Overview

This pioneering volume brings together specialists from contemporary craft and industry and from archaeology to examine both the material properties and the cultural dimensions of leather. The common occurrence of animal skin products through time, whether vegetable tanned leather, parchment, vellum, fat-cured skins or rawhide attest to its enduring versatility, utility and desirability. Typically grouped together as 'leather', the versatility of these materials is remarkable: they can be soft and supple like a textile, firm and rigid like a basket, or hard and watertight like a pot or gourd. This volume challenges a simple utilitarian or functional approach to leather; in a world of technological and material choices, leather is appropriated according to its suitability on many levels. In addressing the question Why leather? authors of this volume present new perspectives on the material and cultural dimensions of leather. Their wide-ranging research includes the microscopic examination of skin structure and its influence on behaviour, experiments on medieval cuir bouilli armour, the guild secrets behind the leather components of nineteenth-century industrial machinery, new research on ancient Egyptian chariot leather, the relationship between wine and wineskins, and the making of contemporary leather wall covering. The Archaeological Leather Group promotes the study of leather and leather objects from archaeological and other contexts. The Group aims to provide a focus for the investigation of leather, and to develop new research by bringing together a broad range of knowledge and experience both practical and academic. Leather is explored through its manufacture, function, context, processing, recording, conservation, care and curation. Members come from a variety of disciplines and include archaeologists, historians, conservators, artefact specialists, materials engineers and leather workers. The Group normally meets twice a year and organises one scholarly meeting in the spring, and visits a museum, working tannery or other place of leather interest in the autumn. The Archaeological Leather Group Newsletter is published twice a year, and the website maintains a comprehensive and expanding leather bibliography.

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9789088904707

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Andre J. Veldmeijer (Visiting Research Scholar American University in Cairo) studied archaeology at Leiden University (The Netherlands) and received his PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology from Utrecht University (The Netherlands) in 2006. He has worked in Egypt since 1995 as a leather, footwear and cordage specialist for various missons (including Amarna, Berenike, Dra' Abu el-Naga, Elephantine, Hierakonpolis and Qasr Ibrim). Veldmeijer has also worked in several collections all over the world, studying ancient Egyptian and Nubian leatherwork and footwear as part of the Ancient Egyptian Leatherwork Project (AELP) and the Ancient Egyptian Footwear Project (AEFP) respectively. Among these collections are the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His second PhD, on the archaeology of footwear, is planned for the next four years. Veldmeijer is the director of two ongoing research projects: Ancient Egyptian Leatherwork Project (including the Egyptian Museum Chariot Project) and Ancient Egyptian Footwear Project. Veldmeijer is one of the founders and current chairman of the PalArch Foundation. Dr. Susanna Harris is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. Her research focus lies on prehistoric Europe and the central Mediterranean with expertise in organic artefacts and representational art. She studies textiles, leather and basketry of the Neolithic to Bronze Age and the role of these materials in dress and identity investigated through people represented in stone, metal or ceramics.

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