Industry and Inheritance at Hellenistic Morgantina
A New Assemblage of Loom Weights from the House of the Two Mills
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.25522Keywords:
heirlooms, Hellenistic Sicily, loom weights, Morgantina, textile productionAbstract
Recent excavations of a modestly appointed house at the site of Morgantina in east-central Sicily recovered 175 loom weights or fragments thereof. In this study, we combine a detailed contextual analysis with new methodologies developed by the Center for Textile Research in Copenhagen in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of textile production in this house, the House of the Two Mills. Using these methods, we are able to identify the specific weights within the larger assemblage that most probably formed a single set, used together for weaving at this location. Moreover, the results of this analysis indicate that the loom weights that constituted this set would not have been produced and acquired all at once, but must have been accumulated by the household slowly over time. We propose that the most probable mechanism by which this slow process of accumulation played out would have been through household members passing down these textile tools as heirlooms across generations. We argue that in the process these weights would have been viewed by their users as having a value beyond their mere utilitarian function, instead becoming materializations of memory and the affective bonds formed in the intergenerational transfer of craft traditions. We conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the study of heirloom objects in archaeology and how a contextual understanding of broader Greek social institutions and practices can aid us in parsing peculiarities of the archaeological record.
References
Ahmed, S. 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Allegro, N. 1976 Il quartiere est. In N. Allegro, O. Belvedere, N. Bonacasa … A. Tullio and A. Tusa Cutroni (eds.), Himera II. Campagne di scavo 1966-1973, 471-574. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Allen, H.L. 1974 Excavations at Morgantina (Serra Orlando), 1970-1972: preliminary report XI. American Journal of Archaeology 78: 361-83. https://doi.org/10.2307/502751
Antonaccio, C.M. 1997 Urbanism at Archaic Morgantina. Acta Hyper-borea 7: 167-94.
Bell, M. 1988 Excavations at Morgantina, 1980-1985: preliminary report XII. American Journal of Archaeology 92: 313-42. https://doi.org/10.2307/505551
———. 1999 Centro e periferia nel regno Siracusano di Ierone II. In La Colonisation Grecque en Méditerranée Occidentale, 257-77. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome.
———. 2007 An archaeologist’s perspective on the Lex Hieronica. In J. Dubouloz and S. Pittia (eds.), La Sicile de Cicéron: lecture des Verrines, 187-204. Besançon, France: Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l’Antiquité.
Benton, J., R. Gorham, J.F. Huemoeller … A. Truetzel and D.A. Walthall 2015 Recenti scavi a Morgantina: il progetto Contrada Agnese (2013-2014). In G. Bruno (ed.), Atti del Convegno Nazionale di Geoarcheologia. La geoarcheologia come chiave di lettura per uno sviluppo sostenibile del territorio Aidone (EN), 19-24. Altari, Italy: SIGEA.
Biagini, C. 2008 Pesi da telaio e oscilla. In R.C. Scovazzo (ed.), Segesta III. Il sistema difensivo di Porta di Valle (Scavi 1990-1993), 645-59. Mantua, Italy: SAP.
Bonanno, C. 2008 Gli oscilla discoidali. In C. Bonanno (ed.), Apollonia: indagini archeologiche sul Monte di San Fratello, Messina, 2003-2005, 57-62. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Bonanno, C., and F. Sudano 2009 I materiali. In C. Bonanno (ed.), Kalè akté: Scavi in contrada Pantano di Caronia Marina, Messina, 2003-2005, 29-46. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Bove, A. 1995 Rocca d’Entella: gli oscilla (1985-1989). In G. Nenci (ed.), Entella I, 163-68. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore.
Cali, V. 2003 I pesi fittili. In E. De Miro (ed.), Agrigento II. I santuari extraurbani: L’asklepieion, 160-61. Soveria Mannelli, Italy: Rubbettino.
Caple, C. 2010 Ancestor artefacts—ancestor materials. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 29: 305-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0092.2010.00350.x
Chittock, H. 2019 Assessing the functions of old objects in Britain from 400 BC to AD 100. In M.G. Knight, D. Boughton and R.E. Wilkinson (eds.), Objects of the Past in the Past: Investigating the Significance of Earlier Artefacts in Later Contexts, 77-97. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Cultrera, G. 1943 Siracusa. Scoperte nel Giardino Spagna. Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita 4: 33-126.
Davies, A. 2019 The devil or the divine? Supernatural objects and multi-period hoards in later prehistory. In M.G. Knight, D. Boughton and R.E. Wilkinson (eds.), Objects of the Past in the Past: Investigating the Significance of Earlier Artefacts in Later Contexts, 60-76. Oxford: Archaeopress.
De Miro, E. 2000 Agrigento I. I santuari urbani. L’area sacra tra il tempio di Zeus e Porta V. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Epifanio, E. 1976 Isolato III. I materiali. In N. Allegro, O. Belvedere, N. Bonacasa, R.M. Bonacasa Carra, C.A. Di Stefano, E. Epifanio, E. Joly, M.T. Manni Piraino, A. Tullio and A. Tusa Cutroni (eds.), Himera II. Campagne di scavo 1966-1973, 259-372. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Firth, R. 2015 Mathematical analysis of the spindle whorl and loom weight data in the CTR database. In E.A. Strand and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Tools, Textiles and Contexts: Investigating Textile Production in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, 153-90. Oxford: Oxbow.
Foxhall, L. 2011 Loom weights. In J.C. Carter and A. Prieto (eds.), The Chora of Metaponto III. Archaeological Field Survey Bradano to Basento, 539-54. Austin: University of Texas Press.
———. 2012 Family time: temporality, gender and materiality in ancient Greece. In J. Marincola, L. Llewellyn-Jones and C. Maciver (eds.), Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras: History without Historians, 183-206. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748643974-014
———. 2013 Studying Gender in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511980084
———. 2018 Loom weights. In J.C. Carter and K. Swift (eds.), The Chora of Metaponto VII. The Greek Sanctuary at Pantanello, 1027-85. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/314234-052
Geake, H. 1997 The Use of Grave-Goods in Conversion-Period England c.600–c.850. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 261. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860549178
Gentili, G.V. 1951 Siracusa. Scoperte nelle due nuove arterie stradali, la via di Circonvallazione, ora Viale P. Orsi, e la via Archeologica, ora Viale F.S. Cavallari. Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità 5: 261-334.
Gilchrist, R. 2008 Magic for the dead? The archaeology of magic in later medieval burials. Medieval Archaeology 52: 119-59. https://doi.org/10.1179/174581708x335468
———. 2013 The materiality of medieval heirlooms: from biographical to sacred objects. In H.P. Hahn and H. Weiss (eds.), Mobility, Meaning and Transformations of Things, 170-82. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dn08.15
Gleba, M. 2008 Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxbow.
———. 2015 Women and textile production in early Iron Age southern Italy. In G.S. Semerari and G.J. Burgers (eds.), Early Iron Age Communities of Southern Italy, 103-17. Rome: Palombi.
———. 2017 Textiles in pre-Roman Italy: from a qualitative to a quantitative approach. Origini 40: 9-28.
Gleba, M., C. Heitz, H. Landenius Enegren and F. Meo 2018 At the crossroads of textile cultures: textile production and use at the south Italian Archaic site of Ripacandida. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 31: 27-51. https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.36808
Gleba, M., I. Menale and C. Recigno 2017 Textiles and rituals in Cumaean cremation burials. Origini 40: 45-63.
Gloyn, L., V. Crewe, L. King and A. Woodham 2018 The ties that bind: materiality, identity, and the life course in the ‘things’ families keep. Journal of Family History 43: 157-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363199017746451
Hamilakis, Y. 2013 Archaeology and the Senses: Human Experience, Memory, and Affect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017CBO9781139024655
Harris, O.J.T. 2020 From emotional geographies to assemblages of affect: emotion in archaeology in the light of the ontological turn. Cologne Contributions to Archaeology and Cultural Studies 2: 175-94.
Harris, O.J.T., and T.F. Sørensen 2010 Rethinking emotion and material culture. Archaeological Dialogues 17: 145-63. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203810000206
Henig, M. 2008 The re-use and copying of ancient intaglios set in medieval personal seals, mainly found in England: an aspect of the Renaissance of the 12th century. In N. Adams, J. Cherry and J. Robinson (eds.), Good Impressions: Image and Authority in Medieval seals. British Museum Research Publication 168: 25-34. London: The British Museum.
Hingley, R. 2009 Esoteric knowledge? Ancient bronze artefacts from Iron Age contexts. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75: 143-65. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00000335
Jennings, B. 2014 Repair, recycle or re-use? Creating mnemonic devices through the modification of object biographies during the Late Bronze Age in Switzerland. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24: 163-76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774314000055
Knight, M.G., D. Boughton and R.E. Wilkinson 2019 Objects of the past in the past. In M.G. Knight, D. Boughton and R.E. Wilkinson (eds.), Objects of the Past in the Past: Investigating the Significance of Earlier Artefacts in Later Contexts, 1-18. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Landenius Enegren, H. 2015 Loom weights in Archaic south Italy and Sicily: five case studies. Opuscula 8: 123-55. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-08-06
———. 2017 The loom weights from the ‘Scarico Di Grotta Vanella’: evidence for a sanctuary on the north acropolis of Segesta? In C. Brøns and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Textiles and Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, 104-11. Oxford: Oxbow. https:// doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dszk.14
Leighton, R. 2012 Prehistoric Houses at Morgantina: Excavations on the Cittadella of Morgantina in Sicily, 1989-2004. London: Accordia Research Institute.
Lillios, K.T. 1999 Objects of memory: the ethnography and archaeology of heirlooms. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 6: 235-62. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021999319447
Lucore, S.K. 2009 Archimedes, the North Baths at Morgantina and early developments in vaulted construction. In C. Kosso and A. Scott (eds.), The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, and Bathing and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance, 43-59. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004173576.i-538.12
Marín-Aguilera, B., F. Iacono and M. Gleba 2019 Colouring the Mediterranean: production and consumption of purple-dyed textiles in pre-Roman times. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 31: 127-54. https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.38080
Mårtensson, L., M.L. Nosch and E.A. Strand 2009 Shape of things: understanding a loom weight. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28: 373-98. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0092.2009.00334.x
Meo, F. 2014 New archaeological data for the understanding of weaving in Herakleia, southern Basilicata, Italy. In M. Harlow and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Greek and Roman Textiles and Dress: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, 236-59. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dh8b.15
———. 2015 L’attività tessile a Herakleia di Lucania tra III e I secolo A.C. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Mollo, F. 2013 Pesi da telaio e oscilla. In G.F. La Torre and F. Mollo (eds.), Finziade I. Scavi sul Monte Sant’Angelo di Licata (2003-2005), 368-70. Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider.
Musumeci, A. 1996 Oggetti di destinazione varia. In L. Grasso and A. Musumeci (eds.), Caracausi: un insediamento rupestre nel territorio di Lentini, 143-54. Catania, Italy: Università di Catania, Istituto di Archeologia.
Nicotra, M. 2007 Collezione archeologica della Pinacoteca Zelantea. Atti e rendiconti dell’Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti dei Zelanti 6: 194-262. Oakley, J.H., and R.H. Sinos
———. 1993 The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Olofsson, L. 2015 An introduction to experimental archaeology and textile research. In E.A. Strand and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Tools, Textiles and Contexts: Investigating Textile Production in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, 25-38. Oxford: Oxbow.
Olofsson, L., E.A. Strand and M.L. Nosch 2015 Experimental testing of Bronze Age textile tools. In E.A. Strand and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Tools, Textiles and Contexts: Investigating Textile Production in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, 75-100. Oxford: Oxbow.
Orlandini, P., and D. Adamesteanu 1960 Gela: nuovi scavi. Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità 14: 67-246.
Overholtzer, L., and W.D. Stoner 2011 Merging the social and the material: life histories of ancient mementos from Central Mexico. Journal of Social Archaeology 11: 171-93. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605311399072
Parra, M.C. 1992 Edificio ellenistico (SAS 3). Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 22: 649-59.
Quercia, A., and L. Foxhall 2014a Temporality, materiality and women’s networks: the production and manufacture of loom weights in the Greek and indigenous communities of Southern Italy. In K. Rebay-Salisbury, A. Brysbaert and L. Foxhall (eds.), Knowledge Networks and Craft Traditions in the Ancient World: Material Crossovers, 62-82. New York: Routledge.
———. 2014b Weaving relationships in areas of cultural contacts: production, use, and consumption of loom weights in pre-Roman Sicily. Monographs of the Archaeological Society of Finland 3: 88-101.
———. 2015 Material culture as an indicator of adoption and resistance in the cross-craft and cultural interactions among Greek and indigenous communities in Southern Italy: loom weights and cooking ware in pre-Roman Lucania. In P.M. Militello and H. Öniz (eds.), SOMA 2011: Proceedings of the 15th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, Held at the University of Catania 3-5 March 2011, 563-73. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Schirmer, C., D.A. Walthall, A. Tharler, E. Wueste, B. Crowther, R. Souza, J. Benton and J. Millar 2021 Preliminary report on the 2018 season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). FOLD&R Italy Series 500. Online: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2021-500.pdf
Sherlock, S.J. 2016 The reuse of ‘antiques’ in conversion period cemeteries. Medieval Archaeology 60: 242-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2016.1221263
Sinos, R.H. 2020 Wedding connections in Greek and Roman art. In J. Beneker and G. Tsouvala (eds.), The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World, 20-67. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv136c5bq.6
Smith, A.T. 2010 Those obscure objects of desire. Archaeological Dialogues 17: 172-76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203810000231
Souza, R., D.A. Walthall, J. Benton, E. Wueste, A. Tharler, B. Crowther and C. Schirmer 2019 Preliminary report on the 2016 field season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). FOLD&R Italy Series 450. Online: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2019-450.pdf
Strand, E.A. 2015 From tools to textiles, concluding remarks. In E.A. Strand and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Tools, Textiles and Contexts: Investigating Textile Production in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, 139-44. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Strand, E.A., K.M. Frei, M. Gleba, U. Mannering, M.L. Nosch and I. Skals 2010 Old textiles – new possibilities. European Journal of Archaeology 13: 149-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461957110365513
Strand, E.A., M.L. Nosch and J. Culter 2015 Textile tools and textile production – studies of selected Bronze Age sites: introduction. In E.A. Strand and M.L. Nosch (eds.), Tools, Textiles and Contexts: Investigating Textile Production in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, 191-95. Oxford: Oxbow.
Stone, S.C. 2015 Morgantina Studies VI. The Hellenistic and Roman Fine Pottery. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400845163
Tarlow, S. 2012 The archaeology of emotion and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 169-85. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145944
Tharler, A., D.A. Walthall, E. Wueste, C. Schirmer, B. Crowther, J. Benton, R. Souza and K.P.D. Huemoeller 2020 Preliminary report on the 2017 season of the American excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). FOLD&R Italy Series 487. Online: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2020-487.pdf
Trümper, M. 2019 Crisis and decline in Morgantina under Roman rule: a reassessment. In E. Perego, R. Scopacasa and S. Amicone (eds.), Collapse or Survival: Micro-Dynamics of Crisis and Endurance in the Ancient Central Mediterranean, 197-207. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvqc6j5q.12
Valentino, M. 1997 La Montagnola di Marineo: pesi da telaio e oscilla. In Archeologia e territorio 97-137. Palermo: Palumbo.
Walthall, D.A. 2011 Magistrate stamps on grain measures in early Hellenistic Sicily. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 179: 159-69.
———. 2015 Recenti scavi nei granai monumentali di Morgantina. In L. Maniscalco (ed.), Morgantina duemilaequindici: la ricerca archeologica a sessant’anni dall’avvio degli scavi, 82-91. Palermo: Regione siciliana, Assessorato dei beni culturali e dell’identità siciliana.
Walthall, D.A., and R. Souza 2021 Sortition in Hellenistic Sicily: new archaeological evidence from Morgantina. American Journal of Archaeology 125: 361-90. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.125.3.0361
Walthall, D.A., R. Souza and J. Benton 2016 Preliminary report on the 2014 field season of the American excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). FOLD&R Italy Series 364. Online: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2016-364.pdf
Walthall, D.A., R. Souza, J. Benton and J.F. Huemoeller 2014 Preliminary report on the 2013 field season of the American excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). FOLD&R Italy Series 322. Online: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2014-322.pdf
Walthall, D.A., R. Souza, J. Benton, E. Wueste and A. Tharler 2018 Preliminary report on the 2015 field season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). FOLD&R Italy Series 408. Online: http://www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2018-408.pdf
Woodward, A. 2002 Beads and beakers: heirlooms and relics in the British Early Bronze Age. Antiquity 76 (294): 1040-47. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00091845
