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Modular patterns: A survey of the textile origin of Neolithic design and its calculational implications

Kalliope Sarri

Ancient textile production appears to be closely linked to the human intellect and wisdom. Through the archaeological evidence and literary sources, we recognise that weaving, even in early antiquity, relates to notions of order and that it might have been one of the primary forces that motived humans to create sophisticated technologies and eventually to embark on scientific thought. The sophisticated textile industries of the Greco-Roman world (Harlow and Nosch 2014; Mee 2015; Spantidaki 2016) interacted with other high technologies not merely to fulfil basic everyday needs but to reveal a systematic engagement with the concept of nature (Harlizius-Klück 2014: 49). Moreover, fine arts, poetry and philosophy were occasionally associated – conceptually and metaphorically – with the manufacture of cloth, showing that weaving was an essential driving force to the understanding of structural space (Harlizius-Klück and Fanfani 2016).

But how far back in the past does this relation go? How could the invention and the early practising of weaving have influenced the human mind to such an extent that it could better understand natural laws and move to more advanced technological stages? Such questions can be approached through the study of prehistory, by observing weaving, if not from the earliest stages of textile technology, at least from the Neolithic period, for which we have adequate evidence (Barber 1991: 133–44; Siennicka, Rahmstorf, and Ulanowska 2018: 3–5). In this paper, I address the question of conceptual weaving by focusing on the cognitive environment where we can first discern the relation between weaving and empirical mathematics and their visual expressions on forms of material culture and art. Our guide to this survey will be the decorative patterns of the Neolithic era, with particular reference to the Aegean.

Textile-evidence in the Neolithic

We know that people began to weave nets, textiles and baskets during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but there is no adequate information about the weaving activities of the mostly nomadic populations of this long era (Soffer, Adovasio and Hyland 2000). Some scarce and indirect evidence shows us, however, that Palaeolithic artefacts were decorated with typical, sometimes even intricate ‘textile’ patterns known to us from later times.1 The vague picture of the earliest textile crafts alters with the permanent settlements of the Neolithic period when people had more time to accomplish laborious household tasks and to proceed to create sophisticated artefacts. By exploring permanent or temporary Neolithic settlements, archaeologists were able to collect plentiful data and better examine the prime technologies of the era. Tools for hunting, fishing, agricultural work and house construction, as well as remarkable pieces of figurative art, were found at many sites of the known world. Tools connected to textile craft were discovered in all Neolithic cultures of Mesopotamia, the Aegean, the Balkans and in Central and Western Europe.2 Certain kinds of these tools, such as bone sewing needles and weaving beaters do not look much different from those used until recently or still in use in some areas.3 The evidence, however, that first and foremost confirms the existence of Neolithic textile production is the rich assemblage of spindle whorls for making thread, sets of bone tools for connecting pieces of textiles or as auxiliary weaving implements, and later, when the warp-weighted loom was invented, the loom weights.4

Textile patterns in Neolithic iconography

The elements that best reflect the aesthetic and decorative technologies of Neolithic textile art are the so-called ‘textile patterns’ – that is, patterns imitating woven structures, which are commonly seen on Neolithic pottery. We will focus on this evidence to explore whether, how early and for how long pottery decoration was linked to textile craft and how valuable is the information it offers, not only from a technological perspective but also within the field of the cognitive environment of the Neolithic weavers.5

While naturalistic figurative art has existed since the Palaeolithic era, straight-linear geometric shapes and compositions do not exist in the natural environment: thus Neolithic people must have copied them from another man-made craft that required working on pre-set axes, a process which would later give rise to the primary geometric shapes and compositions. Knowing the basic technologies of the Neolithic (stone knapping and polishing, bone curving, stone building, and so on) it is hard to imagine any other craft acting in a more structural framework than the textile craft, where the loom, of any kind, offers a three-dimensional canvas structure, the stretched threads play the role of guide lines and grids, and the patterns produced represent the basic two-dimensional geometrical shapes or even complex geometrical compositions. The same structural possibilities are offered by the craft of basketry which, without the aid of a loom, uses only the twisting, coiling, crossing and manipulating of threads made of the same or similar natural fibres to create woven artefacts.

Early rendering of weaving patterns

The earliest evidence of pattern weaving goes far back into the past, but we have been tracking it since the Early Neolithic (6500–6000 BCE) in the Aegean (Björk 1995: 128; Winn 1989: 96–100, 137, fig. 5.70; Pyke and Yiouni 1996: 86–88; Vitelli 1948: 190–92). During this period, simple symmetrical patterns, mainly arranged in zones, are commonly observed. They include solid motifs, based on triangles, bands and simple linear patterns such as zigzag lines, parallel chevrons and rows of triangles (figure 7.1). They are drawn with earthen colours on the surface of the pot, usually placed on the vase’s belly or on the shoulder zone.6 Around the end of the period, more complex patterns, such as checkerboard motifs and frames of small triangles are added, and at the same time black paint and slipped ground were introduced. (Phelps 2004: 39) There are certain variations of this style in the different geographical areas, but all the areas were moving along certain major axes of the decorative programme, in terms of painting techniques, syntax and hues. The ornaments of this period, at least of its earliest phase, do not yet reveal a clear connection to textile craft; they inform us, however, about the first conscious rendering of geometric shapes, which were repeated all over the vase’s perimeter and rendered with high precision, showing understanding and conscious use of symmetries perhaps derived from weaving.7

Textile decoration as craft transfer

This simple geometric style of the Early Neolithic period showed a rapid development in the Middle Neolithic (6000–5500 BCE), when pottery decoration became complex, now showing more evident affinities with patterned textiles.8 At the same time, a greater variety in the use of colours can be discerned: large black, red and brown patterns are shaped on the plain surface of the vases but sometimes also on a thick creamy slip.9 We can observe entire ranges of connected or interlocking patterns such as networks, triangles, rhombuses, various kinds of grids, checkerboards and systems of zigzag lines (figure 7.2).

Most of these geometric motifs are familiar tο us from fabrics, kilims and carpets of all periods and regions. A very common pattern of the so-called Urfirnis Middle Neolithic pottery10 is that composed of groups of crossed lines arranged in zones (figure 7.2, 2). Another very popular pattern of the same style features rhombuses framed by denticulated outlines commonly described as flame patterns (figure 7.2, 5–6). This particular motif is one of the most common textile patterns, occurring almost identically in the textile art of quite different areas and periods, presumably because of its highly decorative and easy to weave shape. During this period, rectilinear patterns are preferred, but simple curvilinear shapes, such as concentric circles and arc segments, are also occasionally included in the motif repertoire. Frequently, the decoration consists of stepped, diagonally arranged, square modules, bringing to mind the technical challenge of weaving curvilinear patterns or long vertical shapes without slits, a fact that provides an additional reason to see these decorations as representations of patterned textiles. The whole arrangement of the basic decorative elements is characterised by modularity (Jablan 2002 and 2020), strongly reminiscent of the syntax of traditional oriental kilims woven using the tapestry technique.11 The same decorative trends can also be seen in the contemporary Neolithic pottery styles of the Balkans. In the pottery styles of the Karanovo culture in Bulgaria and the Cucuteni culture in Romania such simple modular patterns, along with some other more complicated syntheses, also signify textile prototypes.12 Striking analogies can also be found in the Neolithic pottery of Anatolia. In the Hacilar culture, for example, the decorative mode shows the same choice of motifs and a clear similarity between its decorative syntax and the Aegean textile patterns (Mellaart 1970: 119, Figs. 309–27).

A particular category of the Aegean Middle Neolithic decoration is the canvas style, where the motifs have been placed as groups of stepped digitlike units upon a painted canvas.13 Through the filling of empty squares, the units shape large intricate patterns covering large parts, or the entire surface, of the vase (figure 7.3). Here we can discern not only a distant inspiration from woven products but also how the textile patterns were precisely executed based on a pre-planned graphic template. This almost naturalistic iconographic expression is so evident that it raises another question about how the original decoration was technically achieved on the textiles, in particular about whether the embellishment was woven, embroidered or even stamped.14 It is not, however, easy to settle on a particular textile technique, since both main options, weaving and embroidery, could have been used as inspiration by the potters. Besides, there are some composite techniques, such as in-woven embroidery, which is accomplished on the loom by adding colourful weft threads to create motifs. Nevertheless, both these textile techniques are ideally applied on a canvas structure and give a similar visual result. On the other hand, it is also possible that the grid-based designs do not represent a woven fabric but an ideal weaving or embroidery guide, or perhaps a net lace with empty and filled spaces. Several examples of this distinctive decoration come from the Sporades islands in the central-northern Aegean and have some distant similarities with particular styles of Thessaly and central Greece15 so that we can refer to it as a typical local production from the central Aegean.

From geometric to pictorial design

The woven styles, which seem to copy elaborate textile designs, flourish remarkably in the Late Neolithic (5500–4500 BCE), when composite curvilinear shapes, such as spirals and wavy patterns, are added to the linear motifs, often shaping very complex compositions (figure 7.4, 1; 3; 5–7). During this period, pottery decoration seems not only to have been inspired by colourful fabrics, but it sometimes appears to have been purely figurative, depicting real textile objects such as fringed carpets or colourful woven bands. (Sarri 2018: 166) These new figurative elements supply an additional hint to the textile origin of the pottery decoration.

The intricate Late Neolithic interlocking decoration that covers the entire body of the vase is reminiscent of the seamless patterns of stamped fabrics which are reproduced through square modules covering the whole surface of large pieces of cloth (figure 7.4, 3). This kind of tiled pattern can be used as an additional key for the recognition of textile prototypes.16 Sometimes the design consists of large panels that do not follow the usual horizontal arrangement, but they look like connected pieces of differently decorated fabrics (figure 7.4, 1). This style is very common on the large open bowls of the Dimini style, where panels with checkerboard patterns or spiral designs are combined, each covering almost a half of the pot.

Tracing further textile technologies

We are not able to accurately reconstruct either the textile technologies or the precise tool kit of the Early and Middle Neolithic, but we can assume that simple early loom types, such as the backstrap loom, the two-beam loom, small weaving frames, or the horizontal ground loom, might have been used but not yet the warp-weighted loom that seems to appear towards the later Neolithic. It does so, at least, in Southern Greece, while it might appear earlier in the Middle Neolithic in Northern Greece, perhaps following Balkan traditions.17 Moreover, certain decorative elements indicate that sophisticated techniques were used, such as band weaving, joining different fabrics with a patchwork technique or decorative joining stitches. (Sarri 2018: 165–67)

Basket weaves

Towards the end of the Late Neolithic period, during the Aegean Late Neolithic II or the Final Neolithic (4500–3200 BCE), painted decorations largely decline in central and southern Greece, and the patterns of vases now often resemble the products of basketry. They consist of incised, impressed or relief stripes that appear interwoven in horizontal, vertical or lateral arrangements and completely cover the surface of the vessels. The plastic rendering of the decoration reveals the original inspiration which seems to be the relief surface of baskets. A similar aesthetic effect is often achieved by so-called pattern-burnishing, in which the decoration is created by the contrast of polished and non-polished areas of the vase surface. However, it is not only monochrome and relief-decorated ceramics that show relationships with basketry: as many traditional and contemporary examples demonstrate, the alternation of colours on basketry could be achieved not only through the use of materials of different origins but also through painting. Thus, ceramics decorated in two or more colours can also represent basket weaves.

It is not always possible to distinguish which ceramic decoration is inspired by textile weaving and which by basketry. Some examples, however, are obviously influenced by basketry techniques, especially those that feature spiral or very open weaves, since they resemble similar traditional and contemporary basketry work. (Sentence 2007: 56–118) In particular, the rendering of such open weaves in basket style is sometimes combined with analogous shapes showing basket prototypes. A very characteristic example of this case is seen on a ceramic-handled lid from the Neolithic site of Sitagroi, phase III, which bears graphite-painted decoration with diagonally crossing bands, leaving ample space between them (figure 7.5). Here both the decoration and the shape of the pot seem to imitate an open basket lid.18 The materials used in basketry could have been straw lengths, various reeds, rushes, grasses, roots, leaves or pieces of bark.19 The fibres could be interwoven with each other but also with diverse other materials such as hair, bands of skin and hide. The basketry techniques could have included plaiting, twining, coiling, bundle coiling or twilling.20 This phenomenon of craft transfer seems logical and to be expected within the general concept of Neolithic pottery, since the ceramic repertoire often appears as an expression of skeuomorphism, including imitations of plant shapes such as pumpkins and leather objects such as flasks.21 It is quite plausible that basketry was invented earlier than weaving, since the material used was easy to find and did not required elaborate preparatory processes such as cleaning, retting, combing and spinning. This possibility leads us to believe that the whole invention of ceramic creation could have come from basketry, especially since we know that some of the first woven products were baskets covered with clay, lime, tar or resin to make them waterproof.

Representations of ropes

During the Late and especially during the Final Neolithic, the first ‘rope decoration’ appears; this is a style where one or more plastic strips are decorated with indents or incisions so as to resemble thick ropes tied onto the vase’s body (figure 7.6). This style, beside its decorative value, also had a utility function, since plastic strips helped to provide a solid grip when moving large vessels. Moreover, it might reflect a contemporary custom of tying large vases and pithoi with ropes during their transport, as many ethnological sources demonstrate. This kind of decoration later became a common trend and is often seen in the coarse household pottery of various Bronze Age sites of Central Greece, as well as in the pottery of Minoan Crete.22 Except for a sometimes clearly visible twist with an S or Z direction, the rope-imitating bands are rendered too abstractly to define the exact rope-making techniques; the presence of this pattern on the vases, however, provides evidence that potters were eager to transfer the idea of fibre artefacts to pottery. Sometimes, though, decoration details are more obvious: a distinctive group of Early Bronze Age pithoi from the site of Lerna displays braiding and net making techniques on its broad plastic bands. (Wiencke 1970: pl. 29, 102 and 116)

Patterns and Symmetries

All painted decorative features show that textile patterns were highly standardised and that weavers were able to repeat them accurately, which in terms of the weaving procedure means precision in counting. Even if some simple free patterns could have been randomly created, the more complex ones, and certainly the tiled patterns, could not have been woven and certainly not repeated if the weavers had not been able to count the warp and weft threads. That is to say, we encounter the perception and manipulation of two and three-dimensional structural space as an early expression of visual mathematics.23 Crystallised concepts of shapes are shown by the deliberate rendering of abstract two-dimensional shapes in the three-dimensional textile structure and then in their return as two-dimensional linear shapes on the surface of the pottery.

Looking at early technologies, none of the other Neolithic crafts we know of could have reached this cognitive, artistic and technological level. The manufacture of pottery, stone, or bone artefacts, for example, requires strength, skills and kinetic precision but not counting and measuring.24 Neither does it require abstract thinking and accurate visual skills such as are needed to copy and transfer from a two-dimensional shape to a three-dimensional medium. Moreover, calculations would have been necessary at other stages of textile production. Estimation of raw materials and precise planning of the work would have been required, since fibres were not able to be purchased in finished form through trade but were collected from nature at certain times of the year. In all succeeding stages of the chaîne opératoire, estimation of quantities, weights, and values was needed in order to process certain quantities of fibres, to produce particular dyes, to divide warp threads and set series of loom weights, and to estimate the value of the textile products for offering or exchanging with other goods.25

Weaving and counting

The hypothesis that metrology, in the sense of a common understanding of units, originated in the textile arts is of great importance for understanding the knowledge background of the Neolithic people since, in the absence of known measurement systems from this era, it gives us an idea of how people may have started to develop complex manipulation and planning skills to improve their standard of living.26 The multiple possibilities that yarn offers for three-dimensional representations of objects and symbols, as well as counting and measuring concepts, is shown by a series of ancient applications, the most typical being the khipu devices of the Incas.27 These were threads which used combinations of loops and knots to encode words and numbers so precisely that they were used as administrative documents in official state archives.28 In other parts of the world, we can see a similar counting concept in the prayer beads of various religions, such as the various types of woven rosaries of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, and a similarly functioning device, the Buddhist ‘mala’. It is worth noting that these simple threaded measuring tools, in addition to being used in calculating, were also used for measuring time.

The arrangement of the decoration on axes and the counting of the warp threads to create colour changes and shapes brings to mind the concept of the abacus, which is also a three-dimensional binary system with a horizontal and a vertical axis.29 Moving back to the past, we can imagine that Neolithic weavers, by observing the textile structure they created, understood the loom’s principle and perhaps realised its value as a computational system. By lifting a certain number of warp threads as they wove to pass the wefts through them, a process similar to that used on an abacus, they were able to create the symmetrical coloured forms seen on pottery, and, through this creative experience they may have perceived the principal geometric shapes.

Archaeological implications

The ornamentation of Aegean Neolithic pottery with textile patterns is not a unique phenomenon, but it epitomises a case where craft transfer, particularly skeuomorphism, can be clearly seen.30 In the contemporary cultures of the Balkans, Anatolia and the Near East,31 we can see a parallel development, and since it is widely believed that the Neolithic lifestyle came to the Aegean from the east in the first half of the seventh millennium BCE,32 the pottery inspiration may have been part of this cultural movement. One of the classic examples of the connection of Neolithic ceramic ornamentation with Anatolian textile craft has been recognised by the interpretation of Neolithic ornaments as a rendering of coloured kilims by the British pioneer archaeologist James Mellaart.33 Similar decorative patterns observed in contemporary Stone Age cultures lead us to the tracing of population movements. Moreover, the possibility of a common origin of Neolithic motifs from the textile crafts also gives us an alternative explanation for why geometric ornaments are so similar in very remote areas.

If we aim to explore why these technical cross crafts and interrelations exist, we realise that when acts of imitation and mingling of techniques were carried out, art proceeded to new paths of creation, and remarkable innovations were observed; thus one can assume that the desire of the craftspeople and the textile consumers for new artistic expression brought to the fοreground the styles and techniques of other crafts.

Beyond the artistic creation of new styles, it is suggested that the decoration of Neolithic pottery, especially symmetrical modular patterns, opens a way for us to realise that prehistoric people conceived the mathematical notions of arithmetic and geometry through textile crafts and long experimentation on woven symmetries. The practice of weaving helped artisans to create precise shapes and symbols, and to use their knowledge of calculation in metric and weight systems, achievements that were implemented in a series of later technological applications developed in the ancient world.

Endnotes

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