Ancient textiles were expensive. How do you know that?

摘要

According to an old saying, "Time is money". In the Homeric Odyssey Penelope fooled her suitors by weaving a burial cloth for three years, which sounds incredible but could also have been feasible. Such a statement is based on good knowledge of materials, techniques and human working efficiency in textiles manufacture. Knowledge of these issues is based on several types of data: archaeological textile finds, historical sources, ethnographic information, experimental archaeology and to some extent even present-day practices. Combining different type of information, we can explore the economic importance of textile production expressing the "time-money" as working days or as ancient or present day currency. The value of textiles is highly dependent on the used materials and the time its production required. Information on the salaries and the prices of the textiles can be found in written sources, amongst which Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices offers plentiful information. The testimony of the written sources can be evaluated through the results of experimental archaeology connected with textile finds. The overall picture emerging is that even the cheapest ancient textiles for the common people were relatively expensive.