"The cultivation of flax appears in a few texts from the monastic context. Both a monastic community and an individual monk could entered into a contract on flax cultivation with peasants. Raw material could also be acquired by monks on the market. Large communities raised sheep and goats, animals that were relatively easy to feed in a semi-desert terrain. However, even large communities were not always self-sufficient to provide wool. For the time being, we have no evidence of production in the monastic context of textiles made of camel wool, cotton or silk.
The impact of the gender dimension and community structure on the labour division is visible in spinning and weaving processes. In the masculine communities from the mixed-sex federations and monasteries, linen clothes and other fabrics were made by monks who were weavers. The nuns wove their own linen tunics and they took care of the spinning of linen “for the brothers’ tunics”. The wool clothes and blankets were made for the whole community in the female monasteries. Monks living in small cenobitic communities and those in the semi-anachoretic communities took care of the spinning of linen themselves. We have few information about monastic cloth produced in semi-anachoretic communities. However, it is obvious that anchorites bought certain clothes from the outside world. The monks, at least in the Theban area, were specialized in production of funerary fabrics: strips, shrouds, and funerary tunics. In addition to its practical and economic importance, textile production played a role in the ascetic life of monks and nuns.
As regarding official monastic garb, it was worn by the monk in specific situations, such as during participation in the liturgy, whereas “ordinary” clothes would be worn for daily tasks and for sleeping. This topic also raises the issue of clothing as marker of status and social rank.
The issue of different types of loom used for various purposes in broader context then monastic one, led my investigation to the question, what is a “Tarsian loom” ? It seems that at least from 2nd to 5th c. AD, a specialised weaver 'tarsikarios' worked on a large loom adapted to manufacture tunics woven in one piece with sleeves. I have also also identified the foot strap loom in iconographic and papyrological sources. The use of such a loom in Egypt has so far been completely ignored by researchers.
The results of the research carried out within the MONTEX project have been presented to the academic public at numerous international conferences, workshops and seminars, and some of them have been published in peer reviewed articles as well as in a collective book that I have edited: 'Egyptian Textiles and their Production: ""Word"" and ""Object""'."
