🎉 Wow, a dusty old loom is going to rewrite history! 🕸️ Who knew ancient threading could be so revolutionary? 🚀 Meanwhile, our ancestors just hoped for pants that didn’t itch. 🌾✨
https://web.ua.es/en/actualidad-universitaria/2026/marzo2026/23-31/ua-researchers-find-3-500-year-old-loom-that-reveals-key-aspects-of-textile-revolution-in-the-bronze-age.html #dustyloom #ancientinnovation #revolutionaryhistory #threadingtechnology #textilehistory #HackerNews #ngated

Photos from the PhD defense last Tuesday.
My colleague Auður took the two first ones, then a selfie in the robe. And the official photo from the University of Iceland, showing the committee, bäthe supervisor the head of the viva ceremony, dr Susannah Harris from the University of Glasgow, the fresh doctor Meghan Anne Korten, and me.
The blue wool robes with velvet trim are really pretty. But warm.
The name of the thesis is "Intertwined Threads:the Value and Function of Vaðmál as Cloth and Money and Beyond"
#academia #textilehistory #history

A fire in Bronze Age Spain ~1450 BC destroyed a settlement — and accidentally preserved something almost never found: the actual wooden frame of a loom, still loaded with weights. New study in Antiquity reconstructs it. #Archaeology #BronzeAge #TextileHistory https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-bronze-age-loom-preserved-by-fire

Despite doing pool rehab on the morning I am taking a hot bath after work. Or possibly because of: it is good against aches and stiffness from exercise. Slept like a log tonight, and has spent more than five hours at work. Mostly discussions with colleagues, but also some work on a lecture about Scandinavian Sumptuary laws before 1600. And tracking down a 58 year old article which _may_ have some info about cotton garments in late medieval Northern Europe.
#psoraticarthritis #academia #textilehistory #chronicpain #bathtub

Slept really badly tonight. I think I didn't get a full six hours. So my brain isn't in shape to read and judge whether a PhD thesis is ready for Viva, which was my original plan.
But I have been to the gym for the first time since maybe April, I have defrosted the freezer, and I have read a little in a book about 18th and 19th century calico printing in Sweden. And I have a very beautiful amaryllis.
#psoriaticarthritis #chronicillnes #textilehistory