Palmyrene women holding a distaff and a whorl : a symbol of modesty or of professional pride ?
p. 231-237
Résumés
La filature et le tissage sont traditionnellement liés à l’activité des femmes, car la quenouille et le fuseau sont considérés comme les emblèmes de la femme vertueuse; ainsi Pénélope, symbole de toutes les vertus domestiques depuis les temps homériques. En Syrie, ne pourrait-on pas aussi considérer ces attributs comme représentatifs de femmes dirigeant des ateliers produisant des textiles pour le commerce à longue distance? En examinant les stèles funéraires de Syrie, principalement celles de Palmyre, l’auteur est enclin à une telle interprétation et en propose l’identification comme témoignage d’un métier féminin.
Spinning and weaving is traditionally bound to women. Since Homeric picture of Penelope it became symbolic for domestic virtues. But could it be used in the Roman Syria as reference to industrious women leading workshops producing textiles for long distance trade? While examining the funerary steles from Syria, chiefly Palmyra, this author became inclined to such interpretation.
Spinnen und Weben werden traditionell mit weiblichen Tätigkeiten in Verbindung gebracht. Der Spinnrocken und die Spindel gelten als die Embleme für die tugendhafte Frau so wie Penelope seit Homer alle häuslichen Tugenden symbolisiert. Könnten diese Attribute in Syrien möglicherweise Frauen repräsentieren, die Werkstätten geleitet haben, in denen für den Export bestimmte Textilien hergestellt wurden? Die Autorin hat die syrischen Grabstelen, hauptsächlich die Stelen aus Palmyra untersucht, und legt eine solche Interpretation nahe. Sie schlägt die Identifizierung dieser Attribute als Zeugnis der Existenz eines Frauenberufes vor.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : Palmyre, époque romaine, métier féminin, filage, stèle funéraire, tissage, commerce du textile
Keywords : Palmyra, women professionals, roman period, funerary steles, spinning and weaving, long distance trade
Schlüsselwörter : Palmyra, Frauenberufe, römische Zeit, Grabstelen, Spinnen, Weberei, Textilgewerbe
Texte intégral
Terminology (fig. 1 et 2)
1A distaff (also a rock) is a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning. For to spin long-fiber raw material a distaff is used. Fibers are wrapped around the distaff, and tied in place with a string, or a ribbon. The term itself is modern, it comes from “dis” describing in Low German a bunch of flax, connected on a staff. The term distaff is often used to refer to the female side of a family.
2A spindle is a straight spike usually made from wood used for twisting fibers such as silk, wool, flax, hemp or cotton into yarn (spinning). It is often weighted at either the bottom, middle, or top, by a disc or spherical object called a whorl, but spindles can also be weighted by thickening their shape towards the bottom. The spindle may have a hook, groove, or notch at the top to guide the yarn. Spindles come in many different sizes and weights depending on the thickness of the yarn to be spun. The spinner pulls a piece from the raw material and begins to turn the spindle creating thread, which is gathered upon the spindle.
3What the Bible tells:
4“And all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet and of fine linen.” Exodus, chapter 35: v. 25.
5“And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom, spun goats’hair”, Exodus, chapter 35: v. 26.
6“…and her hands hold the spindle”, Proverbs 31:19.
7She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant, Proverbs, 31:24.

Fig. 1. Spinning and weaving in the Roman Syro-Palestine. Reconstruction on the background of the material obtained through excavations in the Roman East, chiely En-Gedi. Educational plate.
8“…This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom”., John, 19:23.
9My teacher, professor Anna Sadurska, writes in her publication of 1994 “à cette époque (ca. A.D. 100-A.D. 130) les outils du tissage sont propres aux portraits des mères de famille. […] Par la suite, ces attributs sont interprétés comme des marqueurs d'une adhésion à des valeurs traditionnelles” (SADuRSkA, BounnI, 1994, p. 189).
10Clear reference to usage of spinning (and probably weaving) (ig. 2) for educational purposes is supplied in the story told by Gaius Svetonius Tranquillus, Suetonius (II, 64) where he is mentioning Augustus’education of his daughter and granddaughter as he took care that they span regularly and controlled their lectures as well as people they had contact with. However, such measures were apparently not proper as both Julias were at the end punished with banishment; his daughter on the Pandateria Island in the year 2 B.C., the granddaughter, married to Lucius Aemilius Paulus, in A.D. 8 on the Trimerus Island lying in the Ionian Sea.
11Spinning was for a very long time done by hand, first in the middle of the eighteenth century an operational device for spinning the threads from cleaned raw material was introduced in England1.
12In this paper the author, contrary to above, will promote the option that Syrian women holding the said attributes were connected with the production and/or distribution of textiles and were proud of it as professionals are. The paper is thought as a tribute to the investigations by Anna Sadurska and thanks for stimulation they were given.

Fig. 2. Spinning and weaving in the Roman Syro-Palestine. Reconstruction on the background of the material obtained through excavations in the Roman East, chiely En-Gedi. Educational plate.

Fig. 3. Hypogeum of Zabda, son of Moqimu. Late irst century A.D. Cf. Sadurska, Bounni, 1994, p. 189, fig. 220-221. Courtesy by the author.
13The oldest sculptures studied by Anna Sadurska came from the hypogeum of Astor, founded in A.D. 88/89 and from a slightly later, dated to the end of the first century A.D., hypogeum of Zabda, son of Moquimu. In this hypogeum Zabda is shown reclining with a cup in his hand under a funerary symposium, while his wife, seated in a high chair, is shown holding a spindle and a whorl in her hand (Michałowski, 1959, p. 177; Sadurska, Bounni, 1994, p. 137-138) (fig. 3). In this period Syria produced goods for export but principally it was a transit country for the Far Eastern trade.

Fig. 4. Silk Road. Schematic map reproduced for the exhibition Watson, Gyllensvard, 1974 entitled “Utstallningen Arkeologiska Fynd fran Folkerepubliken Kina, Ostasiatiska Museet, Stockholm 12 maj – 16 juli 1974”. Copyright does not apply.
14Syria, considering geography is composed of zones running north-south. These are from the west: the coast from Iskanderun to Raphia in the south, as documented by an inscription on a border stone dated to A.D. 233 (Barg, 1973, p. 50-52). The ports were situated on islands (Arados, Tyre) at the estuaries of the rivers such as e.g. Seleukeia, which had a man-made harbor placed inside a mountain (Van Berchem, 1985 p. 52), as well as seaports such as Byblos, Laodikeia, Sidon, Caesarea, Ptolemais. The next stripe embracing the mountain ridges lying close to the coast, reaching up to 3 000 m above sea level, formed a natural barrier for communication. The passage through was situated at Homs. This was a natural point for caravans to pass. Behind the mountains stretches the Ghor depression – further to the east is lying, a mostly calcareous, high mountain plateau.
15The Silk Road was a well known ancient track; its history goes back to the Stone Age, a connection between the Far East, in particular China and India; but also between south-east Arabia Felix and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (fig. 4). Syrian and Phoenician towns played in the Roman period an important role in this long distance trade2. They supplied goods in exchange for Chinese silks, Indian spices, and others luxury products such as e.g. “capelli indici” or expensive cosmetics. Phoenician towns produced for exchange attractive goods principally in glass and metal but also finished textiles, so they suited western taste, principally silk, which was dyed by using the famous and expensive Phoenician purple3. Towns such as Tarsus for instance, founded in the IXth cent B.C. and known as the “Cilician Port”, from 64 B.C. capital of Roman Cilicia, specialized in the production of linen textiles and had a period of blossoming in the early Roman period.
16The most sought after Chinese product was silk. As Chinese silk was double woven and therefore heavy, it was unraveled in Syria and silk treads were woven anew, – as excavations shown also in Palmyra, in order to obtain light and delicate products much loved in Rome. Palmyra evidently profited greatly from the trade, as in the best period taxes paid to Rome were high, up to 25% of the value of the surplus (Sartre, 1997, p. 91 note 387).
17Silk was tightly bound to women. The legend connects its discovery with a Chinese empress, who first paid attention to the cocoons4 on the mulberry trees – in effect the production of silk raised the status of women in Chinese society, as women keeping the worms took care of the production of yarn from the cocoons and at the end wove the silk for use in the production of dresses and draperies. According to Procopius from Caesarea and the Byzantine historian Theophanes, the secret of silk production was first stolen to Europe about A.D. 550 on the order of emperor Justinian I. It is said that the monks carried 26 thousand eggs of the worms in hollow bamboo pipes all the way to Byzantium5.
18The Palmyrene trade concentrated on luxury products, because their prize in the West could pay off the cost of long transportation. The Palmyrene guards, “the meharistes” (dromedarii) (cf. Sultan, 1969, p. 5-46) protected caravans on the part of the road they controlled, which supplied a surplus for the town (fig. 5). The main income generating article for Palmyra was, according to Richard Stoneman, the silk (Stoneman, 1994, p. 52). The archaeological finds, however, indicated a large production and use of wool for domestic purposes by the local society6. In cases, however, on the distaff of a Palmyrene woman raw material other than wool or cotton may be observed. Gunhild Ploug did not recognize the kind of raw material on the distaff held by the young bejeweled woman carrying keys on her left side breast. This woman is shown on tombstone I.N. 1064, of the collections of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen and is dated to approximately A.D. 120. In this case the raw material may have been prepared cocoons of silk (fig. 6).
19After destruction (in the year A.D. 106) of the Nabatean State, Palmyra achieved a peak of its economic power, and in the year A.D. 129 was given to her by Hadrian the status of a free town, which strengthened her economy even more. Roman soldiers were stationed in the town itself, and at the same time Palmyrene forces were stationed on the border of the Roman Empire, in Africa and in Dacia. To this period date most of the depictions of luxuriantly dressed women, like the one in care of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek no. I.N. 1064 dated to ca. A.D. 120 (fig. 6). The situation changes some 50 years later when the “Black death”, an epidemic of smallpox, reached Palmyra in the period of reign of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 164-180). Black pox is a symptom of smallpox that is caused by bleeding under the skin, which makes the skin look charred or black. It was more common for adults; Lucius Verus died as result of this epidemic7.

Fig. 5. The meharist (dromedarii). Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek I.N. 2833. Ploug, 1995, p. 127. Formerly Hama. Courtesy by the author.
20Under a Syrian dynasty, the Severans, Palmyra was given the privilege of freedom from taxation, which stimulated the trade again for a short period of time. Inscriptions as to caravans are rarely recorded under the reign of Septimius Severus; they reappear to disappear shortly afterwards. Sartre even asks (Loc. cit., p. 389) whether such disappearance was the signal announcing cessation and disuse of trade routes. The destruction of the Parthian state at the beginning of the third century, and the rise of the Sassanid dynasty, which limited privileges, reduced the possibilities for the Palmyrene trade. The role of Palmyra as a link between East and West was constantly diminishing from then on. To this final period in the history of weaving for export may belong the stele of Attai, today in the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek I.N. 2779 (fig. 7)8. Attai holds a spindle of the shape seldom recorded in art; elongated, conical in shape, topped by a flat cone. She is also holding a distaff with broad stripes of pre-prepared wool or cotton on it. This item is dated by inscription to A.D. 181. Low number of contemporary grave steles having depiction of a woman holding a distaff and a spindle may indicate deminishing in demand for such production9. Archaeologists date the textile finds found in the tombs to the time space beginning in the first century and ending with the third century A.D.

Fig. 6. Young bejeweled woman Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek I.N. 1064. Ploug, 1995, p. 90-92. She is holding a spindle with thin treads on it and a distaff, possibly with silk cocoons on it. At her side for comparison, the silk cocoons. Courtesy by the author.

Fig. 7. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek no I.N. 2779 dated by inscription A.D. 181. Ploug, 1995, p. 90-92. Courtesy by the author.
21It may be observed that from Palmyra and the Palmyrene originate grave sculptures relating principally to spinning, but symbolizing the production of textiles to which treads are needed. Fragments of textiles found in Palmyra, being apparently of local origin, document production for the local market. Examples supplied by the Syro-German Archaeological mission at Palmyra, present such production. Archaeologists date the finds from the first to the third centuries A.D., and relate them to tower tombs, where textiles were found as parts of mummy accessories or as isolated fragments lying in the tombs. Most of the items were found in a perfect state of preservation resulting from dryness and darkness in the tombs. Two groups of textiles were distinguished, these produced locally, woven of wool and linen, or of cotton; and less common, textiles produced from imported raw material such as silk. This recent excavation confirms also the hypothesis that most of the garments were woven in traditional “tabby weaving technique” and that the high standard was kept.
22According to written sources silk was enormously popular in Rome in the first century A.D. Pliny the Elder writes about” the luxurious material for woman called silk”10. Silk was worn in Rome since the annexation of Egypt, in the year 30 B.C.11. The Roman Senate issued several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, the reasons given were both economic and moral. The import of costly silk brought a loss of gold for the Roman State what was enervating to many and it was pointed to that wearing clothes made of silk lead to immorality and decadence. Apparently single woven silk was used for dresses on which Seneca the younger (3 B.C.-A.D. 66)12 complains: “I can see clothing of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, not even one’s decency, can be called clothes… Wretched locks of maids labor so that an adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that a husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife’s body”.

Fig. 8. Grave no 1, Shih-chai-shan in the province of Yunnan, China. Bronze, H: 27,5 cm, diam. 30,9 cm. Vessel for keeping inn snails. Cf. Watson, Gyllensvard, 1974, no. 180 p. 89. Copyright do not apply.
23The way of weaving in the first century B.C. is known thanks to a bronze vessel decorated with figures of peacocks and people, discovered during excavations in the years 1955-1960es in grave n ° 1 in Shih-chai-shan in the province of Yunnan. The vessel was round, richly decorated with figures on the top cover13 (fig. 8). A large figure of a woman was receiving gifts. Some of the figures showed seated women engaged in weaving. A simple loom where the warp is placed between a boom fastened around the weaver’s midsection and a second one on the ground at the weavers’feet was in use.
24In Roman Palmyra, silk was woven on looms enabling production of patterns, polychrome as well as monochrome, however, not a single weaving loom is preserved. Imitations of several foreign silk weaving techniques by local Palmyrene weavers were, however, distinguished. The original textile must then have been unraveled in order to obtain silk treads.
25The earliest figures of women holding spinning utensils from Syria are dated to the late first century A.D. They are of funerary context, mostly funerary reliefs but also funerary statues. Few are recorded from Homs and Hama (fig. 9), most have Palmyra as provenience. Being of funerary context the statues show women nicely dressed, often wearing abundant jewelry. In their left arm, bent at the elbow, they may hold a distaff and a spindle, or just a spindle. Such placement of the spinning utensils in a funerary context certainly point to the women being proud of their achievements during their life. When shown with a husband, he is usually dressed in a Greco-Roman way in tunic and a pallium. As an indicator of his high social status he is holding a schedula in his hand(fig. 10). The women is clad according to local customs in a turban. Often they are carrying keys indicating their status as the “lady of the house”. As a rule the women are richly dressed and carry jewelry. The choice of attributes would point to the spindle and the distaff as indicators of source of their wealth, the production of textiles for export. This supposition is strengthened by dating – the women with spindle and distaff are commonly shown on tombstones dating to the period of intensive long distance trade.

Fig. 9. Stela dedicated to Diodora, daughter of Difilos, Syrian National Museum, Damascus, the garden. Bought in 1947. Basalt, H: 158 cm (with the base 12 cm high), W: 43 cm, D: 19 cm. She is holding a distaff with large ball of yearn and a spindle, which is small, narrowing down. Courtesy the Syrian National Museum, Damascus. Author’s photograph. Skupińska-lovset, 1999, p. 181, fig. 25 c.

Fig. 10. Ploug, 1995, p. 147-149. H: 0.54 m, W: 0.385, D: 135, hard, white limestone. Courtesy by the author.
26The stele of Attai (fig. 7) is dated late (A.D. 181), the period when the Palmyrene trade is diminishing. She carries on her new fashion distaff probably cleaned wool or cotton in broad stripes. From this period on women are shown without weaving utensils – are they less moral or is it an indication of cessation of the long distance trade?
27When looking at the sculpted material one can assume that the women have been directing a weaving business rather than being workers, and that the weaving gave them status in their society, subsidiarily they are accompanied by men of high status what is indicated by dress and attributes. The dating of the discussed material suits period of intensive long distance trade. Portraits of richly clad women from the post Severan period show them bejeweled and certainly coquettish, but without weaving utensils.
28To believe that spindle and spinning apply to modesty only, is to discuss the problem from the standpoint of the traditionalists in Rome, having in mind the Homeric description of Penelope waiting for Odysseus. In the case of Palmyra the winning as the motif is most apparent. What we learn from written as well as archaeological sources discovered in this region indicate that producing textile was important and generating gain-one of the oldest trades in general reserved for women.
Bibliographie
Bibliography
Antique sources
NH = Pliny the Elder, Natural History = Plinius Secundus, Gaius, Naturalis Historia. The Loeb Classical Library, Pliny: Natural history, in ten volumes with an English translation by H. Rackham, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 1989.
Seneca the Younger = Lucius Aurelius Seneka, Declamationes, vol. I.
Strabo, Geography = Klaudiou Ptolemaiou Geographike hyphegesis = Claudii Ptolemaei geographia, e codicibus recognovit, prologomenis, annotatione, indicibus, tabulis instruxit, Carolus Muellerus. Parisiis MDCCCCI.
Suetonius, De vita Caesarum, liber II: Divus Augustus.
Books and Articles
Al-As’Ad K., Schmidt-Colinet A., Staufer A., 1995, «Die Textilien», in: Schmidt-Colinet A., Palmyra: Kulturbegegnung im Grenzbereich, Mainz, Ph. von Zabern (Antike Welt. Zeitschrift für Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte, 26).
Barg D., 1973, «The Borders of Syria-Palestine on an inscription from the Raphia Area», Israel Exploration Journal, 23, n ° 1, p. 50-52.
Michałowski K., 1960, Palmyre: fouilles polonaises 1959, Varsovie, 232 p. dont: p. 160-161, p. 178-182, fig. 197-200, inscriptions, 15, 16, p. 119-120.
Pfister R., 1934-1940, Textiles de Palmyre, découverts par le Service des antiquités du Haut-commissariat de la République française dans la nécropole de Palmyre, Paris, éd. d’art et d’histoire, 3 vol.
Ploug G., 1995, Catalogue of the Palmyrene Sculptures, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek ed., 266 p., 137 fig.
Sadurska A., Bounni A., 1994, Les sculptures funéraires de Palmyre, G. Bretschneider, 213 p., 255 fig. 14 plans (Rivista di Archeologia diretta da Gustavo Traversari, Suppl. 13).
Sartre M., 1997, L’Orient romain: provinces et sociétés provinciales en Méditerranée orientale d’Auguste aux Sévères (31 avant J.-C.-235 après J.-C.)/Wschód rzymski: prowincje i społeczeństwa prowincjonalne we wschodniej części basenu Morza Śródziemnego w okresie od Augusta do Sewerów (31 r. p.n.e. – 235 r. n.e.), Ossolineum, Wrocław, 716 p., Dictionary of Greek and Latin names, registers of: abbreviations, abbreviations of ancient authors and their works; bibliography, polish bibliography, 7 maps, indices (of persons, geographic and ethnic names, general).
Skupińska-Løvset I., 1999, Portraiture in Roman Syria: a study in social and regional differentiation within the art of portraiture, Łódz, Łódź Univ. Press, 280 p., 34 fig., 1 map.
Stoneman R., 1994, Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia’s revolt Against Rome, Ann Arbor, Univ. of Michigan Press, 246 p, 16 p. de pl.
Sułtan A., 1969, «Ikonografia meharystów palmyreńskich (Iconographie des méharistes palmyréniens)», Studia Palmyreńskie, III, p. 5-46.
Van Berchem D., 1985, «Le port de Séleucie de Piérie et l’infrastructure logistique des guerres parthiques», Bonner Jahrbücher, 185, p. 47-87.
Watson W., Gyllensvard, B., 1974, Utstalningen Arkeologiska Fynd fran Folkerepubliken Kina, Exhibition Ostasiatiska Museet, Stockholm, 12 maj-16 juli 1974, AB Allmanna Forlaget, Stockholm, 139 p., 386 fig., 2 maps.
Notes de bas de page
1 It was the spinning “Jenny” constructed by James Hargreaves. A drawing from 1767 was used for reconstruction of this device (also in possession of the Textile Museum in Lodz, Poland).
2 In the year 2013, China’s president Xi Jinping proposed as a sign of integration and an alternative to the American and Russian projects to recreate in the XXIth century a “silk way” by land and by see (railway, ships) but also industrial pipelines in order to stimulate cooperation in Asia and between Asia and Europe. At the end of 2014, 16 countries were interested in the project and 40 milllion dollars were promised. (Cazachstan, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Israel, Austria, Greece, Takjikistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt). Transport by seas should go to Pireus and Saloniki or Bar (Macedonia) and Koper (Slovenia).
3 There exists abundant literature on the subject. Most of the issues have been discussed by Maurice Sartre and referred to in his publication: Sartre, 1991, p. 384-390; cf. especially p. 388, note 337.
4 One cocoon contains about 1,6 km long tread, the empress was the wife of emperor Huang Di by the name of Xi Lingshi (ca. 2698 B.C.).
5 Two periods of blossoming of silk production in Europe are commonly mentioned: the Byzantine VI th – XI th centuries, and the period of reign of Luis XV in France (manufactures in Lyon).
6 Cf. textiles recorded in funerary context and on the distaff shown on funerary stelae.
7 „Black Death” (small black pox) was first recorded in China ca. A.D. 140; in the region in question it is recorded in the years 160-ties and was known as „Antonine Plague”. It was one of the worth epidemic the Roman World was confronted with. The plague was a factor of destabilization of the Roman Empire in the third century. The illness was described by the Pergamene physician Claudius Galenus (A.D. 129 – A.D. 210), and was popularly called „Antonine Plague”. Among documents known as „Oxyrinchos Papyri” (discovered in Oxyrynchos in Egypt) is information about the loss for the state budget of about 40% of income as a result of death of tax payers. Black pox was mainly transferred by soldiers. In favissae at the temples and sanctuaries the statuettes showing persons with physical traces of having this illness have been fund. The results of the newest research on the „Antonine Plague” were presented by Sarah Yeoman, the Director of Educational Programs at the Biblical Archaeology Society in Washington D.C. Dr. Sarah Yeoman (Vest Virginia University) is specializing on the archaeology of the Roman Empire, with stress on religion and religious life (on line March 2015).
8 Ploug, 1959, p. 147-149. H: 0,54 m, W: 0,385, D: 135, hard, white limestone.
9 Al-AS’AD et alii, 1994. For ingoing presentation of the subject compare: Pfister, 1934-1940.
10 NH 11, XXVI. 76: “They weave webs, like spinners, that became a luxurious clothing for women, called silk.”
11 Strabo, Geography book, II. 5, 12.
12 Seneca the Younger, Declamationes I.
13 The subject was giving of offers of food like fish and fruits to a woman, which was much larger than other figures. Here two figurines of weavers were included.
Auteur
-
Ilona Skupinska-Lovset
gorgona@uni.lodz.pl
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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