Provenance research in textile archaeology
Provenance data in archaeological textile research refers to the origin, circumstances and ownership history of a textile find. This area of research faces considerable challenges: Find circumstances are often unclear, there is a lack of sufficient documentation, and collection movements in particular - including war-related transfers - make it considerably more difficult to trace object histories.
Currently, there is neither a list of institutions in Germany that preserve archaeological textiles nor a standardized list of historical persons within museum and collection databases who appeared as previous owners or sellers of archaeological textiles.
Creating links between personal and corporate data and the objects is a central instrument of textile provenance research. It enables the reconstruction of earlier collections across current institutional boundaries and different collection focuses. This also allows numerous counterparts in other collections to be identified and contexts to be reconstructed.
The aims of the TWG are:
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creating a directory of state institutions in Germany that preserve archaeological textiles - especially those from Egypt of the 1st millennium AD - through systematic queries.
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compiling an ideally complete list of previous owners, based on the known documentation of these institutions, linking this data with each other. At the same time, guidelines and standards for uniform recording are to be developed.
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promoting professional exchange by establishing a network of institutions, researchers and experts to share information and best practices
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preparing a standardized data set for a Wikibase instance in order to create a sustainable, interoperable data structure for provenance research.