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Die Textilien aus Palmyra: Neue und alter Funde, by Andreas Schmidt-Colinet, Annemarie Stauffer, and Khaled al-As'ad. Damaszener Forschungen, band 8. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2000. Xl + 201 pp., 121 figures, 104 black-and-white plates, 8 color plates. Cloth. DM 188.00.
For generations, the Syrian city Palmyra has been of pivotal archaeological importance, not only for textile historians but more generally for scholars of the ancient world, as this ancient city was a major entrepot for RomanParthian trade during the first few centuries B.c.E./A.D. It is at Palmyra that we find tangible evidence for the long-distance transport of luxury goods from hither Asia and beyond-and of materials rarely preserved.
The early studies of textiles from Palmyra are indeed well known to scholars of textile history, as these studies were pioneering in scope and in the level of technical analysis. Much of what is currently known about the analysis of archaeological silk, for example, has developed from Pfister's ambitious study of silk finds from Palmyra (Pfister 1934-1940). Some of the Palmyran silks were Ran Chinese, judging from the weave and pattern. Pfister examined the silk fibers from Palmyran samples and drew up a tentative chart with the relative diameters of various types of silk. This chart was later misused by other textile specialists working on early silks as a means for determining species origin (Ribaud 1977: 273-74, n.12). Although Pfister's study has often been criticized, it was nevertheless part of a remarkable attempt at the time to systematically examine archaeological fibers and determine diagnostic features, as a means of helping to establish provenance. Subsequent research by textile specialists has resulted in heated disputes over whether thread diameter can distinguish wild from domesticated silk. Although fiber diameter of silks is somewhat variable among species, it is also highly variable within a single cocoon, as there are different components to a cocoon that serve different functions.
Another important contribution to textile history derived from the Palmyran materials was the study of metallic threads, an important technological development for the production of luxury...