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... weaving took place, but the evidence does not tell us to which degree they played a defining rôle in the town’s textile economy. Still, the evidence for weaving implies a rather different investment compared to the other branches of the urban textile economy: the 16 buildings with a loom also seem to have contained only one loom. Commercial weaving, if it existed, was thus less concentrated in formal ‘workshops’ and took place in produc- tion units of an even smaller scale: individual weavers working at home or in a small taberna , perhaps with support from one or more spinners. This, combined with the rela- tive paucity of epigraphic and material evidence when compared to other textile crafts, suggests that professional spinning and weaving did not play a central rôle in the textile economy. In any case, the burden of proof at this point for those wishing to argue for sub- stantial commercial weaving is considerably greater than for those inclined to argue for more household-oriented scenarios. A final category of evidence is related to trade and retail. Due to the traditional emphasis on production, it has not received much attention from scholars, apart from the traditional idea that the Building of Eumachia was some kind of textile market (as this idea has been destroyed by an array of scholars 70 it does not need to concern us here). For trade as well as retail, the evidence is scarce and vague. Important are the paintings from the Praedia of Julia Felix, which show at least two clothing traders negotiating a sale with a customer in a context that has, for good reasons, been identified as Pompeii’s forum (fig. 9); 71 prob- ably the scene is meant to show itinerant traders who operated on a regional level selling their wares to Pompeian consumers. Then there are the paintings on the façade of felt- making workshop IX 7, 7 (fig. 10, cf. fig. 8). While the felt-making scenes are to the left of the entrance, to the right is a shop scene: a woman behind a counter, and in front of her a table on which the wares to be sold (probably hats) are on display. The combination of the two pictures on either side of the entrance suggests that the owners of this workshop wanted to convey a message of locally oriented production. Lastly, a graffito on one of the columns of House VII 2, 16 mentions a certain Vecilius Verecundus, who was a vestiarius , but the economic context in which he operated is unclear. 72 While this evidence in itself contains little information about the realities of trade and retail in Pompeii’s textile economy, it does suggest that at least part of the local ...
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Abstract available from:
https://thefibersociety.org/Portals/0/Past%20Conferences/2018_Fall_Abstracts.pdf?ver=2019-01-22-095426-997
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Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar os sistemas principais em arquitetura têxtil e exemplos para coberturas de espaços destinados a eventos de todo o tipo. Para atender este objetivo o artigo está, primeiro, estruturado por uma contextualização das arquiteturas têxteis como um painel da evolução e aplicações na construção de coberturas para eve...
Citations
... On the other hand, a tighter relationship between workshops specialized in the different phases of the textile industry has been detected in Roman workshops excavated in Pompeii. In particular, as recently pointed out by Flohr (2013b), dyeing workshops have been identified in houses that also accommodated either felt-making workshops or fullonicae. These houses probably belonged to investors who concentrated their efforts on the textile industry and "were expecting a relatively constant and substantial flow of orders. ...
From prehistoric metal extraction to medieval alchemy to modern industry, chemistry has been central to our understanding and use of the physical world as well as to trade, warfare and medicine. In its turn, chemistry has been shaped by changing technologies, institutions and cultural beliefs. A Cultural History of Chemistry presents the first detailed and authoritative survey from antiquity to today, focusing on the West but integrating key developments in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Arabic-Islamic and Byzantine empires.
... On the other hand, a tighter relationship between workshops specialized in the different phases of the textile industry has been detected in Roman workshops excavated in Pompeii. In particular, as recently pointed out by Flohr (2013b), dyeing workshops have been identified in houses that also accommodated either felt-making workshops or fullonicae. These houses probably belonged to investors who concentrated their efforts on the textile industry and "were expecting a relatively constant and substantial flow of orders. ...
... This way of thinking about these technologies dovetails with recent work on Volubilis' workshops, which have begun refocusing on the lived experiences inside those spaces (Akerraz and Lenoir, 1981;Leduc, 2008;2011;;Bigi, 2016;Benton, 2021). Process-oriented approaches, such as operational sequences (Ingold, 2013;Flohr, 2013;Monteix, 2016;Benton, 2020), have revealed much about the internal operations of workshops, in terms of how production was occurring and how commercial activity fitted into the social lives of craftspeople. Using that work as a springboard, we use millstone and mixing vat lithologies, and their potential quarry sources, to make inferences about economic and social interactions across crafts. ...
This paper discusses the study of stone implements from the Roman site of Volubilis (Morocco), undertaken in order to identify the types of stone used for different tools found in workshops and to isolate potential quarry sources. As part of the work of the Urban Economy of Volubilis Project, we analyzed the petrology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of sixteen stone millstones and dough mixers. The results show that Volubilis’ stone implements likely derived from three different quarry sources, with olive mills, grain mills, and dough mixers each having their own distinct lithology, specifically selected to suit the function of the object. The geochemistry of the stones indicates a local source for all of the samples, including the alkali basalt millstones which are often considered to be imported through long-distance trade. The close proximity of the stone quarries and the evidence for selectivity suggest a degree of communication and reflexivity between the city’s craftspeople and those who produced their specialized equipment.
... The Punic-period structure at Illeta dels Banyets provides one pre-Roman precedent for an urban esparto workshop (Perdiguero Asensi, 2016). In Roman contexts at Pompeii and Ostia, textile fullers and dyers operated from dedicated workshop buildings and workshops attached to houses (Flohr, 2013a(Flohr, , 2013b. ...
Drawing on scholarship in postcolonial archaeology that emphasizes the place of indigenous technology in colonial and imperial contexts, this article explores the role of local communities in esparto grass weaving and basketry in the southeast Iberian Peninsula in antiquity. Esparto crafting became essential to Phoenician and Carthaginian colonial economies of the 1st millennium BCE and, later, to the production equipment for mining and other industries under Roman imperial rule. This paper uses ethnographic studies alongside archaeological evidence of esparto objects, particularly esparto mining equipment, to reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of ancient esparto crafting. It argues that local communities developed landscape learning and tactile technical knowledge surrounding esparto crafting over many generations. In supplying equipment essential to Roman mining, these communities used their technical knowledge to maintain agency and construct their identities under imperial rule. Ultimately, understanding esparto crafting helps elucidate the relationship between resources, technology, and imperial or colonial encounters.
... That of Nuceria is delimited by Pompeii, Nola, Avella, Abellinum, Salerno, and Stabiae, resulting in a Thiessen polygon of about 185 km 2 , again excluding the mountain zones. 57 On the Pompeian textile economy see Flohr (2013) and Monteix (2013). See also Chapter 7 (this volume: 219). ...
... 94 The phenomenon of urban production now began to look more significant, even if we might still be wary of replacing the 'consumer city' model with the equally simplistic 90 Moeller (1976);Jongman (1988). See now also Flohr (2013). 91 Rich and Wallace-Hadrill (1991); Parkins (1997); Parkins and Smith (1998); Mattingly and Salmon (2000). ...
The article focuses on female clothing depicted in wall paintings from Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae. A main point is to establish the semantics of costumes and colour: how do the aesthetic spaces of 'real' Pompeian garments worn by professional and working women in the first century intersect with 'ideal' garb represented in mythological and genre scenes? What do the colours chosen for clothing reveal about status and how did the ancient viewers negotiate the shifting meanings of a given hue according to context? I argue that the colours of both real and represented clothing were largely dictated by fabric, with pastel hues for silk and saturated primary hues for wool. The article proposes two interrelated colour domains, each with its particular connotations: saturated basic chromatics for everyday wear and a pastel palette for elite attire.
The Roman Empire was strengthened by its effective control and governance of its border areas. To a large extent, the operation and governance of the border areas are related to the safety, prosperity, and decline of the country, and also to the survival of the country. Based on the above considerations, this paper synthesizes the knowledge and methods of archaeology, geography, and other disciplines. Taking the handicraft production industry as an example, the paper analyzes the status and functions of the imperial frontier and tries to identify the successes and failures of imperial frontier management. Based on the research findings, we conclude that the Roman frontier is neither the boundary between civilization and barbarism nor a place of confrontation, friction, conflict, and war, but rather a place of national integration.
Research into water management in Roman towns has traditionally focused on its supply by means of aqueducts and its use in the thermal baths and domus of the elites. However, the urban functions of water included uses that went far beyond recreational, social activities and also included its supply to production facilities. Numerous artisanal activities required large amounts of water, including pottery, textile activities, wickerwork and manufacturing bone or metal instruments. All these activities are commonly identified in Roman towns. In each case, the workshops could have obtained water not only from wells and cisterns, but also through a connection to the urban supply network, thanks to an aqua publica concession. In this study, we compile both archaeological and textual evidence, including literary and legal texts, on the private use of aqua publica for productive activities in urban contexts.
Smelling and other sensations that are often considered solely physiological phenomena are in fact deeply influenced by culture and history, and without understanding the ancient sensory landscape, our knowledge of the past inevitably remains limited. This paper explores the olfactory nuisances in one Pompeian city block (IX,3) and its immediate neighbors. I examine the area's stenches by tracing and mapping the sources of smells, focusing on those that in previous scholarship have been considered to render ancient towns foul smelling. The analysis contests the views of malodorous Roman urban space presented in previous studies and suggests that the smellscape of urban Pompeii was not a constant reek but milder and manageable. However, the analysis also reveals that social hierarchies and power relations played a part in Pompeian odor control, and the olfactory landscape was not the same for all inhabitants.
