Bronze Age Textiles: A Preliminary Analysis of Fragments Discovered at Tepe Dasht, Sistan

Of the many diverse arts that flourished during the third millennium BC, textiles played an especiallysignificant role in society. Archaeological textiles offer an important source of material cultural testimony fordaily life in ancient times- relating simultaneously to agriculture, pastoralism, trade, migration, ritual, and soforth as well as to craft technologies. The study of the techniques and production of textiles is therefore highlyvaluable, yet has only recently become appreciated by archaeologists. This is principally due to the veryimpermanent and fragile nature of textiles, as most are completely destroyed by the natural taphonomies ofmost archaeological sites. However, in some extreme conditions, whether frozen, desiccated, waterlogged oreven buried in highly alkaline soils, some textiles and other organics do survive rather well. In these raresituations, there still remain manifold problems, both with regard to discerning the way in which differenttextiles were made, and to the materials and tools used in the process. This paper is a discussion of the analysisof some textiles discovered at Tepe Dasht, a satellite site of Shahr-i Sokhta in Sistan, to identify some of thespinning and weaving methods used. Textile remains are exceedingly rare in archaeological sites. Whencompared to artifacts of a more durable nature, such as ceramics, seals or metal objects, the survival of textileobjects is uncommon. Textile fragments discovered from Tepe Dasht, though somewhat ravaged by time andthe elements, have enormous potential to reveal information about ancient life and the local environment in thethird millennium BC in Sistan.