MEMBER INFORMATION
Juliet Graver Istrabadi is the Curator of Ancient Art at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana (from 2009). She oversees a collection of 10,000 art objects that chronologically span a period from 10,000 BCE-1000 CE and geographically include the regions around the Mediterranean and the Near East/Middle East (areas in Africa, Asia, and Europe). Her research interests are broad, but a major area of focus is ancient jewelry.
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Member Conversations Host
Investigating Ancient Textiles - Where do you even start?
How do you start investigating ancient textiles, when you are not even sure where to start? What kind of materials are they made from? Is there any information in those materials that would help identify a geographic place or date for the origin of the materials (if not the textiles themselves)?
If the material is dyed--and many textile fragments are multi-colored--how could we test the dye? And, again, could the dye analysis give us any clues as to geography and chronology? Are there any tests or analytical procedures that can shed any light on the weaving or making process?
If possible tests or procedures are known, how does one set up such tests? What is needed? Is sampling necessary? If so, what size would the samples need to be? What are the costs involved?
Juliet and Ilaria will be holding an informal conversation touching on various topics of interest to both curators and scientists investigating ancient textiles.