With the monograph Histoire des textiles en Babylonie, 626–484 av. J.-C. Production, circulations et usages, Louise Quillien presents an in-depth analysis of textile manufacture in Babylonia from the foundation of the Neo-Babylonian empire (626 bc) to the second year of the reign of Achaemenid King Xerxes I (484 bc), filling a gap in the present knowledge of the rich textile industry that developed in southern Mesopotamia during the Neo-Babylonian period. The cuneiform documentary evidence taken into consideration in Quillien's study predominantly stems from the archives of Sippar, Uruk, Nippur, Borsippa, Ur, and Cutha. Textiles attested in Neo-Babylonian archives have already been treated in past research, although from different perspectives and never in a unitary and interdisciplinary work. If we exclude remarks on textiles in E. Salonen's work on the archive of Sippar (Neubabylonische Urkunden verschiedenen Inhalts, III, Helsinki, 1980) and P.-A. Beaulieu's monograph on gods’ vestments used in the Urukean cult (The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period, Leiden, 2003), it was S. Zawadzki's investigation into the use of textiles in the temple of Sippar (Garments of the Gods: Studies on the Textile Industry and the Pantheon of Sippar According to the Texts from the Ebabbar Archive, Fribourg-Göttingen, 2006; Garments of the Gods: Texts, Volume 2, Fribourg, 2013) that opened the path to textile studies of the Neo-Babylonian world. The prosopographical study by A.C.V.M. Bongenaar (The Neo-Babylonian Ebabbar Temple at Sippar: Its Administration and Its Prosopography, Leiden, 1997) and K. Kleber's analysis of wool sale contracts (Spätbabylonische Texte zum lokalen und regionalen Handel sowie zum Fernhandel aus dem Eanna-Archiv, Dresden, 2017) are also worth a mention. Babylonian textiles were also covered in works dealing with private archives, some of which have appeared in recent years (see, e.g., C. Waerzeggers, Marduk-rēmanni: Local Networks and Imperial Politics in Achaemenid Babylonia, Leuven, 2014 and R. Pirngruber, “Minor archives from first-millennium BCE Babylonia: The archive of Issar-taribi from Sippar”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 72, 2020).

Quillien's book is structured into three main parts, dealing with the production and circulation of textile raw materials, fabrication of textiles, and meanings and social usages of textiles. Throughout the book, a large number of archival documents are presented in transliteration and translation, and various economic data about textile products are illustrated in detail through tables and graphs.

In the first part of the monograph, fibres, wool collection and processing and dyeing materials are discussed in the context of Babylonia's economic system. The author's analysis also focuses on systems of local production, as well as the way textile specialists acquired wool from temple flocks through sale on credit, and shows how the palace, temples, the market and private individuals interacted in the circulation of textile materials in the Babylonian economy. The second part is specifically devoted to the analysis of the technical and organizational aspects of textile production in Babylonia. All the phases of the chaîne opératoire of textile fabrication are covered by the author (from spinning, weaving and sewing to washing, repairing, dyeing and decoration), who also presents a reconstruction of how textile craftwork in first-millennium bc Babylonia was organized, the level of internal specialization of textile work, the calendar according to which textile work was carried out and the places where textile-related activities were executed. The third part deals with the meanings and social usage of textile products. To assess how and by whom textiles were used, the author collected the Neo-Babylonian textile terminology. Interestingly, Neo-Babylonian textile designations are also considered from the point of view of both gender-based and cultic use. Social usage is considered especially in light of the textiles that adorned statues of deities and that characterized their wardrobes, the role played by textile products in ritual practices and the dress as a marker of social status. The latter is evidenced in Neo-Babylonian texts by royal dress and by the clothes worn by members of the urban elites, workers, slaves, and soldiers. Other textiles that occurred in everyday activities in Babylonian cities are not neglected by Quillien; these involved bags for the transport of commodities, covers for domestic and temple furnishings, and canvasses of different usages.

Of no less importance is understanding the circulation of textiles in the socio-economic context of first-millennium bc Babylonia. Quillien treats this topic in the last chapter of the third part, starting with remarks on the economic value of textiles, an aspect evidenced by the prices of these products in written sources. Textiles and their value are examined as important elements to assess the levels of economic prosperity of Babylonian society in the time span considered in this study. Exchanges in which textiles play a crucial role can be social or economic, as observed by the author. She discusses the donation of clothes in the context of house sales, adoptions and diplomatic gifts as examples of social exchanges. Other exchanges of textiles were organized between the capital and provincial cities. Of particular interest are also the cases in which the clothing of a person was charged to another individual, a trading company or an institution. Trading in textiles represented a constitutive element in the Babylonian economy, as it was in other Near Eastern regions that relied on sheep herding and wool exploitation. Through Quillien's analysis we learn not only the costs of production and transportation of these goods, but also the actors involved in commercial activities and the main textiles that were exchanged in transactions. The reader will also find interesting insights into trade in textiles in the private sector, a milieu that can be reconstructed thanks to some archives of Babylonian families involved in commerce. The author also elucidates the role of women in the Babylonian textile trade, which appears to be rarely documented in comparison with that played in the manufacturing sector.

Benefitting from the progress of interdisciplinary textile research in the last decade, Quillien's book intertwines different analytical perspectives from the history of techniques to socio-economic history and shows how much the study of textile material culture can reveal of the Neo-Babylonian world.