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Protecting Çatalhöyük. Memoir of an Archaeological Site Guard

different meanings, but minor details surely helped contemporary viewers to attribute their exact significance to them as shown, for example, by Sourvinou-Inwood in her exceptional analysis of the Theseus and Ariadne vs Warrior and Nymphas scenes in Attic Red Figured Vases (Sourvinou-Inwood 1987). Also in Mesopotamian seals, minor details such as different shapes or themore or less pointed ends of posts could be the determining factor for the exact interpretation of the representation. When widening her study to cultures other than the Near East, Breniquet adopts a diffusionist perspective (p. 250). According to her interpretation of the scenes on the Tintinnabulum from Bologna, the throne from Verrucchio, and the Daunian stelae, the ideology and the iconographies of spinning and weaving in seventh–sixth-century Greece and Italy have their roots in the Mesopotamian tradition through near eastern intermediaries (pp. 246–268). Spinning and weaving, however, acquired a major symbolic importance from the end of the Bronze Age in Italy (see representations from the sites of Naquane and Borno; Gleba 2008:28–29) and the premise existed for an indigenous elaboration of images during the seventh and sixth centuries. Oriental influence is also considered fundamental for textile ideology in Greece, but even in this case arguments are not very strong. Penelope is considered by Breniquet estranged from original Greek mythology, but Penelope dates back to the original period of formation of Homeric poems, well before the period of oriental influence if not to the Mycenaean age, a period conspicuously absent in Breniquet’s publication, notwithstanding the existence of important archaeological and literary sources (Τζαχι′λη ′Ιρις 1997). The sixth-century lekythos by Amasis in the Metropolitan Museum of New York with scenes of weaving is considered ‘une production orientalisant par leur style et par la personalité de leur auteur’ (p. 254) but the Egyptian origin of Amasis, accepted by Breniquet is considered by others only a possibility, and the phenomenon of oriental influence was already past when this pot was made. In other words, the possibility of independent evolution of similar symbolism in different countries must be considered, a possibility which seems quite evident to Breniquet in other sections of her book, when with a structural perspective she analyses Berberian tribes and Andine cultures to reconstruct the meaning of textile activity in agrarian societies (pp. 349–357). These observations concern, however, only marginal parts of the book and should not obscure its importance. It is not easy for the reviewer to account for the elegance of style, the abundance of data and ideas, the width of readings extending through Roman Italy, medieval France, and modern northern Africa. The lessons given by the great French scholars from Leroi-Gourhan to Cassin, especially their broad perspectives, are always present and the book will surely become a fundamental text for anybody approaching not only Mesopotamian textiles, but also ancient textiles in general.