A Sensory Perspective on High-Ranked Women’s Dress in the 8th to 4th Century BC in the Mediterranean and Central Europe

Abstract

In the late 20th century, the study of western science was dominated by a philosophical approach to evidence as text and meaning. In archaeology, material culture was treated like text, to be read through systems of signs, symbols, and indices put together in syntax. For studies of dress, this was influential in understanding dress as a cognitive system compiled to create identities and meaning. In this approach, textiles, fastenings, hairstyles, and gestures are presented as signs and symbols used to form a statement about identity, to be read by others. There was a focus on the visuality of dress and garments as non-verbal communication media, which was an important advance in studies of dress. Around the turn of the millennium, this position shifted. Critics of the textual approach argued that by emphasizing the cognitive experience, science had lost touch with the physicality of the world. In this turn to the senses, objects are physical matter and perceived through the senses; these sensations are the basis of actions and reactions. In addition, these sensations are not merely natural capabilities, they are learned and cultural. Archaeologists began to explore approaches where evidence was grounded in the sensory approaches, first through phenomenology, then as sensory archaeology. 6 The sensory approach to the past has since flourished.7 The sensory turn has important implications for the study of dress and identities. Where previously the visual sense as non-verbal communication predominated, sensory approaches draw on the full range of senses. Together with visuality and sound, touch (haptics), movements, body language, and gesture are factors in how dress is perceived. Sensations of full garment ensembles are created and cultural — soft cloth versus sharp and spiky metals, weight, elasticity or non-elasticity, and many more. The question is how to investigate that on the basis of the archaeological sources for dress. To address this challenge, in this paper we explore high-status women’s dress of the 8th to 4th centuries BC in the Mediterranean and Central Europe from a sensory perspective.