Aleksandra Hallmann - Böcker

This volume takes a multidisciplinary and comparative approach to dress studies in the ancient world. Spanning a wide geographic spectrum, from the Near East and North Africa to the Mediterranean world and the Americas, it explores the cultural, social, and political significance of attire. It engages the reader in a debate about the cross-culturally developed role of dress in construing and projecting various identities.Clothes are often considered mundane, yet they play a crucial role in people's lives beyond mere bodily protection. The meaning of a piece of clothing changes the moment it is worn, as it becomes associated with its wearer. Because attire can demonstrate affiliation with a particular religious, ethnic, or political group, it serves as an important means of constructing self-identity and plays a vital role in social acculturation and assimilation. To understand what clothing reveals about the ethnicity, beliefs, social rank, profession, gender, or age of the wearer, one must examine its sociocultural context and the nonverbal language it conveys.Essays by experts from a range of disciplines, including art history, anthropology, archaeology, classics, Near Eastern studies and conservation, approach the subject from different perspectives, apply varied methodologies, and draw on a diverse array of primary sources, including artifacts, iconography and texts, to offer a nuanced understanding of the clothed self in ancient societies. This book will be of interest not only to experts in dress studies but to everyone interested in the cultural anthropology of dress and fashion.

Winner of the Erazm Majewski Award in archeological publications from the Division I: Humanities and Social Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences!This lavishly illustrated book provides a comprehensive analysis of clothing in Late Period Egypt (750 to 332 BC) through a comparison of representations on reliefs, paintings, and statues to preserved textiles, and supplemented by references in ancient texts. It shows the historical evolution of clothing that extends far beyond the Late Period. The book reveals the influence of archaism and innovation, as well as how clothes reflect geography, ethnicity, and social roles. It provides some new criteria for dating and interpretation of representations through careful examination of changes in Egyptian fashion. The resulting work is of value to anyone studying dress in ancient Egypt and other areas of the ancient world."... A. Hallmann’s work remains an essential reference, first and foremost because of the treasury of visual material which it conveniently places at one’s fingertips." - Robert Steven Bianchi, in: JARCE 60 (2024)