Discoid loom weights on Cyprus: new insights into textile tools and practical knowledge from the Aegean

Abstract

Discoid loom weights are a distinctive type of weaving tool widely found at Bronze Age sites across the Aegean region. The identification of these artefacts in the Cypriot record sheds new light on the contacts between the island and the Aegean at the dawn of the Late Bronze Age. This paper aims to analyse the earliest examples of Cypriot discoid loom weights, retrieved from early Late Bronze Age contexts at Kalopsidha and Enkomi. The study focuses on their function and implications concerning the adoption of new weaving tools and likely practices within a period of profound social and economic transformations on the island. While transfers of technologies and practices to Cyprus are largely hypothesized for the various changes reflected in the material culture of this period, the transmission dynamics remain largely unknown. Therefore, discoid loom weights provide us with a new perspective from which to examine the mechanisms of the spread of tools and practical knowledge to the island during this crucial period.

Keywords:

• Discoid loom weights
• textiles
• practical knowledge
• Crete
• Cyprus
• southern Aegean
• Middle and Late Bronze Age

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Lindy Crewe, Agata Ulanowska, Cassandra Donnelly and Rafael Laoutari for their immense support and fruitful discussion. Special thanks are also due to Lindy Crewe and Agata Ulanowska for providing and allowing me to use pictures in Figs 3 and 8, Camilla Zeviani, Theodora Moutsiou and Rafael Laoutari for creating the maps used in Figs 3 and 9, and Harriet Cliffen (twice!) for proofreading both the original and revised versions of the manuscript. I am indebted to Dr Marina Solomidou-Ieronymodou, director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus for granting me permission to study and publish the Enkomi material reproduced in Figs 5 and 8. Thanks also go to the staff of Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm) for assisting me in the examination of the Kalopsidha material.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was entirely supported by the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (Nicosia) through the E. J. Peltenburg Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cypriot Prehistory (2022–2023), for which I am extremely grateful.