Textiles in Southern Etruria (TexSEt)

Textile Technology in Central Tyrrheanian Italy from Late Prehistory to the Roman Republican Period

Project by Romina Laurito, Marie Curie Fellow 2014-2016

The TexSEt project will investigate the emergence and development of textile technologies and the use of textile fibres in Central-Western Italy from Late Prehistory (Final Bronze Age – 10th century BC) until the Roman Republican period (1st century BC), with a particular focus on the Etruscan period (8th-4th century BC).
Ancient textile production and fibres will be examined using all materials, methods and sources of information available for an up to date and innovative archaeological exploration. The study includes preserved archaeological textiles, textile implements and their contextualization, as well as ancient iconographic and literary sources. The research will integrate further methods: experimental archaeology combined with an ethnographic approach and the new analytical methods for textile analyses developed in recent years.

I will bring together archaeology, history, iconography, and ethnography to explore what constituted a pre-Etruscan and Etruscan textile tools kit and the range of fabric qualities and explore if and what changing elements are recognizable in the archaeological record.
An integrated study of archaeological textiles will enhance our understanding of the long period of evolution, based on the selection and development of processing technologies, before arriving at the standardisation in technology and production of the Roman Empire.

A key issue of my research will be focused on dissemination and museological aspects. My ambition is to “translate” the obtained scientific results in new ways to exhibit specific objects such as textile tools at the prestigious institution of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome.
The final goal of my IEF project is to combine an innovative archaeological study with museological research aimed at new concepts of how to exhibit textile remains and tools in a museum context. It finds no parallel in the field of Italian or European studies.