Embedded Files
Funerary art from the working class men and women of the 1st century CE onward is our richest source of images about Roman clothing and textile production:
- Funerary monuments were often decorated with both an inscription and images that related to the life of the deceased. Among the working class, these images often included motifs from their occupation in life.
- There is a series of faily standardized motifs which show the production and trade of textiles:
- often represented by tools rather than work scenes
- represent various stages from raw materials to ready-to-wear garments for sale
- there are far more images of the garment-sellers than of the people working of raw textiles (makes sense… the further up the chain you are the more profit you are making, so your family has more money for a memorial)
- There is a series of faily standardized motifs which show the production and trade of textiles:
- Women’s work is much less visible than men’s but many women of all ranks are depicted with spinning implements, wool baskets, and bundles of wool on their funerary monuments
- Men are never associated with spinning, but may be associated with shearing, weaving, and are frequently depicted as cloth or clothing merchants
- Italy has a moderate climate, so textiles rarely survive under most conditions. There are almost no extant Roman-era textiles from Italy
- A comparatively large number of extant Roman-era textiles survived in Egypt due to the hot and dry conditions there
- A smaller number of extant Roman-era textiles survived in wet sites in France, Germany, and Britain, but these are usually small fragments rather than full garments
- There are a few remarkable Roman-era textile finds scattered throughout the Roman Empire
- Many of the extant Roman-era textiles have been mislabeled, inaccurately dated, and/or poorly preserved.
- Extant textile and garment finds tell us:
- What one individual was wearing in this place, at one moment in time.
- What is likely the local fashion, or the local interpretation of a broader fashion
- Local manufacturing methods and preferences
- They are *not* automatically representative of what was worn or done elsewhere in the Empire, or at other times in the history of Rome
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse