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Sails and textile technology played a key role in enabling mobility and thus shaping historical phenomena such as migration, trade, the acquisition and maintenance of imperial power in the ancient Mediterranean. Yet sails are nearly absent from analyses of ancient fleets, even in extensively studied cases like that of Classical Athens. This paper examines the demand and production of sailcloth, including labour and material requirements, and logistics. A consideration of the Athenian navy demonstrates that making sails involved significant amounts of labour and resources. Managing supplies and reserves of sailcloth constituted a significant challenge, which could be addressed through more intensive exploitation of textile workers, trade, and taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this report is to provide a summary of the latest developments in the textile archaeology of Greece and the broader Aegean from the Neolithic through to the Roman period, focusing in particular on recent research on textile tools. Spindle-whorls and loomweights appeared in the Aegean during the Neolithic and by the Early Bronze Age weaving on the warp-weighted loom was well established across the region. Recent methodological advances allow the use of the physical characteristics of tools to estimate the quality of the yarns and textiles produced, even in the absence of extant fabrics. The shapes of spindle-whorls evolved with the introduction of wool fibre, which by the Middle Bronze Age had become the dominant textile raw material in the region. The spread of discoid loomweights from Crete to the wider Aegean has been linked to the wider Minoanization of the area during the Middle Bronze Age, as well as the mobility of weavers. Broader issues discussed in connection with textile production include urbanization, the spread of different textile cultures and the identification of specific practices (sealing) and previously unrecognized technologies (splicing), as well as the value of textiles enhanced by a variety of decorative techniques and purple dyeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews archaeological publications and fieldwork related to Macedonia and Thrace of the past five years, covering the Early Iron Age to the Hellenistic period, with reference also to sites and projects in Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Turkey. Published syntheses reveal the priorities that have driven archaeological research to date (for example funerary monuments, ties to historical figures and narratives, pottery) and a need for more studies on other aspects of social history and archaeology, such as subsistence, crafts and households. Fieldwork at settlements has continued over the years, but few are being dug and published to current standards. A discussion is growing about the role and use of the countryside, and field surveys and excavations are providing new data on this. Fortified rural sites in Greece and Bulgaria may indicate that similar social processes were afoot, but full publication and the retrieval of relevant comparative data, especially faunal and botanical, are essential for a better understanding of potential differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the production of textiles in Thrace during the first millenniumbc. It presents a functional analysis of textile-production tools from three towns in Thrace: Koprivlen, Adzhiiska Vodenitsa near Vetren, and Seuthopolis, and from Kastanas in Macedonia. The analysis shows that over the course of the Iron Age, textile production became more diversified and intensive. This process unfolded parallel to the emergence of opulent elite burials and urban communities. By examining a wider range of archaeological, iconographic, and textual data, the article contributes to our understanding of how the demand for textiles, and their consumption in different socially meaningful ways, connects to changes in production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]