Description

When talking about ancient Greek textiles, what first comes to mind is the legendary peplos of Goddess Athena or the luxurious garments worn by the famous marble kore statues. Impressive as these garments are, there is a whole category of textiles that were equally renowned: textile furnishings. In the ancient Greek world, furnishings (curtains, canopies, covers, hangings, pillows, cushions, mattresses and valances) filled an essential role. In the domestic setting, they provided comfort and were admired by guests, signifying wealth and status. Certain furnishings were highly sought after, and others were dedicated to the gods. They also accompanied the dead on their journey to the Otherworld, providing a sensory link to the world of the living.

Since 1965 when Gisela Richter published her pioneering short article on the furnishings of ancient Greek houses and a subsequent short section in her monograph The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans (1966), the subject of ancient Greek domestic furnishings has not received much scholarly attention. Yet a wealth of new evidence has been brought to light over the last few decades through extensive work on furniture and textiles as a whole in domestic, sacred and funerary complexes of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Moreover, new excavated textiles and new up-to-date scientific analytical tools add more information regarding materials, techniques and decoration.

Iconography, our primary source, along with literary texts (especially New Comedy) and inscriptions (temple inventories), as well as excavated pieces of furnishings, particularly from tombs, have now added a great body of knowledge on furnishings in domestic, sacred and funerary contexts. The present volume gathers together all this new evidence for the first time and offers a synthetic analysis.

No such study of furnishings in the ancient Greek world exists so far, and the time is ripe to start thinking about the subject in a more focused way. Intrinsic to various aspects of daily life, ancient Greek furnishings were tightly connected to daily comfort, funerary rites, propitiation of the gods, display of luxury, sensory perceptions, and sheer practical use.