This book contains 23 contributions by 42 renowned international researchers, including the three editors, who pay tribute to their retired colleague Eva (Birgitta) Andersson Strand. She was a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, as well as a professor of textile archaeology. She was also the co-founder and director of the Centre for Textile Research (CTR; https://ctr.hum.ku.dk/) from 2017–2024. The book covers a wide range of themes, including textiles, archaeology, ethnology, history, art history, literature and philosophy, as well as covering various geographical areas and chronological periods.

Following a short preface by the editors Anne Drewsen, Ulla Mannering and Marie-Louise Nosch, this English-language publication begins with an introduction written by them and Mary Harlow. This chapter covers the origins of clothing, the context of Andersson Strand’s work within textile archaeology and provides a brief overview of the book.

The first part of the volume is entitled ‘Textiles and tools’ and comprises eight contributions. The first one, by Tim Flohr Sørensen, examines the role of ragpickers in the works of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin and explores the similarities between this role and that of the textile archaeologist in the context of the ‘Third Scientific Revolution’. Next, Margarita Gleba, Susanna Harris and Jane Malcolm-Davies discuss the issue of current textile analysis, its various methodologies and how these have evolved over the twentieth century, as well as the technological tools that can enhance the scientific discourse on textiles. To illustrate this, they present two specific examples: splicing in prehistoric Europe; and a compound fabric from the Viking Age found in Scotland. Laura Viñas-Caron and colleagues then adopt a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the origins of the use of sheep’s wool. This approach combines the fields of archaeology (specifically, the archaeology of textiles, tools and archaeozoology), linguistics and genetics, and proteomic analyses. Using the technical approach based on the chaîne opératoire, Mikkel Sørensen draws parallels between lithic and textile archaeology, applying this method to the Stone Age Arctic threads from the Canadian Dorset Culture. This example is used to show how a technical approach can reveal the ethnic origins of ancient skills, and how this method, combined with the reconstitution of the chain of operations, allows us to glimpse those origins. The search for origins also lies at the heart of the study by Catherine Breniquet and Cécile Michel. They examine Sumerian costumes through the work of nineteenth-century archaeologist Léon Heuzey, combining archaeology, experimental archaeology and ethnology. The chapter by Charlotte Rimstad, Irene Skals and Ina Vanden Berghe focuses on the ninth-century Viking female grave at Fløjstrup, discovered in Denmark in 1898. The authors study the unpublished finds from the tomb, highlighting the presence of previously unseen fibres and dyes, as well as the oldest silk fabric found in a Danish context. Then, Francesco Meo applied what he had learnt at the CTR about the functional analysis of textile tools to the study of Iron Age loom weights and spindle whorls found in two southern Italian necropolises (Canale Ianchina and Incoronata-San Teodoro). The first part of this volume concludes with a contribution by Romina Laurito on seal and textile impressions found in the Late Chalcolithic levels at Arslantepe (Türkiye), and the new methodologies employed to study them.

The second section of the book, ‘Craft and craft traditions’, contains six chapters. Implementing Andersson Strand’s approach, Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi and Elsa Yvanez examine various sources (of textile tools and textiles) and concepts to determine whether textile production workshops existed in the ancient Nile Valley during the New Kingdom Egypt (c. 1550–550 BC) and the Meroitic and Post-Meroitic Sudan (c. 350 BC–AD 550). In Egypt, archaeological and historical sources both attest to household textile production. While basic production is well represented, more technical activities are difficult to identify. Specialised production also took place in specific locations, such as temples. In Sudan, it appears that different types of household and industrial textile production coexisted, in connection with cotton manufacturing. The subject of ancient Egypt and ancient Denmark is also explored in Anne Kwaspen, Ida Demant and Johanne Høgh’s contribution on four sprang hairnets and their reconstruction and interpretation through experimental archaeology. Morten Grymer-Hansen and Susanne Lervad then examine textile terminology, with a focus on the meaning of spinning direction, through the work of two Scandinavian pioneering textile archaeologists: Margrethe Hald and Agnes Geijer. Lise Bender-Jørgensen and Karina Grömer draw on their extensive experience to demonstrate the importance of teaching and communicating textile and experimental archaeology in universities and museums. They also argue that textile research must be integrated into today’s major challenges and debates in archaeology. Art historian Ulrikka Mokdad uses her experience as a weaver to explore the relationship between tapestry, woven images and the craftspeople and artists who created them, across time and space. To illustrate this, the researcher presents several of her own pieces of work, including her interpretation in the form of a tapestry of a time-frequency image of Andersson Strand’s brain while she spins. To conclude this second section, Magali-An Berthon uses ethnology and history to examine the concept of ‘tradition’ in relation to textile production, cultural heritage and the preservation of knowledge and skills in Cambodia.

The third and final section, entitled ‘Identity and status’, comprises eight contributions. First, Maj Ringgaard and Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen examine knitting, its significance and the status of those who practised this craft in Northern Europe between 1500 and 1700. They then establish the role that knitting played in the women’s liberation movement in Denmark during the 1970s. Thanks to the recent discovery of a lithic seal in Pylos (Greece) featuring two warriors wearing checked loincloths, Kalliope Sarri then turns her attention to the tartan pattern in Minoan and Mycenaean art. Iconography is also employed by Audrey Gouy to assess the role of dance and dance costumes in Etruscan ritual practices. The starting point of her research is an assessment of the wall paintings in the Tomba del Triclinio in the Tarquinia catacombs (Italy). Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén then present an art-historical essay on the Roman toga, based on two statues from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. They compare these results with literary sources and archaeology. The contribution by Ulla Lund Hansen and Anne Drewsen also features archaeology, while highlighting two donkey burials: one from around 3300 BC in Egypt and one from the Roman Iron Age (555 BC–AD 150) in Denmark. The authors emphasise the importance of studying and documenting long-distance relations between different cultures over time. Drawing on burials in two Mesolithic necropolises in Sweden dating to around 5000 BC, Lars Larsson reveals indirect evidence of prehistoric clothing in the form of accessories and embellishments placed in graves, such as various animal teeth, red ochre and amber. These traces are invaluable for learning about Mesolithic societies because no clothing remains have yet been discovered in Europe. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, Marianne Vedeler and Amica Sundström also discuss clothing embellishment, focusing on decorative elements such as glass sequins, stones, mica and embroidered metal threads found in Viking burials in Birka (Sweden). These elements are sometimes still assembled with textiles. Through these discoveries, the researchers hope to gain an understanding of the significance and importance of such embellishments in Viking society. The book concludes with a chapter by Mannering and Nosch on the silk funeral pillow of King Canute IV ‘the Holy’, who was killed in 1086 and buried in Odense Cathedral in Denmark. The researchers trace the biography of this eleventh-century silk fabric, which is decorated with blue birds and hearts, and explain how it played an important role in Denmark’s political and religious history.

The common thread is a vibrant tribute to Andersson Strand, reflecting her career and her commitment to developing and passing on knowledge about textile archaeology through interdisciplinarity. The decision to write in English and to publish the book, both in paper and open-access versions, means that the knowledge is accessible and can be shared broadly, and the quality of the images (both colour and black/white) strengthens the message. The three sections of this volume showcase the many possibilities and riches of archaeological textile studies. The variety of authors also reflects the breadth of the network and community of researchers that the CTR has developed since its establishment. This book is more than just a collection of interdisciplinary contributions; it highlights that the sector of research in textile archaeology is currently flourishing and demonstrates the importance of this discipline within the scientific field.