Industry and Inheritance at Hellenistic Morgantina

A New Assemblage of Loom Weights from the House of the Two Mills

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12221847
AutoresKevin Ennis (0009-0009-8953-6883, Stanford University, autor de correspondencia), Max T B Peers (John Brown University)
Año2023
Volumen35
Número2
Páginas198-225
Fecha de publicación2023-02-08
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Mediterranean Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0952-7648 • E-ISSN: 1743-1700
EditorialSheffield Academic Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jma.25522
OpenAlexW4319736941
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas32

Recent excavations of a modestly appointed house at the site of Morgantina in east-central Sicily recovered 175 loom weights or fragments thereof. In this study, we combine a detailed contextual analysis with new methodologies developed by the Center for Textile Research in Copenhagen in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of textile production in this house, the House of the Two Mills. Using these methods, we are able to identify the specific weights within the larger assemblage that most probably formed a single set, used together for weaving at this location. Moreover, the results of this analysis indicate that the loom weights that constituted this set would not have been produced and acquired all at once, but must have been accumulated by the household slowly over time. We propose that the most probable mechanism by which this slow process of accumulation played out would have been through household members passing down these textile tools as heirlooms across generations. We argue that in the process these weights would have been viewed by their users as having a value beyond their mere utilitarian function, instead becoming materializations of memory and the affective bonds formed in the intergenerational transfer of craft traditions. We conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the study of heirloom objects in archaeology and how a contextual understanding of broader Greek social institutions and practices can aid us in parsing peculiarities of the archaeological record

Archaeological record · Archaeology · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Assemblage (archaeology · Craft · Estate · Function (biology · Genealogy · Inheritance (genetic algorithm · Literature · LOOM · Narrative · Order (exchange · Political science · Process (computing · Set (abstract data type · Textile · Value (mathematics · Weaving · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Computer Science · Engineering · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Law · Artificial Intelligence