Golden Tunic of Ancient Courtesan Discovered

I’m tending not to reprint the press releases I get sent as they can be read on anyone else’s site. But this one seems to have slipped by unnoticed, which is a shame as it’s rather cool. A golden tunic has been discovered in the Ukraine. I assume it’s the lack of pictures which does it. It’s amazing given the fuss over an Iron Age earlier in the week. If there was one artefact guaranteed to be sexy you would have thought it would be the clothes of a hetaira, a courtesan.

Specialists of Kharkov National University named after V. Kazarin have managed to disclose one of mysteries of antique beauties’ attires. They investigated a rare finding – a fragment of antique goldwoven brocade discovered in the burial place of Roman times in the National Preserve of Tauric Khersones located in the territory of contemporary Sevastopol.

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Specialists of Kharkov National University named after V. Kazarin – archaeologist Tatiana Krupa and physicist Alexander Kryshtal – have managed to disclose one of mysteries of antique beauties’ attires. They investigated a rare finding – a fragment of antique goldwoven brocade, the total space of which making only several square centimeters. The precious scrap was found in the the burial place dating back to Roman times in the National Preserve of Tauric Khersones located in the territory of contemporary Sevastopol. The Kharkov researchers applied the method of integrated study of fabric specimen, including electron microscopy and specific investigations of archeological organic matter.

Who was buried in a rich goldwoven garments? The answer will probably remain a mystery as well as the technology for making a two-ply golden thread shining brightly as ever before. It consists of organic basis made of serous of animal’s intestine coat, upon which the foil of the gold (80 percent), silver and copper alloy is unrolled. The foil is only 1.5 microns thick. Even now, there are practically no traces of corrosion on it, although this scrap of fabric dates back to 2,000 years. The researchers believe that gold was imported, most likely from Africa, and the thread itself was produced in a Cyprian handicraft workshop.

It is a high rarity to discover even single fragments of such tissues. In particular, only a specimen of Chinese braid made of spun gold were found within the entire period of archeological dig in Khersones – and that was all. In the territory of Ukraine, single specimen of such cloths were discovered in late Scythian Ust-Alminsky burial ground, in Sokolovo tomb and in Nogaichiksky burial mound. Very few researchers all over post-Soviet area are involved in investigation of archeological textile.

The problem is that antique clothes, footwear or materials do not remain intact due to their short life. Archeologists do not have at their disposal any written materials either to get some insight on clothes of Kherson inhabitants. Therefore, major sources for reconstruction of clothes, footwear and head-dresses are traditionally iconographic materials: terracotta, sculpture, polychromic painting, bowl-painting, glyptics work, numismatics data. However, they do not allow to reconstruct dress-making peculiarities, technology of clothes and footwear manufacturing, to determine such specificity as the origin of textiles fiber and dyestuff.

That is why findings in the territory of the Khersones necropolis are of special interest for researchers. In antiquity, the bural ceremony was intended to prepare a person for worthy life in the other world. Therefore, the inventory accompanying the deceased to the other world should provide the existence the deceased was used to in the earthly life. Jewelry is best preserved: beads, earrings, rings, various types of stamps. A more scanty set of jewelry is found in the necropolis dating back to the 5th-4th centuries B.C., richer and more varied findings date back to the beginning of A.D., i.e. to the period where the discovered brocade also belongs.

Investigation of the Khersones population clothes allows to tack cultural relationship between this Greek city state founded in the territory with non-Greek population and the rest of the Greek world. The discovered cloth confirms the evidence by Plinium Jr, who pointed out that in the 1st century A.D., Tauric Khersones preserved Greek customs. As cutting out was poorly developed in antiquity – during the entire antique period women used to wear a twofold feminine tunic and a tunic decorated by a frill, – the clothes diversity was achieved due to utilization of various fabrics. It was quite common to use the art of decorating clothes with a painted, woven, embroidered or sewn on ornaments in the form of palmette, meander, plants, as well as golden woven fabrics.

According to Tacitus, empress Agrippina used to wear a chlamys fully woven from golden threads. Apuleius mentioned a cloak interwoven with flickering stars. The discovered fragment of fabric might belong to the clothes of a noble townswoman or a famous hetaira. The way of life of hetairas completely differed from that of common women. The position of the majority of women in ancient Khersones, likewise in the metropolitan country, could be illustrated by an ancient saying that a woman is “sitting at home, spinning wool”, but hetairas freely communicated with men. Hetairas’ position and earnings largely depended on affinity of their appearance, so hetairas were most likely the trendsetters at that time. There exists the evidence that the inventress of a new coiffure was hetaira Aspasia, mistress of Pericles, leader of Athenian democracy.

Hetairas also lived in ancient Khersones. This fact is recorded in the correspondence between governors of this Black-Sea colony and Roman administration at the dawn of A.D. Leaders of the Roman army located on the territory of the city decided to raise the amount of duties imposed on hetairas, thus “ breaking the ancient principles of the city” and created quite a problem. It is typical that this document contained no slightest condemnation of the way of life of these women, they are perceived as inalienable concomitants of the cult of love.

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