Production and Consumption: Textile Economy and Urbanisation in Mediterranean Europe 1000–500 BCE (PROCON)

Margarita Gleba,Joanne Cutler,Susanna Harris

doi:10.5334/ai.1602

Abstract

PROCON is a new project hosted by the UCL Institute of Archaeology, funded by a European Research Council starting grant (No. 312603). The aim of the project is to test the hypothesis that textile production and consumption was a significant driving force of the economy and of the creation and perception of wealth in Mediterranean Europe during the period of urbanisation and early urbanism in 1000–500 BCE. The overarching question to be answered is: To what extent did textile production and consumption define the development of productive and commercial activities of early urban Mediterranean societies in the Iron Age?

Highlights

The past few years have witnessed a major dynamism in the field of archaeological textile research in Europe, as demonstrated by numerous conferences and publications on the topic, as well as the establishment of large-scale interdisciplinary collaborative programmes, such as the Centre for Textile Research (CTR), funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (2005–2015), and the pan-European project ‘Clothing and Identities – New Perspectives on Textiles in the Roman Empire’ (DressID), funded by the European Union Education, Audiovisual
In 18th-century England, the Industrial Revolution was fuelled by the desire of the nobility and aspiring middle classes to invest in cloth and clothing, with its chance for self-promotion and political investiture
The focus of the PROCON project is on the significance of the production and consumption of textiles for the development of city-states and the implications of this for other aspects of the economy, such as the use of farm land, labour resources and the development of urban lifestyle

Summary

Introduction

The impetus created by these projects has provided an important arena for the development of new research techniques and approaches. It has been convincingly demonstrated that intensive production and consumption of textiles was at the heart of urbanisation throughout the history of the world. In the ancient past a similar pattern is recognisable in the emergence of the Bronze Age urban state centres of Mesopotamia and the Aegean.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion