Funerary Textiles in the Prehistoric Aegean: A Case of Two Mycenaean Textile Imprints from Tomb XXI at Deiras, Argos
摘要
Two small objects from the old excavations of J. Deshayes of the Mycenaean (Late Bronze Age) necropolis at Deiras at Argos (Tomb XXI), now in the archaeological storeroom of the French School at Athens in the Archaeological Museum at Argos, may have originally belonged to the same object or feature, broken during the excavation or later. The lumps of unfired clay or well-beaten earth bear imprints of textiles, which are otherwise only rarely preserved in funeral or habitation contexts in Bronze Age Greece. They are of special significance since they may represent negatives (impressions) of a bier cloth or blanket on which the deceased was laid, or of a shroud wrapped around a dead body. The aim of the paper is both to present the objects and the imprints of the textile(s), and to discuss the role of textiles in the funerary context of Mycenaean Greece.