Established: 2022
Last renewed:
Contact:
Margarita Gleba (margarita.gleba@unipd.it)
Hana Lukesova (Hana.Lukesova@uib.no)
The EAA Community for Textile Archaeology and Conservation aims to promote and integrate the knowledge of and provide the expertise in archaeological textile analysis and conservation to the wider EAA community by sharing best practices, creating forums for discussion and establishing networks and collaborations.
Terms of reference:
Archaeological textile research has been an understudied area in history
and archaeology. However, in the past twenty years the field has witnessed a
major dynamism as demonstrated by numerous conferences and publications on the
topic, as well as establishment of large-scale interdisciplinary collaborative
programmes funded on a national and EU level. The field however remains
somewhat specialised, the research is not widely integrated into wider
archaeological discourse, and the material found during excavations is sometimes
lost or damaged due to lack of access to the necessary expertise. The EAA Community for Textile Archaeology and
Conservation aims to break down these barriers by promoting the fundamental importance of textiles during at least the past 20,000
years of human evolution to the wider archaeological community and
demonstrating the secrets that the little brown rags can reveal about the past
when properly studied and conserved.
Aims
- To create
connections across archaeological fields, enabling textile evidence to be fully
integrated into interpretative narratives;
- To
promote the study and conservation of textiles across all periods and
regions within the EAA and beyond;·
- To create
forums for discussion of research directions, best practices, common
documentation standards, and issues of importance to textile archaeologists and
conservators;·
- To establish
partnerships with specialists working on similar issues (other relevant EAA
Communities, UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICOM-CC, E.C.C.O., etc.);·
- To be a
resource for sharing expertise and best practices in textile archaeology and
conservation to the EAA community, students, and researchers;
- To
raise the profile of textile archaeology and conservation within the EAA by
organising and coordinating sessions related to textile archaeology and conservation at EAA Annual Meetings, particularly including sessions of general interest allowing for wide participation;
- To promote the EAA among textile archaeologists and conservators and integrate them into the European archaeological community as a whole;
- To foster cross-European networks and collaborations;
- To promote activities to engage the general public with textile research;
- To contribute to open science through the sharing of data, tools, and methodologies.