The sensory archaeology of textiles

Abstract

Textiles are sensuous; we respond to them through touch, vision and smell, movement, sound and temperature. Through sensations, textiles embody emotions of identity, and define hierarchies of power and value. Yet through the taphonomy of decay, ancient textiles are frequently devoid of their original sensory properties, they come to us as faded, fragile, dirty rags. A sensory archaeology of textiles, therefore, requires a suite of methods to reveal these sensations and a contextual analysis to interpret them within their chronological and regional archaeologies. In raising to this challenge, this chapter proposes for the first time a sensory archaeology of textiles. Through innovative case studies, the author invites the reader to recognise the implications of a sensory archaeology of textiles, and to consider the consequences for their own research fields.

Material and Sensory Experiences of Mesolithic Resinous Substances

“…In marrying this data with critical considerations of sensory experience and materiality, we have attempted to develop an approach that bridges this documented divide between emic and etic approaches to adhesive technologies: an approach that draws on the different types of knowledge that experimental archaeology generates and which allows for an appreciation of skill, know-how and technology within non-WEIRD societies. This brings the study of prehistoric adhesives in line with developments across archaeological materials research; critical approaches to the synthesis of sensory experience with etic knowledge are already being advanced within the study of prehistoric metallurgy (Kuijpers 2017), stonework (Jones 2020), textiles (Harris 2020) and glass (Duckworth 2020).…”

Vestes Hispaniae: análisis histórico-arqueológico de los restos textiles localizados en la Península Ibérica

“…Por otra parte, se está viendo un auge progresivo en este tipo de estudios. Esto también se empieza a materializar en el desarrollo teórico con recientes reflexiones entorno a como integrar técnicas y metodologías para la tecnología textil (Harris, 2020;Kania, 2015y Jørgensen et al 2018.…”

Navigating danger through nuisance: Racialized urban fears, gentrification, and sensory enskilment in Amsterdam

“…The field has expanded so much since the so‐called sensory turn of the 1980s that no satisfactory attempt can be made at providing a comprehensive overview of the multiplicity of voices now studying sensory experience. Despite the growing knowledge and attention to the role of the senses in shaping and informing our social and cultural lives, little is still known about what Anna Harris (2021) calls “sensory education,” that is the ways in which sensory awareness is learned and taught in expert and everyday settings. A restricted but prolific cohort of scholars has started engaging with sensing as “a skillful and situated capacity, namely a skill that is learnt, embodied, and socialized in specific ways for distinct practices” (Grasseni, 2018, p. 217).…”

“…A restricted but prolific cohort of scholars has started engaging with sensing as “a skillful and situated capacity, namely a skill that is learnt, embodied, and socialized in specific ways for distinct practices” (Grasseni, 2018, p. 217). Thinking of sensing as a skill rather than an innate ability is vital to draw attention to sensation as a social, bodily, and material practice that is learned with others and with the world (Harris, 2021). Tacit and embodied sensory knowledge is inextricable from social and cultural dispositions that regulate not only how and what we sense, but also how we experience and engage with our environment.…”