Vitalité de l’industrie textile à la fin de l’Antiquité : considérations économiques et technologiques

The starting point of this introductory report as well as of this whole scientific conference is the spectacular renewal of studies in the structures of fabrics and the technology of ancient textiles which has been carried out by the specialists, taking advantage of a series of a huge harvesting of textile relics in various archaeological excavations: it allows us to use the term “revolution”. Late Antiquity may no longer be considered the major breaking point in the history of fabric and dress which for a long it has been believed to be. There was no break in the weaving technology: the horizontal drawloom with treadles is a far later invention. Earlier looms were still used, but with improvements and renewed expertise which enabled to diversify and complexify the products. Similarly, the period was not one of staggering invention as regards dress, but one of graduated diffusion of innovations, most of which had appeared in the first and second centuries of the Roman empire. The political and cultural unification of the ancient world favoured exchanges between different weaving traditions and dressing attitudes – inside and outside the Mediterranean world – which lead to a process of globalization. A special attention is drawn on the interaction between innovative techniques, the attraction immediately created by new products on the users’ consumer behaviour and taste, and eventually the organizational patterns of the textile production. This moment is well-timed, since the “revolution” in the practical and technical knowledge of fabrics, dyeing, and techniques is redrawing the chronological and geographical map of the textile branch of late antique economy. A major concern of this paper is also to reinstate the textile branch in its actual rank within the ancient economy, which has been – and is still now – too often undervalued by past and present historiography. An attempt is made for building hypothetical models in that direction.