The Root of the Problem: On the Relationship between Wool Processing and Lanolin Production
Issue: Vol 27 No. 1 (2014)
Journal: Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology
Subject Areas: Ancient History Archaeology
Abstract:
Reconstructions of ancient wool-processing techniques have generally been based on the assumption that lanolin was a by-product of the woolen textile industry. However, both ancient and modern sources point to significant procedural differences between the extraction and recovery of lanolin and the preparation of wool for spinning and weaving. The different conditions necessary to produce spinning wool or to recover lanolin are, in fact, contradictory rather than complementary, and wool working and lanolin production must therefore have been separate, albeit related industries. Recognizing lanolin as produced by boiling wool offers an explanation for a number of difficult-to-understand Linear B references and supports the interpretation of sign *145 (wool/LANA) in perfumed unguent ingredient lists as ‘wool for its lanolin’. It further enables archaeological reconstructions of these technologies and of cross-craft interactions in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Author: Laura B Mazow
References :
Aura Jorro, F. 1993Diccionario Micénico II. Madrid: Instituto Antonio de Nebrija.
Barber, E J.W. 1991Prehistoric Textiles. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Beck, C., and L. Beck 1978Wi-ri-za wool on Linear B tablets of perfume ingredients. American Journal of Archaeology 82: 213-15.http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/504494
Bernabé, A., and E. Luján 2008Mycenaean technology. In Y. Duhoux and A. Morpurgo Davies (eds.), A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World I. Biblothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 120: 201-33. Leuven: Peeters.
Betancourt, P.P., V. Apostolakou and T.M. Brogan 2012The workshop for making dyes at Pefka, Crete. In M.-L. Nosch and R. Laffineur (eds.), Kosmos: Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 33: 183-86. Leuven: Peeters.
Bowyer, D. 1972Appendix X. Chromatography analysis for lipids in clay. In P. Warren (ed.), Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete, 330-31. London: Thames and Hudson.
Bradley, M. 2002‘It all comes out in the wash’: looking harder at the Roman fullonica. Journal of Roman Archaeology 15: 21-44.
Brysbaert, A. 2007Cross-craft and cross-cultural interactions during the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age. In S. Antoniadou and A. Pace (eds.), Mediterranean Crossroads, 32-59. Athens: Pierides Museum.
Burke, B. 2010From Minos to Midas. Oxford: Oxbow.
Bushnell, L. 2012Fragrant copying? Mycenaean perfumed oil and the role of Cyprus. In A. Georgiou (ed.), Cyprus, An Island Culture: Society and Social Relations from the Bronze Age to the Venetian Period, 196-209. Oxford: Oxbow.
Collard, D. 2008Function and Ethnicity: Bathtubs from Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Sävedalen: Paul Åströms förlag.
Collins, S., and R.S. Davidson 1997Aspects of the photochemistry of wool yolk (wool wax and suint). Review of Progress in Coloration and Related Topics 27: 42-58.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-4408.1997.tb03774.x
Courtois, J.-C. 1984Alasia III: Les objets des niveaux stratifiés d’Enkomi. Fouilles C.F.-A. Schaeffer (1947-1970). Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations.
Daubenton, L.-J.-M. 1811Advice to Shepherds and Owners of flocks: On the Care and Management of Sheep. Trans. A Gentleman of Boston [J. Bowdoin III]. Boston: J. Belcher.http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.31549
Del Freo, M., M.-L. Nosch, and F. Rougemont 2010The terminology of textiles in the Linear B tablets, including some considerations on Linear A logograms and abbreviations. In C. Michel and M.-L. Nosch (eds.), Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC, 338-87. Oxford: Oxbow.
Dikaios, P. 1971Enkomi, Excavations 1948-1958, II: Chronology, Summary and Conclusions, Catalogue, Appendices. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
Dothan, T. 2003The Aegean and the Orient: cultic interactions. In W.G. Dever and S. Gitin (eds.), Symbiosis, Symbolism and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina, 189-214. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Duhoux, Y. 2008Mycenaean anthology. In Y. Duhoux and A. Morpurgo Davies (eds.), A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World I. Biblothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 120: 243-93. Leuven: Peeters.
Eitam, D. 1987Olive oil production during the biblical period. In M. Helzer and D. Eitam (eds.), Olive Oil in Antiquity, Israel and Neighboring Countries from the Neolithic to Early Arab Period, 16-36. Haifa: University of Haifa.
Eitam, D. 1990Textile and olive oil production in ancient Israel during the Iron Age period. Pigments et colorants de l’Antiquité et du Moyen Age, 283-90. Paris: Editions du CNRS.
Erard-Cerceau, I. 1990Végétaux, parfums et parfumeurs à l’époque Mycenienne. Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 28: 251-85.
Flohr, M. 2013The World of the Fullo: Work, Economy and Society in Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659357.001.0001
Fong, W., A.S. Yeiser and H.P. Lundgren 1951A new method for raw-wool scouring and grease recovery. Textile Research Journal 21: 540-55.http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004051755102100802
Forbes, R.J. 1955Studies in Ancient Technology III. Leiden: Brill.
Forbes, R.J. 1964Studies in Ancient Technology IV. Leiden: Brill.
Frizell, B.S. 2004Curing the flock: the use of healing waters in Roman pastoral economy. In B.S. Frizell (ed.), PECUS: Man and Animal in Antiquity. Proceedings of the Conference at the Swedish Institute in Rome, September 9-12, 2002, 80-89. Rome: Swedish Institute in Rome.
Gitin, S., Y. Garfinkel and T. Dothan 2014Occupational history—stratigraphy and architecture of Middle Bronze Age III stratum XI and Iron Age I strata VII-IV. In Y. Garfinkel, T. Dothan and S. Gitin (eds.), Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavations 1985-1988, 1990, 1992-1995: Field IV Lower—The Elite Zone, Part I: The Iron Age I Early Philistine City. Jerusalem: Albright Institute and the Hebrew University.
Halliday, L. 2002Woolscouring, carbonising and effluent treatment. In W.S. Simpson and G.H. Crawshaw (eds.), Wool: Science and Technology, 21-59. Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing.
Hills, R. 2007Textile and clothing. In I. McNeils (ed.), An Encylopaedia of the History of Technology, 803-18. London: Routledge.
Hoppe, U. 1999The Lanolin Book. Hamburg: Beiersdorf.
Karageorghis, V. 1974Excavations at Kition: The Tombs I. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.
Karageorghis, V. 1998Hearths and bathtubs in Cyprus: a ‘Sea Peoples’ innovation? In S. Gitin, A. Mazar and E. Stern (eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition, 276-82. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Karmakar, S.R. 1991Chemical Technology in the Pre-Treatment Processes of Textiles. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Killen, J.T. 1962The wool ideogram in Linear B texts. Hermathena 96: 38-72.
Koh, A. 2008Wreathed in a Fragrant Cloud: Reconstructing a Late Bronze Age Aegean Workshop of Aromata. Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller.
Koh, A. 2011Mediterranean trek, the search for Kothar. Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, San Francisco.
Langbeck, H.W. 1890Wool-fat and processes of obtaining it, with special relation to wool washing. The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 9: 356-59.http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jctb.5000090403
Mazow, L. 2005Competing Material Culture: Philistine Settlement at Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Early Iron Age. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Near Eastern Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.
Mazow, L. 2008The industrious Sea Peoples: the evidence of Aegean-style textile production in Cyprus and the Southern Levant. In T. Harrison (ed.), Cyprus, the Sea Peoples and the Eastern Mediterranean: Regional Perspectives of Continuity and Change. Scripta Mediterranea27-28: 291-321. Toronto: Canadian Institute for Mediterranean Studies.
Mazow, L. 2013Throwing the baby out with the bathwater: innovations in Mediterranean textile production at the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 1st millennium BCE. In M.-L. Nosch and E. Anderson (eds.), Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East, 213-21. Oxford: Oxbow.
Melena, J.L. 1983Olive oil and other sorts of oil in the Mycenaean tablets. Minos 18: 89-123.
Melena, J.L. 2014Mycenaean language. In Y. Duhoux and A. Morpurgo Davies (eds.), A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their WorldIII. Biblothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 120: 1-186. Leuven: Peeters.
Michel, C., and M.-L. Nosch 2010Textile terminologies. In C. Michel and M.-L. Nosch (eds.), Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First millennia BC, ix-xix. Oxford: Oxbow.
Moeller, W.O. 1966The lanifricarius and the officinae lanifricariae at Pompeii. Technology and Culture 7: 493-96.http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3101848
Moeller, W.O. 1976The Wool Trade of Ancient Pompeii. Leiden: Brill.
Muret, B. 1994How to wash raw wool in your washing machine. The Shepherds Magazine (May): 44-45.
Osenschlager, E.L. 1993aSheep: ethnoarchaeology at El-Hiba. In J.N. Postgate and M.A. Powell (eds.) Domestic animals of Mesopotamia I.Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7:33-42. Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge
Osenschlager, E.L. 1993bVillage weavers: ethnoarchaeology at El-Hiba. In J.N. Postgate and M.A. Powell (eds.) Domestic animals of Mesopotamia I.Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7:43-62. Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge.
Palaima, T.G. 1997Potter and fuller: the royal craftsmen. In R. Laffineur and P.P. Betancourt (eds.), TEXNH: Craftsmen, Craftswomen and Craftsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age II. Aegaeum 16: 407-12. Austin: University of Texas.
Papanthimou, A., and I. Fappas 2012Ceremonial adornment and purification practices in Mycenaean Greece: indigenous developments and Near Eastern influences. In M.-L. Nosch and R. Laffineur (eds.), Kosmos: Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 33: 779-89. Leuven: Peeters.
Patterson, R. 1956Spinning and weaving. In C. Singer, E.J. Holmyard, A.R. Hall and T.I. Williams (eds.), A History of TechnologyII, 191-220. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Robertson, H.S.R. 1986Fuller’s Earth: A History of Calcium Montmorillonite. Hythe, UK: Volturna.
Schlossman, M.L., and J.P. McCarthy 1978Lanolin and its derivatives. Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society 55: 447-50.
Shelmerdine, C.W. 1985The Perfume Industry of Mycenaean Pylos. Uppsala: Paul Åströms Förlag
Shelmerdine, C.W. 1995Shining and fragrant cloth in Homeric epic. In J.B. Carter and S.P. Morris (eds.), The Ages of Homer, 99-107. Austin: University of Texas.
Shelmerdine, C.W. 1997Workshops and record keeping in the Mycenaean world. In R. Laffineur and P.P. Betancourt (eds.), TEXNH: Craftsmen, Craftswomen and Craftsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age II. Aegaeum 16: 387-96. Austin: University of Texas.
Spyropoulos, T.G. 1975Part I: the excavation. In T.G. Spyropoulos and J. Chadwick (eds.), The Thebes Tablets II. Suplementos a Minos 4: 10-81. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.
Thomas, N.R. 2012Adorning with the brush and burin: cross-craft in Aegean ivory, fresco, and inlaid metal. In M.-L. Nosch and R. Laffineur (eds.), Kosmos: Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 33: 755-64. Leuven: Peeters.
Tournavitou, I. 1995The ‘Ivory Houses’ at Mycenae. London: British School at Athens.
Truter, E.V. 1956Wool Wax. London: Cleaver-Hume.
Varias, C. 2012The textile industry in the Argolid in the Late Bronze Age from the written sources. In M.-L. Nosch and R. Laffineur (eds.), Kosmos: Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 33: 155-61. Leuven: Peeters.
Wild, J.P. 1970Textile Manufacture in the Northern Roman Provinces. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wild, J.P. 2008Textile production. In J.P. Oleson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, 465-82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zaitoun, C. 2012The ‘immanent’ process of cosmetic adornment: similarities between Mycenaean and Egyptian ritual preparations. In M.-L. Nosch and R. Laffineur (eds.), Kosmos: Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 33: 789-98. Leuven: Peeters.