The Ancient Greek Economy. Markets, Households and City-States

166

7

WHOLE CLOTH

Exploring the Question of Self-Sufficiency through the Evidence

for Textile Manufacture and Purchase in Greek Houses

Barbara Tsakirgis

With their unprepossessing form, loom weights are the most numerous sur-

viving evidence of textile work in the Greek world. As humble as these lit-

tle objects are in appearance, by examining their find spots and those of the

whorls used to spin thread, and by focusing that research in houses and other

private buildings, we can begin to answer the question of who made the

Greeks’ clothes and household textiles during the Classical period. While this

chapter surveys material from throughout the Greek world, my object is to lay

the foundation for a detailed study of Athenian domestic textile manufacture.

This chapter considers whether the evidence provided by the weights and

other equipment used in textile production and recovered from the remains

of houses supports the idea that members of the oikos produced cloth beyond

what was needed for consumption by the household itself. If this contention

is correct, the remainder of the woven goods could be sold at a profit, thus

engaging the family directly in the market economy of the polis.

This chapter is not the first to ask who made the Greeks’ and specifically the

Athenians’ clothes and domestic textiles. In her doctoral dissertation, Reuthner

( 2006 ) begins with just this question. She employs both literary and histori-

cal testimonia as well as studies of economic history and scholarship on the

polis of Athens in order to examine the Athenian material. Reuthner analyzes

attitudes toward housework by comparing the ancient evidence with testi-

mony from the fourteenth century through the twentieth century. She does

not, however, address the material remains for cloth manufacture in ancient