SUNDAY, March 29, 2009

2 p.m. Refreshments        2:30 p.m. Program

"Singing the Rug: Patterned Textiles and the Origins of Indo-European Metrical Poetry"

with

Dr. Anthony Tuck
Assistant Professor of Classics,
University of Massachussetts, Amherst

 
The process of weaving is one of humanity’s most ancient technologies. The development of elaborately patterned textiles, as opposed to non-patterned forms of woven cloth, requires a great degree of technical expertise and is highly labor intensive. However, the complex fabrication process implicit in a complex woven pattern would have required the commitment to memory of a substantial amount of numerical and color related information. Modern observation of traditional weavers in India and the Caucasus suggests that this numerical information may have first emerged in the form of memorized, rhythmic chants that allowed weavers to both remember patterns and reproduce them as frequently as required. Moreover, the linguistic and poetic associations between weaving and singing preserved in several Indo-European languages also suggest that these chants were, at some point, sources of rhythmic or possibly metrical narration in their own right.

Anthony Tuck is a Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology in the Department of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received his Ph. D. from Brown University in 1996. Dr. Tuck is a specialist in Early Etruscan culture and urbanization, and today is the Director of Excavations at Poggio Civitate, an Iron Age and Early Etruscan site in Tuscany, Italy, the best example of an Etruscan community on the cusp of urbanism. Excavation in the past two years has revealed a great deal of information, from burials to roads, that is changing the way the site is understood by scholars. He has published extensively on topics including Etruscan burial form, economics and urban development, and has recently worked on the topic of ancient textile manufacture, including “Singing the Rug: Patterned Textiles and the Origins of Indo-European Metrical Poetry” in the American Journal of Archeology. Dr. Tuck’s interest in textiles began at an early age, with the blankets brought from Mexico by his grandfather.

Community Hall, Lower Level St. Bede’s Episcopal Church
3590 Grand View Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90066-1904

Just south of the 10 freeway, and west of the 405, near the intersection of Centinela and Palms. Free parking.

Admission: TMA/SC Members: Gratis                          Guests: $10

Refreshments: If your last name begins with C - H, please bring a plate of snacks / cookies / fruit, that can be eaten as finger food, Assembled, On A Plate, Ready To Serve, With A Serving Utensil. Plan to arrive before 2:00 p.m. with your offering, and to help clean up after the meeting; please plan to take home your leftovers.