Phoenician garment terminology

Aula Orientalis 31 (2013) 139-147, 2013

2016

This paper concerns Biblical Hebrew terms that have to do with ancient Israel's technology of writing. The study examines a non-homogenous group of eight Hebrew terms, all of which refer to materials used as writing surfaces. Specifically, the analyzed terms are those that designated vellum (ˤôr), scrolls (məgillā­; gillāyôn), stone and wooden tablets (delet; lûaḥ), ostraca (ḥereś), and uncommon writing surfaces such as a wooden staff (maṭṭe) and a stick (ˤēṣ). In discussing these terms, the study seeks to connect the literary and linguistic data of the Bible with the archaeological and art-historical evidence that exists for these lexemes and for the processes of writing in the ancient Near East.

2016

This paper is a study of nine Biblical Hebrew terms designating mud, clay, plaster, and whitewash. The lexemes examined are: bōṣ, repeš, yāwēn, ˤāpār, ṭîṭ, ḥōmer, ṭî a ḥ, tāpēl, and śîd. While previous research has considered the etymology of these words, what is lacking is a study that presents the interrelationship between the meanings of these terms. The present study provides such a synthesis of these terms as belonging to one semantic group-one that includes all the words designating mud and plaster.

Italian title: Gli otto tipi di lino nel Vecchio Testamento. Abstract: Eight different words are used to denote linen in the Old Testament: vvE [šeš], #WB [butz], ~yDI B; [badìm], ~yTi v. PI [pištìm], tn< to K. [ketònet], !ydI s' [sadìn], !Wja [etùn], and sP; r. K; rWx [hur karpàs].

Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC, Ancient Textiles Series 8, Oxbow Books, Oxford , 2010

First Textiles, 2018

The aim of the present paper is to discuss the etymology of the Iranian word for ‘brocade’ in the light of new evidence attested in ancient Aramaic texts, which elucidate the ancient practice and use of silk in the Achaemenid world.

2017

The investigation of textiles and clothes in ancient Mesopotamia has been anything but neglected in Assyriological studies. For the Neo- and Late Babylonian periods, in particular, two fundamental monographs have shed light on the clothes worn by the deities worshiped in lower Mesopotamia. 2 Scholars, however, have focused almost exclusively on clothing in the cultic context. This is due to a prevalence of textual sources – mostly economic or administrative documents – recording clothing items worn by divine images during festivals and rituals. Sources on the clothes worn by common people, instead, are close to non-existent. Still, we cannot overlook the fact that Mesopotamian towns were crowded by people rather than by gods. These people were workers, slaves and soldiers, and each one of them – man or woman – wore clothes in his or her everyday life. The objective of the present paper is to examine the three main clothing items worn by common people, using textual sources of the Neo- and Late Babylonian periods. These items were túg-kurra (a blanket of a sort used as garment), muṣiptu (a generic garment), and šir’am (a jerkin).

A Walk in the Garden: Exegesis, Iconography and Literature, ed. P. Morris and D. Sawyer, 74-90. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992