Textile Traces at the Benaki Museum
Following the first implementation of the workshop “Textile Traces” at the Benaki Museum, which took place on 9 May with full participation and a very positive response, ARTEX Center and the Benaki Museum announce a new workshop date on Saturday, 23 May at 16:00.
Benaki Museum / Koumbari 1, Athens
Information & Bookings:
Textile Traces at the Benaki Museum
How Do We Read Processes That No Longer Survive?
by Lia Andreakou
The workshop “Textile Traces”, a participatory public archaeology workshop dedicated to textile archaeology, proposes a way of approaching textile archaeology not through ready-made answers, but through traces, materials, processes and practical experimentation. Its aim is not the reconstruction of a technique, nor the production of an object, but the understanding of how archaeological knowledge is produced when the textile itself has almost entirely disappeared.
How Do We Read Something That Barely Survives?
When we think about archaeology, we usually imagine objects: pottery, statues, jewellery, tools. Visible, recognisable, material objects. Textile archaeology operates differently.
In most museums, textiles remain almost invisible as an archaeological category. Even when their presence is crucial for understanding an object or a society, they rarely survive in a form immediately recognisable to the public.
Organic fibres decompose easily and textiles survive only rarely, often fragmentarily, as fibres or impressions. Textile archaeology therefore relies on the combination of different forms of evidence, observations and experimentation in order to move from the surviving material trace to the processes of production, use and wear associated with it.
This means that knowledge does not emerge solely through the direct observation of an object, but through the connection and interpretation of multiple forms of evidence. Textile archaeology is, to a large extent, an archaeology of indirect evidence and interpretive association.
And precisely because of this, textile archaeology constitutes a particularly interesting field for public archaeology, since it requires active interpretation and association, fundamental characteristics of archaeological thinking itself.
From the Object to the Process
“Textile Traces” is not organised around the simple presentation of objects or the transmission of information.
Its aim is not merely to show “how ancient people wove”, nor to function as a craft activity. Instead, it proposes a different approach to archaeological knowledge:
from object to process,
from passive observation to interpretive investigation,
from information to archaeological thinking.
Participants are not simply invited to listen or observe. They are invited to search, associate and interpret.
The workshop is based on the logic of the chaîne opératoire, that is, the understanding of the stages, technical choices and constraints that shape a production process.
The focus shifts from:
“What is this object?”
to:
“What process does it imply?”
“What did its production require?”
“What traces does a practice leave behind when the practice itself no longer survives?”
Learning to See Differently
The guided exploration of the museum space functions as an active field of observation. Participants encounter a heterogeneous set of elements, including tools, representations, material traces and objects that initially appear unrelated to one another.
Rather than being given ready-made answers, they are asked to identify for themselves which elements may relate to textile production and why. Recognition precedes confirmation.
The workshop therefore creates a space of “controlled uncertainty”, where interpretation gradually develops through observation, comparison and the association of evidence.
This process is connected to what we call material literacy: the ability to “read” materials, techniques and processes as carriers of information.
The significance of an archaeological find does not always lie in the object itself, but in the relationships it can reveal:
between materials and techniques,
between tools and use,
or between trace and process.
Experience as a Mode of Understanding
The experiential aspect of the workshop does not function as a supplementary activity. On the contrary, experience itself forms part of the interpretive process.
Through direct engagement with raw materials, tools and basic techniques, participants encounter:
the resistance of materials,
the duration of processes,
the bodily repetition of labour,
and the technical constraints that shape decision-making.
In this way, the body itself functions as a tool of understanding.
The aim is not the acquisition of a technique, but the understanding of what it means to produce something of this kind: how much time it requires, what skills it presupposes, what constraints it incorporates and what possibilities it enables or excludes.
Practical experimentation allows archaeological traces to be connected with the material and technical conditions that produced them. Production therefore ceases to be understood as abstract technical knowledge and becomes an experience of time, materiality and constraint.
Two Parallel Processes
At the core of the workshop, two different yet interconnected chaînes opératoires develop simultaneously.
The first concerns textile production itself:
fibre → thread → textile
The second concerns the production of archaeological knowledge:
trace → observation → hypothesis → interpretation
The workshop brings these two processes into parallel development.
Participants engage not only with how a textile is made, but also with how archaeology transforms fragmentary traces into knowledge.
Why Does This Matter Today?
Understanding production changes the way we see objects.
When attention shifts from the final product to the process of its creation, elements that often remain invisible begin to emerge:
time,
labour,
material constraints,
technical knowledge,
and the relationship between humans and material.
The workshop does not seek to deliver a moral message about sustainability or consumption. Nevertheless, connections with the present emerge naturally once production is understood not only as information, but also as bodily and sensory experience.
A Different Model of Public Archaeology
The workshop proposes a different model of public archaeology, in which participation does not mean free or arbitrary interpretation, but guided engagement within a process of archaeological thinking.
What differentiates the programme is not only that it brings archaeological thinking closer to the public, but that it does so through the particular case of textile archaeology.
This is a field rarely presented in museums as an autonomous interpretive approach, despite its close connection to fundamental aspects of ancient life: labour, technology, systems of production, the organisation of everyday life and the material conditions of the past.
In this sense, the workshop does not simply add another thematic layer to the museum experience. It introduces a different way of reading museum objects through the questions, methods and challenges of textile archaeology.
The specialist does not withdraw from the process, but structures the framework of investigation, introduces the scientific tools of interpretation and contributes to the transformation of observation into documented archaeological knowledge.
Participants are therefore approached not as passive recipients of information, but as active agents within a structured interpretive framework.
In this way, the workshop shifts attention from the “learning of archaeology” towards archaeological thinking itself and approaches the museum not only as a space for the presentation of objects, but as a space of interpretation, active investigation and, ultimately, the production of archaeological knowledge.
A Workshop Built by Many Hands
A programme like this is never built by one person alone.
Just as textile production itself was historically collective labour, so too its study and reconstruction depend upon many hands, different experiences and communities of knowledge.
The development and preparation of the workshop was supported by people who contributed through the lending of materials, the exchange of knowledge and practical support during implementation.
We warmly thank Maria Grigoriou and Argyris Mountzouris (Museum of Hemp) for the raw materials and tools they donated and lent to us.
Special thanks are also due to Dr Kalliopi Sarri, archaeologist with extensive experience in experimental archaeology, who not only lent tools and raw materials, but also participates in the workshop itself, presenting techniques and her own replicas of ancient objects used in the reconstruction of textile practices.
The theoretical and interpretive framework of the workshop was developed by Lia Andreakou and Stella Spantidaki and is implemented within the collaboration between ARTEX Centre for Research and Conservation of Archaeological Textiles and the Benaki Museum. This collaboration connects archaeological research, conservation, museum experience and public archaeology through a shared interpretive framework.
Textile archaeology expertise & presentation:
Dr Stella Spantidaki
Workshop design & interpretive framework:
Lia Andreakou
Indicative Bibliography
Textile Archaeology & Indirect Evidence
Spantidaki, S. (2016) Textile Production in Classical Athens. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Barber, E. J. W. (1991). Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gleba, M. and Mannering, U. (eds.) (2012). Textiles and Textile Production in Europe: From Prehistory to AD 400. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Andersson Strand, E. (2012). ‘The Textile Chaîne Opératoire: Using a Multidisciplinary Approach to Textile Archaeology’, in Gleba, M. and Mannering, U. (eds.), Textiles and Textile Production in Europe. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Experiential & Experimental Archaeology
Ulanowska, A. (2017). ‘Experience, Skill and the Chaîne Opératoire: Experimental Textile Archaeology’. EXARC Journal, 2017/2.
EXARC article
Ulanowska, A. et al. (2018). ‘Between Craft and Science: Textile Studies and Experimental Archaeology’. Open Archaeology, 4, pp. 1–14.
DOI link
Grömer, K. (2016). The Art of Prehistoric Textile Making: The Development of Craft Traditions and Clothing in Central Europe. Budapest: Archaeolingua.
Public Archaeology & Participation
Moshenska, G. (2017). Introduction to Public Archaeology. London: UCL Press.
UCL Press edition
Merriman, N. (2004). Public Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Materiality & Material Literacy
Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge.
