Textile in the Bronze Age of the Southern Trans-Urals and Northern Kazakhstan

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the technological characteristics of the Bronze Age cloths produced by the Sintashta, Petrovka and Alakul archaeological cultures. It employs a detailed structural analysis of textile prints on ceramic vessels which were found in cemeteries from the Southern Trans-Urals and Northern Kazakhstan, dated back to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. Plain weave dominates in the fabric and is divided into four types according to morphological features (density of working threads per 1 cm2, distance between working threads, thickness of the thread). It can be concluded that there are significant similarities in the textile characteristics of Sintashta, Petrovka and Alakul cloth. However, the samples at the Petrovka-Alakul sites, compared with earlier Sintashta-Petrovka sites, demonstrate a clear tendency to growth of the average density of working threads per 1 cm2. This is due to a greater proportion of rare type of plain weave in the Sintashta-Petrovka textile. This trend can be associated with a variety of weaving devices, manufacturing tradition or the presence of imported fabrics.

Keywords

• the Bronze Age
• weaving
• textile prints
• the Sintashta culture
• the Petrovka culture
• the Alakul culture