Abstract
The following examination of the textual evidence for purple dyeing in late Bronze Age Syria and Mesopotamia highlights a disconnect between the written sources and the physical remains for colored textiles recently unearthed at Qaṭnā (Tell Mishrīfe). By charting the relationship between developments in the dyeing industry against wider economic forces in this period, this essay addresses the impact of Bronze Age technologies on the evolution of Akkadian color language.
Acknowledgment
The author thanks Benjamin R. Foster, Cécile Michel and Thorsten Carstensen, who read this paper and made several suggestions for improvement. Elizabeth Payne generously shared her transliterations of many unpublished texts concerning colored textiles, which she studied for her dissertation.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- The Birth of the Prison: The Functions of Imprisonment in Early Mesopotamia
- The Making of Hittite Imperial Landscapes: Territoriality and Balance of Power in South-Central Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age
- Purple Fabrics and Garments in Akkadian Documents
- Assyriology and Stalinism: Soviet Historiography and the Invention of Slavery in the Ancient Near East
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- The Birth of the Prison: The Functions of Imprisonment in Early Mesopotamia
- The Making of Hittite Imperial Landscapes: Territoriality and Balance of Power in South-Central Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age
- Purple Fabrics and Garments in Akkadian Documents
- Assyriology and Stalinism: Soviet Historiography and the Invention of Slavery in the Ancient Near East