Recherche par auteur > Iori Elisa

Among the most common offerings made by lay donors to Buddhist monks were monastic robes. This is not surprising since robes were one of the most striking identity markers of the Buddhist monastic community. Thus, ancient vinayas (or monastic codes) give detailed guidelines on the appropriate shape and colour of such distinctive clothes and on how monks and nuns should wear, treat and wash them in order to maintain a respectable appearance. Needless to say, such materials did not survive in the archaeological record, and the only available studies on these matters remain dependent on textual sources. 

Instead of focusing on the monastic dress code and behaviour, in this contribution, I focus on the material used for the manufacturing of such religious marker, cotton, and more specifically on its processing waste in the city of Barikot (NW South Asia). The recent archaeobotanical study carried out in the city of Barikot has shown a great number of cotton seeds possibly used as fuel (a) for the kiln of a pottery workshop located in the unbuilt area extending immediately to the north of the major urban Buddhist sanctuary, and (b) for the ‘incense (or better cotton) burners' used in the same Buddhist complex. This suggests that cotton, cultivated in the surrounding of the city, once harvested was brought to the city where it was prepared, spun and dyed, while the seeds, manually separated from the fibers during the ginning of the cotton ball, were reused as fuel in religious and non-religious activities. 

On the basis of the distribution of the archaeobotanical remains and the spatial arrangement of Buddhist monuments and areas of production within the city, this contribution aims to reflect on how the intensification of urban production of cotton clothes, probably in connection with the Buddhist site, and the consumption of their by-products in religious and other urban activities were intertwined.