Journal
ASIAN PERSPECTIVES-THE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Volume 60, Issue 2, Pages 272-305Publisher
UNIV HAWAII PRESS
Keywords
archaeology; textiles; artifact studies; craft production; South Asia
Categories
Funding
- Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF) career programme, Sapere Aude
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This article discusses the lack of archaeological study on the production and use of textiles in historical periods in South Asia, compared to earlier prehistoric and proto-historic periods. It emphasizes the importance of analyzing spindle whorls to gain insights into textile production and societal contexts. The author advocates for a more artifact-oriented approach in studying textiles and textile production in historical periods.
India is famous as a land of cloth. Yet for much of India's historical past, the ways textiles were made and used, and their wider cultural and societal dimensions, are poorly understood. Most of what we know about them is gleaned from texts, but they have not been studied archaeologically. This is in contrast to archaeologies of earlier pre- and proto-historic periods, which are more materially grounded and draw on a range of proxies in examining textile production. This article demonstrates that a class of artifacts usually identified and dismissed as 'beads' throughout historical periods are spindle whorls. Analyses of these whorls can tell us a great deal about textile production and the societal contexts in which textiles were made and used. I also explore constraints on the archaeological investigation of textiles and textile production in historical periods in South Asia and advocate a more artifact-oriented approach.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available