Textile tools and textiles from the ninth–eighth century BC necropolis of Incoronata (Basilicata, Italy): Evidence for culture, status, and specialisation in a south Italian indigenous community

Textile production was one of the main cultural, economic, and social components of ancient Mediterranean societies. Despite the inherent difficulties often associated with the preservation of textiles, some of them survive. Calcified, carbonised, or, more frequently, mineralised textiles can provide a considerable amount of information on the production techniques and technologies of the Italic populations. The levels of technical knowledge women possessed in the Iron Age became apparent only recently, particularly in the south of Italy. New research carried out on fabrics and textile tools has allowed us to reconstruct the production process. The study of the necropolis of Incoronata is extremely important because both textile tools and textiles were discovered in some tombs. Textile tools are now being analysed according to the methods advanced at the Centre for Textile Research (CTR) in Copenhagen, which were developed through experimental testing by textile craftspeople using reconstructions of textile tools found in archaeological contexts. The analysis of the fabrics using autopic observation, lens, stereomicroscope, digital light microscope, polarised light microscope, and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) make it possible to study the weft and warp density, the structure of the threads, the processing techniques used, the quality of the yarn, and to identify the fibre. This paper will focus on textile production at Incoronata by applying these modern techniques of analysis, attempting to give new data and new perspectives on the study of Proto-historic societies in the south of Italy.