ABSTRACT

Aubiquitous commodity in Etruscan life, one that required not only substantial material but also human resources, was cloth.1 As an item of consumption, textiles range between luxury and necessity and are ideal for the creation of specialized products, the manufacture of which may be narrowly localized. Such localization creates demand and necessitates redistribution, resulting in textile trade. Hence, two developmental directions can be observed.2 The first is towards production of luxury items needed for status display and (long-distance) gift exchange between the elites, which leads to the development of highly specialized/skilled craftsmanship and a network of exchange and resource and object circulation, which can be archaeologically traced through the distribution of objects. The second is directed towards the quick production of necessity goods, which are in demand by the developing urban communities. This in turn leads to a development of more organized modes of production and trade in these necessity products. Unlike many other specialized crafts that appeared in Etruria already during the Iron Age (e.g. glass or certain metal and pottery types), textile production was not a new craft. Instead, part of the production shifted from making subsistence products to the manufacture of non-essential or luxury goods. Thus, in addition to the adoption of new weaving techniques, technological changes were also induced by an organizational shift in production, i.e. a change in purpose, intensity and scale of organization of textile production. As such, textiles present a special case in the production system of Etruria.