Much more perishable items than many other crafts, textiles are tricky objects for archeologists to study. At the same time, they constitute a special medium of folk culture which helps us learn more about human communities, environments they live(d) in, and lifestyles they pursue(d).

This is an intro episode to the first series under Not Just Silk titled "The world of Central Asian textiles". Listen to learn about the topic of the series and guest expert – Victoria Sluka, PhD researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose research focuses on the rate and distribution of design errors in handmade carpets from Central Asia. 

This is Victoria's article I referred to in the episode: https://uclcaal.org/2020/08/25/untying-the-knots-of-central-asian-carpets, published on the website of Central Asian Archeological Landscapes (CAAL), a project by UCL Institute of Archaeology funded by the charitable fund Arcadia. I highly recommend checking out this piece, which unpacks in more detail the content of this series & Victoria's research.

The melody at the end is "Chuli Irok", a folk Uzbek melody played on dutar by Gulyam Kuchkarov.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or questions, drop me an email at: [email protected]