Alexandra Attia
Dr.
Research Associate
Coordination office of the documentation centers and Open Science
PER 21 bu. A304
Bd de Pérolles 90
1700 Fribourg
Bd de Pérolles 90
1700 Fribourg
PER 21, A304
Research and publications
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Publications
22 publications
Louis Becq de Fouquières (1869). Les Jeux des anciens et leur réception à l’époque moderne
Attia, Alexandra and Dasen, Veronique (Liege: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2025) | Book -
Research projects
“Fashion in the West”: Bodies, Dress and Identities in Apulian Iconography (5th-3rd cent.BC.)
Status: CompletedStart 01.01.2022 End 31.01.2025 Funding SNSF Open project sheet Textile craftsmanship and dress provide a privileged access to the social, cultural and economic fabric of past societies. Over the last two decades, the interest in the study of clothing in Antiquity has increased significantly. As Roland Barthes (1957) and several scholars after him demonstrated, dress plays a key role not only in the construction of social, gendered, ethnic, individual, and collective identities, it is also part of non-verbal communication in a shared normative system. Both the materiality (shape, texture, color) and the context in which it is worn (domestic, ritual, civic) are intertwined with various symbolic, social and religious values. This project is part of the innovative researches developed by the working groups (WG) of the COST Action « Euroweb. Europe through textiles » (CA #19131). It considers clothing as an identity marker and investigates this cultural dimension in iconographic representations produced in Apulia between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, a region characterized by the coexistence of the Greek people established in Taranto with different indigenous populations (Messapians, Peucetians and Daunians).The study will be based on a multidisciplinary approach, gathering archaeological, iconographic and written data in order to analyze the self- and collective representations of gender, age, status and ethnic identities, as well as the social interactions between these populations through the lenses of clothes and body ornaments. The research focuses more specifically on Apulian vase painting produced in Taranto and distributed in South Italy both in Greek and indigenous settlements (ca 430-300 BC). The material is extensive (ca 10,000) and well published. A large number of vases, still under-exploited, are decorated with representations of women and men’s attire displaying interactions between the Greek inhabitants (apoikioi) and indigenous people which are not reduced to violent confrontations as mentioned in Greek literary sources. The visual language of vase painters reveals the peaceful weaving of Greek and Italic identities with varying accents over one hundred years. We will question how far visual conventions reflect socio-cultural changes, such as mixed marriages or trade relationships with neighbouring communities. This investigation of the fabric of gendered and multicultural identities will be divided into three parts. The first one will create a typology of the different visual clothing elements characterising Greek or local identities. These items will be classified according to their type (WG2) (dress, hairdress, hairstyle, shoes, body ornaments), their wearers (women or men, children or adults), as well as compared with depictions on other media (wall paintings, terracotta, reliefs) and with ancient written sources to establish a reference terminology (WG3). The second part will analyse the different types of dress according to social interactions in iconographical contexts where local and Greek people could interact (e.g. daily life, religious scenes, such as libation, marriage, funerals). The methodological limits of such investigations will be addressed, namely how to identify a local person in Greek attire, partners of mixed marriages and so on. We will finally compare the dress depicted in iconography with extant archaeological textile evidence of Apulia (WG4) and experimental archaeology. The third part will revisit the long-lasting devaluation of Italic people in ancient Apulia, often examined solely in relation to Greek culture. Their classification as “non-Greeks” as well as the use of the expression “Magna Grecia” (Strabo 6.1.2) have imposed a misleading appreciation of a culturally complex and evolving area. The study of dress will contribute to developing another view as mixed indigenous and Greek clothing could reflect the appropriation of Greek customs and culture among Italics users as well as the reverse, the influence of Italic people on Greek habits. The research thus aims to be a benchmark re evaluating the extent of cross-cultural exchanges in Apulia (coastal and hinterland) based on most recent post-colonial studies.