Minoan Textiles by Kathryn Gauci

 

 Minoan Textiles

 

For millennia, women in particular sat together, spinning, weaving and sewing, but because textiles are perishable, early textiles are not easy to find. Even when we look back at Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, very few ancient literary records are devoted to women, so we have few sources to consult. The Minoans are an exception. 

The Minoans flourished during the Bronze Age (3300-1200 BC) and belong to the group of civilisations archaeologists sometimes refer to as “island cultures”, in that they were protected by sea, or, in the case of Egypt, a desert. Malta and Easter Island also belong to these categories.

Secure in their environment, they were able to develop and prosper. By 2300 BC, the people of Crete had developed textiles into a major art form. Before this, flax had been in use since Paleolithic times, whereas wool as we know it today – woolly sheep as opposed to hairy or kempy ones – was only introduced around 3500 BC. The people of Crete turned the herding of these new woolly sheep into a major part of their economy, and from this, a flourishing textile trade grew.

The first evidence of weaving manufacture in Crete comes from the archaeological site of Myrtos in the South. Clay spindle whorls were found in many rooms as though women were spinning everywhere, just as they have done in rural Greece for centuries.

For most people, spindle whorls don’t look like much at all, but as far as archeologists are concerned, they are a spectacular find. In one room, archeologists also found evidence of shallow clay dishes specifically designed for wetting linen thread as it is being worked. The ancient Egyptians used such bowls as do the Japanese today. They also unearthed clay loom weights, and significantly, these were not scattered throughout the dwellings as were the spindle whorls. For whatever reason, Myrtos burnt down, and charred oak beams were unearthed at the site. Because of the way some were found, it is believed that looms with oak beams were set up on the flat rooftops. The looms were the upright ones with clay weights, as the weaving loom with heddles that most people associate with cloth-weaving would not be in wide use until much later. Having said that, the Egyptians did sometimes use them alongside the upright loom.

They exported their woollen textile goods to the Middle East and other Mediterranean islands, in particular, Egypt. We can see just how much the Minoans developed their textile skills from the tablets unearthed around the palace of Knossos. Almost 2000 of these mentioned textile production. The D-series at Knossos, which documents shepherds and their flocks, contains 984 fragments of tablets and 231 record cloth manufacture, 171 record textile workers and 84 record wool. At Pylos, cloth via taxation is also documented along with flax production. Through this Linear B documentation, we can follow textile crops, the birth of lambs, targets for wool yields per animal, collectors’ work, the assignment of wool to workers, the receipt of finished fabrics, distribution of cloth and the storage in palatial magazines. The records are so detailed, we can deduce how many km a year could be spun, given that a spinner worked 10 hours a day for 300 days a year - 14,025 km yarn/year spun on an 18g spindle whorl. Quite mind-boggling! Minoan Crete was quite literally a super powerhouse when it came to textiles, particularly of wool.    

As Minoan trade flourished, the people developed their dyeing skills. The main colours used were red, blue, yellow and white. Natural plant dyes such as madder will give an orange-red, whereas the red from the Kermes beetle gives an intense crimson. The excavations at Myrtos show that oak was used for timber, strongly suggesting the presence of the Kermes beetle. Yellow was obtained from the saffron lily, which was found on many Aegean islands, particularly the island of Thera (present-day Santorini).

Vat dyes are more complicated to produce than natural dyes. Indigo Blue is one such colour, and it wasn’t widely known for centuries, so it’s likely that the Minoans used woad. Woad was already known to the ancient Egyptians, who used it to dye the cloth wrappings for the mummies, and for years it was assumed to be Indian Indigo. Woad is a flowering plant, and the blue dye is produced from the leaves. Although it is native to the steppe and desert zones of the Caucasus and Central Asia, woad has been cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and Southern Europe, since ancient times,

There is also Royal purple obtained from several varieties of seashells such as murex. Excavations on Crete have unearthed many shell heaps. Each little mollusk produces only a single drop of this beautiful dye, so we can only imagine how many were needed to dye a single piece of cloth. Some earthen floors have been found to contain crushed murex shells as aggregate—an example of recycling from about 1500 BC.

The Egyptians mostly wore clothing made of flax, which is harder to dye than wool, so naturally, this was a boom market for the Minoans. We can see from paintings in Egyptian tombs from 2000 BC onwards that the most popular patterns were blue heart-spirals with a red diamond between each pair of double hearts on a white ground. Diagonal spirals with red and blue rosettes were also popular. They must have been beautiful, as these patterns existed long after the decline of the Minoans.

When it comes to dress, we get a glimpse of just how beautiful and decorative Minoan costumes were from ceramics, figurines, the paintings in Egyptian tombs, and the wall paintings of Akrotiri on Thera. These paintings show just how advanced the Minoan civilisation had become. The Palace of Knossos also shows the sophistication of the time, but it is from Akrotiri that we see the finer details.

The predominance of female figures in authoritative and ritualistic roles over male ones seems to indicate that Minoan society was, in all likelihood, matriarchal. Certainly, the fact that the men were often away trading meant that women took care of the home and did agricultural work at the same time, which gave them tremendous power. For centuries, Cretan men wore simple loincloths, sometimes with fancy borders and always fastened with cinch belts, and it was the women who shone as far as costumes went. In fact, they were extremely fashionable and would have been the Parisiennes of their day. From early figurines of women, we see the bell-shaped dress and open-top bodice, also with a cinch belt, but it is generally thought that this is a representation. Two famous Minoan snake goddess figurines from Knossos show bodices that circle their breasts. These striking figures are probably goddesses, priestesses, or devotees, as they are dressed differently from the way normal Cretan women dressed.

From pieces like the Agia Triada Sarcophagus at Knossos, we see that Minoan women normally covered their breasts and priestesses in religious contexts were probably the exception. The fact that women wore such elaborate costumes shows us that women played a very important role in textiles and society in general. While they wove and created them, the men traded them, especially to Egypt. This trade brought back not only physical wealth but ideas, most notably in the way the Minoans started to richly decorate their palaces and villas. These wall paintings show that even the plainest of dresses were striped, while the finest display a mind-boggling array of all-over patterns, including interlocking grids of motifs, fringing, tassels and embroidery, which were obviously advanced. Thick sashes, colourful hair-bands, sculpted aprons, hats, and jewellery add to this astonishing array of beauty.

With the decline of the Minoans, textiles and costume changed, reflecting yet another era in civilisation.  During the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, women lost their social status, and by the dawn of the Classical Age, were almost second-class citizens. They rarely went out of the house except for religious festivals, and a maidservant did the shopping. With women sequestered, the development of textiles, from a commercial point of view, was taken up by men.