Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights

While the importance of textiles in Mesoamerica from the Classic period (AD 250-900) onward is well-recognized, scholars have conducted little exploration of earlier Mesoamerican textile production. This lack of scholarship may be attributed in great part to the scant preservation of perishable text...

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Autor principal:	Billie J. A. Follensbee
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	EXARC 2020
Materias:	loom chalcolithic belize weaving bronze age guatemala textile stone mexico Museums. Collectors and collecting AM1-501 Archaeology CC1-960
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/7926bcbead184e9cb67ecd132b752cec
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:7926bcbead184e9cb67ecd132b752cec2021-12-01T14:42:35ZTesting Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights2212-8956https://doaj.org/article/7926bcbead184e9cb67ecd132b752cec2020-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://exarc.net/ark:/88735/10533https://doaj.org/toc/2212-8956While the importance of textiles in Mesoamerica from the Classic period (AD 250-900) onward is well-recognized, scholars have conducted little exploration of earlier Mesoamerican textile production. This lack of scholarship may be attributed in great part to the scant preservation of perishable textiles and tools from ancient times. New sources of information have been recognized, however, in the re-examination of extant Pre-Columbian textiles that illustrate unusual manufacturing techniques and in the rich depictions of textiles that are preserved in early sculpture. Further sources are found in the re-identification of a number of ancient jade objects as high-status versions of tools used for making textiles. Many of these textile tools are readily identifiable because closely comparable, preserved counterparts are found in later Mesoamerican cultures. Other early artifacts are much more difficult to identify, however, because they were involved in textile technologies used only during the Pre-Classic/Formative period (1500 BC-AD 250) and earlier; tools used for these extinct technologies would no longer be produced nor have comparable counterparts after the widespread Mesoamerican adoption of the backstrap loom at the beginning of the Classic period. One such possible tool used in early, experimental weaving technologies is a lunate jade artifact that compares closely with a crescent weight, a specialized type of loom weight found in ancient Central and Southern Europe. Replication studies serve as a pragmatic method for testing these lunate objects as warp-weighted loom weights, both by verifying their efficacy using methodologies developed to test the function of the European crescent weights, and also by exploring new possibilities for the practical applications of these types of weights.Billie J. A. FollensbeeEXARCarticleloomchalcolithicbelizeweavingbronze ageguatemalatextilestonemexicoMuseums. Collectors and collectingAM1-501ArchaeologyCC1-960ENEXARC Journal, Iss 2020/4 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	loom chalcolithic belize weaving bronze age guatemala textile stone mexico Museums. Collectors and collecting AM1-501 Archaeology CC1-960
spellingShingle	loom chalcolithic belize weaving bronze age guatemala textile stone mexico Museums. Collectors and collecting AM1-501 Archaeology CC1-960 Billie J. A. Follensbee Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights
description	While the importance of textiles in Mesoamerica from the Classic period (AD 250-900) onward is well-recognized, scholars have conducted little exploration of earlier Mesoamerican textile production. This lack of scholarship may be attributed in great part to the scant preservation of perishable textiles and tools from ancient times. New sources of information have been recognized, however, in the re-examination of extant Pre-Columbian textiles that illustrate unusual manufacturing techniques and in the rich depictions of textiles that are preserved in early sculpture. Further sources are found in the re-identification of a number of ancient jade objects as high-status versions of tools used for making textiles. Many of these textile tools are readily identifiable because closely comparable, preserved counterparts are found in later Mesoamerican cultures. Other early artifacts are much more difficult to identify, however, because they were involved in textile technologies used only during the Pre-Classic/Formative period (1500 BC-AD 250) and earlier; tools used for these extinct technologies would no longer be produced nor have comparable counterparts after the widespread Mesoamerican adoption of the backstrap loom at the beginning of the Classic period. One such possible tool used in early, experimental weaving technologies is a lunate jade artifact that compares closely with a crescent weight, a specialized type of loom weight found in ancient Central and Southern Europe. Replication studies serve as a pragmatic method for testing these lunate objects as warp-weighted loom weights, both by verifying their efficacy using methodologies developed to test the function of the European crescent weights, and also by exploring new possibilities for the practical applications of these types of weights.
format	article
author	Billie J. A. Follensbee
author_facet	Billie J. A. Follensbee
author_sort	Billie J. A. Follensbee
title	Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights
title_short	Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights
title_full	Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights
title_fullStr	Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights
title_full_unstemmed	Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights
title_sort	testing mesoamerican lunate artifacts as possible crescent loom weights
publisher	EXARC
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/7926bcbead184e9cb67ecd132b752cec
work_keys_str_mv	AT billiejafollensbee testingmesoamericanlunateartifactsaspossiblecrescentloomweights
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Testing Mesoamerican Lunate Artifacts as Possible Crescent Loom Weights

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