To this day Late Antique textiles found in Egypt are widely designated as Coptic
textiles, following a tradition established a hundred years ago when
excavators first reported on the discovery of such pieces. The term Coptic,
however, refers to native Egyptian Christians, while the design and
imagery of these textiles can only very rarely be attached to an
unequivocally and narrowly Christian-Coptic context. Until fairly
recently it was difficult to place Egyptian decorated textile fragments
in a larger perspective and to recognize them as the late products of an
industry that had already blossomed for centuries in the Near and
Middle East. One reason for this difficulty was the apparent lack of
contemporary and earlier finds in neighboring regions. For a long time
this absence of comparative material caused the Egyptian pieces to stand
out as the sole examples of weaving from classical antiquity. Textiles
from other regions of the Near East have since come to light, leading to
a reassessment of the weaving finds from Egypt and for some of them a
redetermination of their place of manufacture. It also became clear that
most textile finds from Egypt can be dated to the fourth and fifth
centuries A.D. by stylistic comparisons to works of art produced in
other media. In those centuries, however, the eastern Mediterranean and
Egypt were still strongly influenced by cultural and iconographic
traditions inherited from Hellenistic and Roman times. This was
especially true among traditionally educated aristocrats and wealthy
citizens who were largely the owners of elaborately decorated textiles.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Alois Riegl and Joseph Strzygowski undertook significant studies of the third through sixth centuries A.D. After this research waned until the 1970s when two important exhibitions were held in New York and and Frankfurt. These catalyzed a new interest among archaeologists, art historians, philologists, and scholars of other disciplines in an epoch whose fascination lies In the many levels of understanding and diverse possibilities for interpretation allowed by its artistic forms of expression.
Format pdf / 48 pages / Language: English
At the turn of the twentieth century, Alois Riegl and Joseph Strzygowski undertook significant studies of the third through sixth centuries A.D. After this research waned until the 1970s when two important exhibitions were held in New York and and Frankfurt. These catalyzed a new interest among archaeologists, art historians, philologists, and scholars of other disciplines in an epoch whose fascination lies In the many levels of understanding and diverse possibilities for interpretation allowed by its artistic forms of expression.
Format pdf / 48 pages / Language: English
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