A Spools Enigma? The Iron Age Case at Arslantepe (Malatya, South-Eastern Turkey)

Spools are textile objects usually interpreted as loom weights. They have been discovered in the Iron Age levels of alarge number of sites in the whole Mediterranean area. Their massive spread throughout the entire region suggests the presenceof some significant change in the textile production; but what kind of change? Unpublished data from the Iron Age levels atArslantepe (Malatya, south-eastern Turkey) shed some new light on the reasons behind the appearance and profusion of thesetools. The systematic study of hundreds of clay spool-shaped objects discovered at the site shows a clear change in the use ofthe textile techniques at the beginning of the Iron Age, characterized by a progressive decline of other types of loom weightsand probably related to an increase in the weaving activities. A combined typological, diachronic and techno-functionalanalysis allows us to examine some significant aspects of this production as well as the chronological distribution of theseobjects.