In May 2018, the TRC welcomed Dr. Magdalena Wozniak, a Marie Curie Fellow from the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is an archaeologist working on the textiles found at (Christian) Nubian sites in the north of Sudan. She had attended the TRC five-day Intensive Textile Course in 2015, and it was wonderful to see her again.
But her visit had a special purpose: she wanted to study the Sudanese textiles, and the raw fibres and spinning weaving equipment, all of them collected by the grande dame of British archaeology, Grace Crowfoot (1879-1957) and now housed at the TRC. For a blog about Magdalena’s visit in May 2018, click here.
She again came to the TRC in April of this year, together with a group of colleagues, and accompanied by Dr. Karel Innemée, formerly working at Leiden University and now employed as assistant professor by the University of Warsaw. He is also a board member of the TRC. They are all working on the project: ‘Costumes of Authority: Images of Royalty and Clergy in Christian Nubia.’ A detailed report of their visit and the project they are working on can be downloaded here.
Fresco with the reconstructed clothing. Research project, University of Warsaw: ‘Costumes of Authority: Images of Royalty and Clergy in Christian Nubia.’
The Nubian textiles project in full swing.
Last week Magdelana informed us that on 17 October, she and her colleagues, including Dorothée Roqueplo, will show and explain a number of reconstructed Nubian garments in a presentation: “Archéologie du textile: restituer les costumes du pouvoir de la Nubie chrétienne (6e – 14e siècles),” in the great auditorium of the Louvre Museum, Paris. For more information, and for registering your attendance, please click here. The garments will then be taken to the Bode Museum in Berlin.
And then there is the TRC in Leiden
We were pleased with the kind words about the TRC that are included in the information pages about the Polish project: we are so proud, that we would like to include them below….
Polish delegation visits the TRC, 6 April 2024A visit to one of Leiden’s best kept secrets: the Textile Research Centre. On 6 April our team involved in the reconstruction of Nubian costumes paid a visit to the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, an incredible collection and centre of expertise in the field of textiles and costume. One of the main tasks was to compare our samples of naturally dyed fabrics with authentic samples from Nubia (Gebel Adda and Qasr Ibrim).
Gillian Vogelsang, the managing director, gave us an incredible warm welcome and showed us samples that perfectly matched our test samples. We can go ahead with the reconstruction. Not just for archaeological textiles, but for all that concerns dress, costume, fabrics, weaving techniques, embroidery and much more the TRC in Leiden is a haven of information!
Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 1 October 2024
