The textile industry of Iron Age Timnah and its regional and socioeconomic contexts: A literary and artifactual analysis

This study attempts to place evidence of textile production at Iron Age Timnah (Tel Batash) within broader regional and socioeconomic contexts.;Loom weights, a standard feature of houses of the eighth and seventh centuries at Timnah, are shown to be consistent in number and size with contemporary finds from other sites. Comparisons permit observations concerning the relationship of loom weight finds to architecture and the rejection of suggestions that olive press installations also may have functioned as dye vats. It is conjectured that installations consisting of a work surface with provisions for liquid drainage were perhaps used in the dyeing process.;The location and chronology of loom weight finds are combined with data from Assyrian tribute lists to suggest that the textiles from Timnah and other sites comprised portions of the annual tribute requirements imposed on kingdoms which controlled the area. Assyrian descriptions of garments received as tribute are combined with artifactual data (loom weights) to suggest that the garments produced at Timnah featured brightly dyed wool designs woven or embroidered onto a linen base. Techniques for producing these garments may have originated in cultic contexts.;The presence of both the textile and olive oil industries, which could have shared a common work force, at Timnah and other sites in the Shephelah illustrates the economic potential of these cities and their importance to the kingdom which controlled them during the period of Assyrian domination. Implications for an understanding of scripture, especially the biblical history of the Shephelah, are discussed.;Archaeological finds relative to a textile industry at Iron Age Timnah are presented and used to demonstrate the site's continuity with a tradition of textile production in the Shephelah region. The existence of areas within Palestine which specialized in textile production is demonstrated by textual evidence and archaeological data from the Bronze and Iron Ages. Loom weights occur in particularly high numbers in the Shephelah during the Iron II Period.