Textiles

Textiles are among the commonest objects of material culture used throughout the human past, although due to their organic nature they rarely survive in archaeological contexts. Their preservation is dependent on conditions such as extreme aridity, waterlogging, charring, or mineralization. A range of analytical techniques is used to investigate textiles, in order to characterize, date, and provenance them, and reveal various aspects of their history and use. The results of these analyses allow us to learn about the culture, technology, economy, and trade of past societies, as well as to reconstruct the appearance of the individual people in space and time.