Weaving a weft: mapping and contextualizing loom weights in Thasos

• Grant number: 24/22518-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology - Historical Archaeology
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Figueira da Hora
• Grantee: Julia de Oliveira Portella
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to study the loom weights from the Thasos, an island located in the northern Aegean, by investigating their dynamics within the island through contextualization and mapping of their find contexts. More specifically, the focus will be on Greek-period weights, consisting from the late Archaic to the early Hellenistic periods (VIIth-IVth centuries BCE). As such, we seek to understand their relationship with the built environment. During excavations conducted by the French School of Athens between 1949 and 1956, more than 100 of these objects were found, most of them in the public space of the agora, a location not commonly associated with such finds. Therefore, the project proposes to use Landscape Archaeology approaches, and Amos Rapoports Built Environment theory, to explore this materiality and its connection to the polis in question. The methoology involves organizing this documentation into and mapping it throughout the city of Thasos, highlighting concentrations of these materials in different areas of the polis to understand both diachronic and synchronic processes, as well as the dynamics of production, workshop operations, find locations, decorations, and uses of these materials. The analysis will not only consider the objects formal characteristics, such as material, size, weight, and the presence of incised marks, but also map their occurrences in the polis, particularly in the agora of Thasos. The proposed inquiries stem from previous undergraduate research, which focused on the loom weights from the collection of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE) of the University of São Paulo.