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Throughout her career, Eva Andersson Strand has built a cohesive picture of past landscapes of textile production, creating a model for different scales of manufacture from household basic output to fully developed workshops. By combining information from different sources, she reconstructs the different facets of an industry at the heart of past economies. In the Nile valley however, an extensive questioning on the nature of the textile economy has not yet been conducted. Using Eva Andersson Strand’s approach as a starting point, we will examine diverse modes of manufacture, focusing on two contexts: 1) New Kingdom Egypt (c. 1550–1070 bce) and 2) Meroitic and Postmeroitic Sudan (c. 350 bce – 550 ce). We will question the existence or absence of different levels of textile production in the ancient Nile valley.

Funerary masks played a crucial role in ancient Egyptian burial practices, as part of the rituals to ensure a successful afterlife. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of a gilded mummy mask from the Roman period in Egypt from the collections of The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. Portraying a young female, the mask belongs to a distinctive group of mummy masks, whose origins can be identified to be coming from the Dakhlah and Kharga oases. The construction of the mask (plaster, textiles) and the constituents of its polychromy (pigments, binding media) was analysed using various non- and micro-destructive methods: imaging, cross-section analysis, optical microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled to energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Additionally, samples were taken for palaeoproteomic analysis with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. A wide range of pigments such as yellow and red ochre, carbon-based black, and Egyptian blue were identified, reflecting common materials in polychromy in Egypt during the Roman period. Notably, indigo was detected, suggesting its usage in mixtures to render purple hues. Analysis of adhesives and media identified plant gum and collagen-based animal glue. Proteomic analysis identified Equus asinus (donkey) as the predominant protein source for the collagen-based glue. The results shed light on the materials and techniques employed in ancient polychromy in Egypt in the Roman period, further enriching our understanding of artistic practices at the time.

This book reviews certain of the most important archaeological finds of textile tools, in order to draw a picture of the spinning and weaving technologies adopted in the Levant and Egypt from the Neolithic to the Persian period. A brief description of the objects found at several sites is provided to highlight differences of materials and tool design in order to better understand developments in weaving technology across this region. Textile tools housed in the Museo Egizio di Torino are also examined here for the first time. These include spindles and spindle whorls, bone spatulae and needles, which for the most part originate from Schiaparelli’s excavations at the Workers’ village of Deir el-Medina. A general analysis is provided, which compares these objects to the tools known from other sites in Egypt, as well as a catalogue, which provides further description and exact measurements for each object of the collection.