 I'm Hega, it was a mountain delta, and I'm doing the experiments in this project. And yeah, so last paper before lunch, we need to make this very, very super exciting. So here goes, inscribed textiles found in Egypt dating from the late antique and the early Islamic periods provide important cultural and documentary evidence in the form of movable personal objects. After the Arab conquest of Egypt, markings on cloth expanded official control of the textile industry. Tera's originally referred to a type of embroidered band, but over time, the term evolved to become a more generic designation for messages on cloth. And among the artifacts recovered from upper and middle Egypt burials, a small but important group of textiles demonstrates the intersections of religious cultures in post-conquest Egypt. So in this presentation, we'll show how interdisciplinary research methods are necessary to interpret these complex artifacts that represent a synthesis of both late antique and Arab cultures to create a distinctive form of Christian Tera's as a means to convey prayers and blessings. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds, as we know, hundreds of these so-called Coptic textiles flowed into collections around the world through the antiquities market, totally divorced from their context. So subsequently, the information content on these is generally pretty low. So what we were going for is trying to maximize the information content that we could start with to get to significance, to bring this material to the attention of scholarship. So today we've gathered data for more than 200 Greek and Coptic inscribed textiles in over 40 collections and there are certainly more to be found. The University of Michigan collection is especially noteworthy because it was created as a textile analog to the Papyrus Museum there. And note that this study excludes inscriptions that were written or painted on cloth. What we're trying to understand is the interaction between the medium and the content rendered in cloth. Inscribed textiles fall into distinctive categories, which I'll just give a very brief overview of. The most widely known Greek inscribed textiles are tapestry hangings where text provides a label for key figures. So in this example, Dionysus is on the left and figures of Paris and Athena in the middle with the Virgin Mary flanked by Michael and Gabriel on the left, on the right rather. And dating through this evidence is presented at the bottom of the slide. So after the Arab conquest of Egypt, inscribed Christian-themed tunic ornaments appear and their form represents a very major shift in Christian representation that continued into the 10th century. And the conspicuous use of religious representation dominated by Old Testament themes, such as the Joseph group of tapestries is presented here. And consistent with paprological evidence, Coptic entirely supplanted Greek as the language of inscription on cloth. And the interaction with Islamic culture is evident by the choice of Indian lac as the red dye stuff. This particular dye stuff is never seen in textiles pre-conquest. So when Tiraz emerged in Arab culture in the eighth century, we also see the form of Christian inscriptions involved from labeling represented figures to more elaborated inscriptions in Coptic script with more decorative designs. So this group of cloths is attributed to workshops in the Fayum region. But few cloths with elaborated Coptic inscriptions have been carbon dated. Now, given the size of the corpus, the most extensive text is found on inscribed funerary shrouds, which is the focus of the remainder of this presentation with about 45 examples in the corpus. Names and blessings on inscribed garments and household items serve as poignant appeals on behalf of loved ones. And collectively, these cloths demonstrate the co-mingling of religious messages and imagery on cloth. Rather than trying to discuss the entire body of the fragments, we will discuss this group through a case study of an unbuckled shroud from the Kelsey Museum at the University of Michigan. Number 88017 A&P has shown delivered. The diagram in the center describes our interdisciplinary research methods that brings scholars in relative fields together for non-invasive analysis and sampling, including dianalysis and radiocarbon dating. This is a working process. We want to share research today and show direction for a larger, fully founded project to study and publish this corpus. Our current focus is non-invasive analysis that brings the scholars, scholars, historians, technical and textile analysis and experimental archaeology together. The evidence suggests that this artifact was the product of a professional industry that produced luxury furniture throughout the British market. This slide provides an overview of the cloth fragments. The body flue shows that the clothes was used as infirmary wreaths. The surviving fragment, the two ends of a shroud, close surfaces survived, with a wide of 150 centimeters and 80 centimeters high in the center of the section is lost. The length is by reference of the one of the few intact pieces from another collection. The center wapping section was probably a plain wreath. Three elaborated lines of text survived in readable form, making this an extremely important document for historical analysis. So the text is written in a phyumics, a hidden dialect of Coptic. The B fragment contains a personal prayer and benediction which is shown by the green line that begins on the left side and continues to about three quarters of the way to the right. And this text is shown above in two sections along with the Coptic reading. And so the translation is Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, bless, help and protect the life of our servant, Sassinos, the priest, son of your servant, the deacon, whom he see the carpenter, amen, it shall be. And the text is readable, but there are several errors in the inscription. For example, as shown in the red box, the letter row is reversed. So the A fragment is shown above the B piece on this slide and the text in the two lines that appear above showing the particular sections of the Psalm, this is Psalm 22, it starts on the right side of line one. So right here on the right side of line one of the B fragment and continues with two lines on the A fragment progressing upward. The Psalm begins with the message, the Lord tends me as a shepherd. So the embellished letter forms are interesting and unusual within the corpus of similar fragments which may show the influence of Arabic aesthetic or more likely it's carried over from the Coptic manuscript tradition which uses similar colors and letter forms. This type of Shraddus Kriliabisti Shraddak loaded with details of provided plink as a form of conspicuous consumption. There are five registers of the located silk on this fragment. This image has been edited to make the white silk more visible. The magnified image of the silk brocading wefts is shown on the left and the higher magnification image on the right shows that the construction of the brocading weft is unusual. The wefts are inserted into the same sheet as the David Cron tree. The design program is symmetrical for both ends of the Shraddus with additional embellishment so stripes and embroidered ornaments. We see specific protection conventions for embroidered figures. There are errors show the starting and the finishing yarns. They are twisted together and are long rather than knotted. These long yarns are visible through the open weft on the right side. Note that the shorts were clearly made for a real purpose. There are no signs of wear or rework. The high twist yarn appears new and the wear very well preserved. Comparing the Kelsif fragment with a similar piece in the Papyrus Library collection in Vienna, we see that embroidery techniques and conventions are very similar to the Kelsif fragments. But comparing the inscription side by side, we can make a difference in the epic graphic between the two fragments. The Papyrus Library piece on the left has more ornate style with ligatures on the letter forms. The most important point is that we see evidence of very different lettering styles but they are post-adapted to the constraints of the closed medium and the embroidery technique. Analyzes of the new letters from also lines of the Kelsif fragment shows a high degree of consistency in letter form and method of production. For example, the red arrows mark the intersection of the diagonal and vertical lines. The join of both the bottom of the letters reflect a specific stylistic choice. For some letter forms, we see fairly consistent spacing with three or four reps between the letters but we also see examples of kerning in which spacing is adjusted for certain letters to give a more pleasing effect. This analyzes indicates that the letter spacing was planned in advance of the production. We also see individual differences in the top member of the towel caused by the starting and the ending point of the embroidery. The red arrows show the tip caused by improper alignment of the stitches that would not be seen if written with the stylus. In summary, our analyzes shows that three factors must be considered when analyzing textual inscriptions. Letter forms are adapted to the medium and the production method. We see a clear standardization of letters with consistent stylistic forms and the production method also influence letter forms as shown by the variations on the towel. Now turning to scientific analyzes, we have the die analyzes that search for the rena fragment with the same color as the calcipes. The black yarn was dyed with rhodo or indigo and likely an unknown dye source obtained with the deep black color. The red yarn was dyed with the red lactite which is notable because it fits with the change often in dye stuff to the in the ocean to wait after to have a conquest. So tie together the elements of this case study from a historical perspective, we see the centuries long practice of text as labels for representations was transformed into text dominant textile artifacts embellished with decorations. We see from a cross cultural influence standpoint that Christian use of text for making religious meaning merged with the messaging role of Islamic inscription to create a distinctive form of Christian to us. The inscribed prayers and blessings on cloth invoke God's protection as a projection and a defense of religious identity for a culture that was under external pressure. The technical analysis shows very clearly the details of construction indicate that a professional industry existed to produce funerary shrouds for the Christian market. Experimental reproduction provides a basis for interpreting the series of decisions including technology and work practices. Scientific methods of course provide specific information for comparison with like artifacts and other aspects of the material culture. Rigorous analysis of complex objects this is the point provides the need for ongoing collaboration and interaction throughout the process not just sort of parsing out roles and assignments which help us to interpret the interactions among various components. And as Karina mentioned and this is our thought too we wanna make sure to bring forward the contemporary relevance of this kind of research in that we see in the past and in the present projection of identity and beliefs through text on cloth provides insights into the contemporary culture of textile messages. So thank you, we are pursuing this as a research project and if any of you have stumbled across inscribed textiles Coptic inscribed textiles that fit this typology in your collections please let us know they're relatively rare but contain really valuable documentary information that should be published as a corpus. So thank you.