NESAT XI

Since 1981, the North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles (NESAT) has taken place every three years, and since then it has come to deal with finds from all parts of Europe. Among the participants are, among others, textile archaeologists, historians, art historians, natural scientists, conservators, craftspeople and self-taught persons. Thus it is possible to shed light on topics in textile archaeology from the perspective of various disciplines. This variety of topics and perspectives is also impressively documented by the published contributions to previous NESAT symposia..

A Forum for an Interdisciplinary Exchange of Thoughts and Information

NESAT has always aimed at being a forum for the presentation of finds or topics that are currently being worked on and examined in the course of interdisciplinary research. Communication among textile researchers has become more even more vivid since the launch of CTR (Centre for Textile Research) at the University of Copenhagen and DressID, a European Union project researching how clothing and their wearers’ identities relate to each other in the Roman Empire (coordination: Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim)..

While the first NESAT symposia were still driven by a desire to intensify the exchange of thoughts and information between the small number of those interested in European textile archaeology, today’s research and assessment of numerous finds and issues takes place across boundaries via frequent workshops and electronic media. Since particularly the aforementioned institutes conduct in-depth international and interdisciplinary research, NESAT offers a tested and tried communication platform for those who work in smaller institutes or are not affiliated with any, i.e. those who by and large research and work on finds or topics in the textile archaeology field on their own..

Special Theme Day "Methods in Textile Archaeology"

The interest in textile archaeology research, which has increased significantly over the past 10 years, resulted in the decision to organize a special theme day in the course of NESAT XI. Here, the use of methods from natural sciences and the humanities in textile archaeology shall be examined. The focus will be on excavation and documentation techniques, archaeological and natural scientific research methods for textile finds from the soil, the systematic treatment of image and text sources, as well as the conveying of knowledge in experimental archaeology and museum education. The speakers for the special theme day will be invited.

Locations of Previous NESAT Symposia*

* You can find the respective NESAT volumes in the Library section of this website.