Textile Production in Central Anatolia between the 2nd and the 1st Millennium BC: Analysis of Tools and Contexts

Abstract

This study deals with tools linked to textile production in central Anatolia in the transition period between the 2^nd and the 1^st millennium BC. It is a critical phase which begins with the crisis and collapse of Hittite Empire and which is characterized by a variety of changes, from architecture to pottery and pastoral strategies. These changes are often associated with the arrival of new people in central Anatolia, set within broader movements that affect the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age. The aim is to include textile tools in the archaeological debate concerning the problem of continuity or innovation with respect to the Hittite tradition. Spindle whorls and loom weights are indeed the archaeological evidence attesting the occurrence of textile activities in contexts like the ancient Anatolian one, where clothes and fabrics have rarely been preserved because of their perishability.