textiles

Hand weaving jute crafts in India. Source: mitrarudra / Adobe Stock.

6 May, 2023 - 01:44 Robbie Mitchell

The Brave Women Preserving India's Tribal Weaving Legacy (Video)

In the face of cheaper alternatives flooding the market, women from the Rajbanshi ethnic group in West Bengal, India have been fighting to keep an ancient weaving tradition alive. Jute, one of India'...

Sari weaving. Source: ananaline / Adobe Stock.

26 March, 2023 - 21:00 Robbie Mitchell

The Sari Weavers Keeping a 16th Century Craft Alive (Video)

In the narrow alleys of Varanasi , India, a group of skilled artisans are keeping an ancient craft alive through their nimble fingers and artistic vision. They are the sari weavers , who continue to...

Image depicting the Inka tunic or Unku found in northern Chile from the wearer’s point of view. Source: Correa-Lau, J., et. al. / CC BY 4.0

15 February, 2023 - 17:56 Sahir

Chilean Inka Tunic Provides Insight into Inka Power & Cultural Fusion

A brilliant new study on unkus , a type of standardized Inka tunic, has shed light on a rather important matter of socio-political organization – that of centralization of power. Based on the unku...

Recently discovered textiles in the Aravah point to Silk Road trade in ancient Israel. Source: Israel Antiquities Authority: Olga Nganbitsky Nofer Shamir, Roy Galili.

22 January, 2023 - 17:56 ashley cowie

Precious Ancient Fabrics from the ‘Israeli Silk Road’ Found in a Trash Heap

Archaeologists have uncovered rare, printed fabrics dating back around 1,300 years. While the fabrics had originated in the East, they were found in an Israeli dump! It is the first evidence of a...

King Ludd, the leader of the Luddites. Source: Public domain

21 December, 2022 - 23:44 Cecilia Bogaard

Calling Someone a Luddite Isn't Actually an Insult

Historically Luddites have gotten a bad wrap since the use of the word exploded as a belittling term for clumsy “Neanderthal technophobes” in the 1960s. Unfortunately for the Luddites, the way its...

The Borgund Viking village museum basement has drawers upon drawers with remains of textiles from perhaps a thousand years ago. They can tell us more about what kind of clothes people in Norway wore during the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. Source: Bård Amundsen / sciencenorway.no

27 April, 2022 - 18:30 Sahir

‘Lost’ Viking Village Artifacts Emerge From Norwegian Basement Archive

It isn’t rare for a once prosperous medieval town to be abandoned and slowly get side-lined in the annals of history. Nothing exemplifies this statement better than the lost Viking village of Borgund...

This Stone Age piece of cloth is the oldest cloth in the world ever, but it took 60 years for science to figure out the material used for the oldest textile known to man, which have recently been published in the Antiquity journal. Source: Antoinette Rast-Eicher / University of Bern

16 November, 2021 - 21:57 Nathan Falde

Anatolian Neolithic Weavers At Çatalhöyük Used Trees to Make The Oldest Cloth

A new study published in the journal Antiquity has revealed some surprising information about the inhabitants of the ancient city of Çatalhöyük, an early Neolithic settlement located in southern...

An Egyptian Book of the Dead manuscript papyrus. Recently two pieces of a death shroud worn by an ancient Egyptian, which had been torn into fragments, were "reunited." One fragment was from the Getty Museum collection in California and the other fragment was in the collection of the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities in New Zealand.

15 July, 2021 - 18:57 ashley cowie

Two Egyptian Book Of The Dead Shroud Fragments Have Been Reunited!

Thanks to researchers on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean two ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead shroud fragments, one in New Zealand, and the other one in Los Angeles, have been reunited. The two...

4 May, 2021 - 02:04 ashley cowie

Researchers Solve the Origins of a Famous Collection of Viking Bones

For over 100 years human remains recovered from the famous Bjerringhøj Viking Age burial in Denmark have been missing. But now, a collection of Viking bones and textiles that were recovered from “a...

Tomb of emperor Frederick III in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Austria. Source: JoJan / CC BY-SA 3.0.

19 November, 2019 - 01:59 Ed Whelan

Micro Cameras Reveal Treasure in Emperor Frederick III’s Tomb

Researchers have used cameras to examine the last untouched royal tomb in Europe . Experts used tiny cameras to investigate the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. They revealed a stunning...

Phoenician pottery shows evidence of shell-dye factory producing Biblical dye.

3 July, 2019 - 13:46 ashley cowie

3,000-Year-Old Phoenician Shell-Dye Factory Linked With The Temple

Shards of Phoenician pottery excavated fifty years ago from an archeological dig in Tel Shikmona located south of Haifa , in Israel , have revealed that this mysterious Biblical-era stronghold was...

A bronze socketed ax was one of many Bronze Age tools found at Must Farm, a site that dates back about 3,000 years and is the finest site of that era ever found in Britain and one of the finest in Europe.

17 July, 2016 - 00:47 Mark Miller

Burned 3,000-Year-Old Settlement Frozen in Time May Have Been Torched by Raiding Party

Archaeologists speculate that a raiding party torched a Bronze Age settlement on stilts that was well-preserved in the silt of the river it fell into about 3,000 years ago. A number of hints at the...

22 February, 2016 - 04:12 dhwty

Chancay Burial Dolls: Ancient Peruvian Grave Goods of a Lost Culture

Chancay burial ‘dolls’ are a type of grave goods that were used by the Chancay culture, a pre-Columbian civilization located in modern day Peru. This civilization was based mainly in the valleys of...

The man’s gown found in the Ming Dynasty tomb

10 December, 2014 - 22:30 Mark Miller

Archaeologists unearth spectacular textiles in Ming Dynasty Tomb

Exactly how did Chinese people dress 500 years ago? What were their aspirations for the afterlife? Apart from artistic depictions and written descriptions, it is usually hard to tell exactly how...

17 June, 2014 - 23:38 aprilholloway

2,000-Year-Old Paracas Shroud Returns Home

A rare and exquisite funeral shroud dating back 2,000 years to the ancient Paracas culture of Peru, has finally returned home after being returned from Sweden, according to a BBC report . The...