Textiles quality spindle whorls type: new data about spinning techniques in Cypriot Middle Bronze Age.

The site of Pyrgos-Mavroraki near Limassol in Cyprus is an important industrial site dating back to the beginning of the II millennium B.C, destroyed from an earthquake 1900-1850 BC around. Situated in elevate position, not far from the see, in the last excavation season the archaeologist detected, under the installation of the Ancient Middle Bronze, evidence of the Calcolitic period. The intact condition of structures and finds, unknown for 4000 years, offers a rare occasion to carry out archaeometry and archaeobotany investigations in a context of uncontaminated materials. The investigated areas concern two vast courtyards and two workshops in which the production of bronze and wine took place; a crusher with store jars for olive-oil, used also for the preparation of perfumes-therapeutic substances was positioned in the oriental-north angle. In this working environment, two rooms was dedicated to the textile industry: dyeing, spinning and weaving. The spindle whorls have been classified by shape (conical, biconical, spherical, truncated and cylindrical), type (fabric technology and surface treatment, height, diameter, weight, size and inclination of the central perforation, use-wear), style and, of course, chronology (from Philia phase to MC II). Concerning the weight, Pyrgos evidence offers a wide range of sizes, confirming the use of different technologies and types of spinning, in relation to the type of fibre and the final result desiderated. The fibers and woven materials, all of which were particularly deteriorated, were consolidated with a 5% vinyl acryl nitrile emulsion. We avoided physically handling such deteriorated material by employing techniques that have been used in the past for remote sensing of images obtained from optical microscopes. Some of the recovered loom weights had sealed sediments inside their perforations. We floated these sediments in small quantities of glycerinated water. The fibers that had been mineralized (probably through a diagenetic process where fine particles of silt and clay had penetrated inside the fibers) sank to the bottom. We initially examined 932 morphologies, of which 150 of cotton (Gossypium ssp.), that it turns out to be the most represented with fibers of Asclepias (62) and Hibiscus (45) for the vegetables fibers, while for the animals prevails wool with 297 fibers.