended as a background for the terminology and an introduction to the different stages of textile production as well as various sources and methods that can enlig...

The article presents the results of textile and fibre analysis of four textile fragments recovered during archaeological excavations at the site of Zawaydah, Naqada, in Upper Egypt. Although the main phase of the occupation at this site is ascribed to the Pre- and Protodynastic period (c. 4th millennium BC), the structural and fibre analyses of the...

Dressing the sacrifice: textiles, textile production and the sacrificial economy at Casas del Turuñuelo in fifth-century BC Iberia - Volume 93 Issue 370 - Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, Esther Rodríguez-González, Sebastián Celestino, Margarita Gleba

Recent research into plant bast fibre technology points to a Neolithic European tradition of working fibres into threads by splicing, rather than draft spinning. The major issue now is the ability of textile specialists and archaeobotanists to distinguish the technology of splicing from draft-spun fibres. This paper defines the major types of splic...

Purple textiles were highly valued in the ancient Mediterranean as a symbol of prestige, social status and power. Despite the numerous publications focused on the production and spread of purple dye technologies, the discussion regarding this particular dye has often been compartmentalised regionally (eastern or western Mediterranean) and chronolog...

Textiles are among the commonest objects of material culture used throughout the human past, although due to their organic nature they rarely survive in archaeological contexts. Their preservation is dependent on conditions such as extreme aridity, waterlogging, charring, or mineralization. A range of analytical techniques is used to investigate te...

Characterisations of ancient sheep breeds and wool types and theories about wool fibre processing are integral parts of textile archaeology. The studies build on statistical calculations of measurements of wool fibre diameters and reveal characteristics of the yarns that are attributed to the available raw wool and to the production methods of the...

Textiles are seldom included within socioeconomic interpretative frameworks of the ancient northern Mediterranean region, although several recent studies have begun to address this lacuna. The Archaic/ Classical site of Ripacandida (Basilicata), located in the southern Apennines, has yielded both textiles and textile tools, providing an unprecedent...

Zusammenfassung Im traditionsreichen Bergbaugebiet von Schwaz/Brixlegg im Nordtiroler Unterinntal fand während der späten Bronzezeit und frühen Eisenzeit ein umfangreicher Bergbau auf Kupfererze statt, der zahlreiche Spuren im Gelände hinterlassen hat. Montanarchäologische Forschungsprojekte der Universität Innsbruck, gefördert vom österreichischen...

From the earliest colonial times the necropolis of Cumae has been characterised by cremation burials, deposited in a bronze or silver urn and placed in a stone cist. This burial system, present in different iterations throughout time, is well known and widely discussed in the literature. The presence of textiles used to wrap the bones or metal cont...

An intact chamber tomb dated between the end of the Orientalising and early Archaic periods was discovered in 2013 in the Doganaccia necropolis of the Etruscan city of Tarquinia. Tomb 6423, nicknamed Tomba dell’Aryballos sospeso, contained an inhumation of a female, as well as a cremation of a male, both accompanied by sumptuous burial gifts. Excep...

Archaeological textiles are relatively rare finds in Mediterranean Europe, but many fragments survive in a mineralised form. Recent analysis of Iron Age textiles from Italy and Greece indicates that, despite the use of similar textile technologies at this time, Italy shared the textile culture of Central Europe, while Greece largely followed the Ne...

Archaeological textiles are relatively rare finds in Mediterranean Europe, but many fragments survive in a mineralised form. Recent analysis of Iron Age textiles from Italy and Greece indicates that, despite the use of similar textile technologies at this time, Italy shared the textile culture of Central Europe, while Greece largely followed the Ne...

Turuñuelo of Guereña (Badajoz, Spain) Importance of textile production in relation with other crafts: agriculture, animal husbandry, metalwork, pottery making, etc. - Textile economy: workshops & domestic production – who made the textiles? How many hours took to produce them? - Trade: textiles as prestigious gifts, as exchange – who trade the text...

An understanding of the development of textile production in Etruria is crucial to any attempt to set textile technology in its social and economic context and to place textile production among other crafts, such as metal and pottery manufacture, in order to ensure a more balanced assessment of the Etruscan economy. Among the various sources of evi...

Iconographic sources indicate that colourful textiles were used for a variety of purposes by the Etruscans, Paleovenetians, Faliscans and other inhabitants of ancient Italy but until recently little was known about what these textiles actually were like. The latest and ongoing studies of the surviving fabric remains found primarily in burial contex...

Cloth remains from 1st millennium BC Greece are relatively rare. The majority of the surviving fragments have been preserved in a mineralised state on metal objects. Re-examination of metal and other artefacts in museum collections is increasingly adding to the existing textile corpus. Recently, the remains of two new textile fragments were identif...

Textile tools made of perishable materials such as wood are extremely rare in the archaeological contexts of ancient Mediterranean, but numerous complete and fragmentary boxes containing textile tools and other materials have been found in Scythian burials of the 5th-4th centuries BC in southern Ukraine. The boxes are found exclusively in female bu...

Prehistoric, Ancient Near Eastern and Aegean Textiles and Dress: An interdisciplinary anthology, edited by Mary Harlow , Cécile Michel & Marie-Louise Nosch , 2015. (Ancient Textiles Series 18.) Oxford/Oakville: Oxbow Books; ISBN 978-1-78297-719-3 hardback £38.00; xii+308 pp., 143 figs., 31 tables - Volume 26 Issue 4 - Margarita Gleba

The first results of textile and dye analyses of cloth remains recovered in Samdzong, Upper Mustang, Nepal, are presented. The site consists of ten shaft tombs, dated between the 400-650 CE, cut into a high cliff face at an elevation of 4000 m asl. The dry climate and high altitude favoured the exceptional preservation of organic materials. One of...

Textiles represent a category of archaeological material little known to the general archaeological audience. Etruscan textiles survive in either an original organic, charred or, most frequently, mineralized state. Numerous textiles preserved in association with metal objects have been found in the burials of Bologna, Chiusi, Chianciano, Veii, Vulc...

This is the final version of the book sections (preliminaries plus an appendix). It was first published by University Studio Press.

Ancient literary sources indicate that, by the beginning of the Common Era, different textile types and qualities were available to Roman consumers and many of the best fibres were produced in Italy, from where they spread throughout the Roman Empire in the form of sheep, raw materials or finished textiles. The variety observed during the Roman tim...

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Harrassowitz via http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_88.ahtml

Of Lise Bender J?rgensen?s many valuable contributions to archaeology, her catalogues of Scandinavian (1986) and North European (1992) archaeological textiles are among the most signif cant and long lasting. At the time of writing, little was known about the prehistoric textiles of Italy and comparative material from South Europe included less than...

Of Lise Bender Jørgensen’s many valuable contributions to archaeology, her catalogues of Scandinavian (1986) and North European (1992) archaeological textiles are among the most signif cant and long lasting. At the time of writing, little was known about the prehistoric textiles of Italy and comparative material from South Europe included less than...

The paper presents a new project ?PROCON: Production and Consumption: Textile Economy and Urbanisation in Mediterranean Europe 1000?500 BCE? (2013?2018), funded by a European Research Council starting grant. The aim of the project is to test the hypothesis that textile production and consumption were significant driving forces of the economy and of...

PROCON is a new project hosted by the UCL Institute of Archaeology, funded by a European Research Council starting grant (No. 312603). The aim of the project is to test the hypothesis that textile production and consumption was a significant driving force of the economy and of the creation and perception of wealth in Mediterranean Europe during the...

The first diachronic investigation of wool fibre from Italian pre-Roman archeological contexts was carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A total of 22 archaeological wool samples from 10 Italian and one Austrian site dating from the Middle Bronze Age to the Roman period were analysed. The results demonstrate the processing of wool a...

It is generally assumed that the production of plant fibre textiles in ancient Europe, especially woven textiles for clothing, was closely linked to the development of agriculture through the use of cultivated textile plants (flax, hemp). Here we present a new investigation of the 2800 year old Lusehøj Bronze Age Textile from Voldtofte, Denmark, wh...

Support Material

This chapter provides an overview of archaeological textiles, textile tools and other evidence relevant to reconstructing textile production in Ukraine from the Neolithic until AD 400. It the first overview of this type on the subject.

The use of wool derived from sheep (Ovis aries) hair shafts is widespread in ancient and historic textiles. Given that hair can represent a valuable source of ancient DNA, wool may represent a valuable genetic archive for studies on the domestication of the sheep. However, both the quality and content of DNA in hair shafts are known to vary, and it...

Textile research has become an important field of archaeology. Although the established analytical methods are often viewed as specialized, their integration with other interdisciplinary approaches allows us to deal with broader archaeological issues and provides the interpretational base for a much more comprehensive investigation of textiles in a...

While the earliest indication of the use of shellfish purple dye in Italy comes from the Early-Middle Bronze Age site of Coppa Nevigata in south Italy, where tens of thousands of Hexaplex trunculus shells have been excavated, until now none of the surviving pre-Roman textile fragments found in Italy have tested positive for this dye. The paper pres...

An interdisciplinary session, entitled 'Threads to the past: novel methods for investigation of archaeological textiles and other organic materials' was held in the Hague, the Netherlands, between September 1-5, 2010. The session was organized to discuss new methods to be applied to the investigation of archaeological textiles and demonstrate their...

Textile research has become an important field of archaeology. Although the established analytical methods are often viewed as specialized, their integration with other interdisciplinary approaches allows us to deal with broader archaeological issues and provides the interpretational base for a much more comprehensive investigation of textiles in a...

Fascinating new evidence for the use of plant fiber textiles during the Early Iron Age came to light during analysis of a prehistoric bog body found in Denmark in the late 19th century: The Huldremose Woman. The Huldremose Woman was found during peat cutting in north-east Jutland in 1879. Almost 130 years after its discovery it remains one of the b...

This study presents the results of 44 new 14C analyses of Danish Early Iron Age textiles and skins. Of 52 Danish bog finds containing skin and textile items, 30 are associated with bog bodies. Until now, only 18 of these have been dated. In this paper we add dates to the remaining finds. The results demonstrate that the Danish custom of depositing...

This volume examines the complex strands that make up the European tradition of dress and fashion. Europe's varied landscapes and climates have influenced ways of dressing, as have continental and regional historical movements. West Europe, while emphasizing the global importance of European dress and fashion since 1800, provides information about...

This volume examines the complex strands that make up the European tradition of dress and fashion. Europe's varied landscapes and climates have influenced ways of dressing, as have continental and regional historical movements. West Europe, while emphasizing the global importance of European dress and fashion since 1800, provides information about...