Sailing Textiles from Prehistory to Early History: Exploring the Significance of Textiles and Fibres in Seafaring

by Serena Sabatini (Editor)

Sailing textiles studies how sails, rigging, ropes, and maritime textiles were produced, used, and exchanged from antiquity onward.

Sailing Textiles brings together researchers from across Europe to explore the production and use of sails, maritime textiles, rigging, and ropes, through an array of archaeological, historical, and textual evidence.

Much research into maritime textiles, such as the reconstruction of ancient vessels, is rooted in museum contexts without further academic discussion. This volume addresses that gap by presenting both case studies and wider discussions organised around three key sails and sail production from Antiquity to the 19th century; archaeological evidence for maritime exchange, sailing, and textile production linked to maritime activities; and boat technology, including the significance of ropes and rigging.

Covering a geographical range from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, the contributions draw on source materials based on archaeological evidence, classical literature, documentary records, and experimental research.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Summaries
List of contributors
Introduction

Part 1. Sails and sail production from Antiquity to the 19th century CE
1. From sheep to ship – the lifecycle of Roman sails
Madelaine Miller
2. The reconstruction and use of Viking Age Practical insights and perspectives from maritime experimental archaeology
Vibeke Bischoff and Tríona Sørensen
3. A discussion about canvas, linen, and sailcloth from the 17th and 18th materials, looms, tools, and weaving
Marie Ekstedt Bjersing
4. The art of sail-making in Malta
Claire Bonavia
5. A sailmaker’s story. Investigating historical Scandinavian sailmaking through a craftsman perspective
Marius Borg-Heggedal

Part 2. Archaeological evidence for maritime exchange, sailing, and textile production linked to maritime activities
6. Sailing in the Aegean Bronze Age
Tina Boloti
7. The emergence of Sail and Sail materials in Prehistoric Scandinavia
Boel Bengtsson
8. Long distance exchanges and Sailing in Bronze Age Sardinia
Serena Sabatini
9. Sewing at sea. Evaluation of Roman textile tools in underwater contexts off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula
Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez, Rafael Sabio González, and Soledad Solana Rubio
10. Sailing without shipwrecks? Comparing evidence for the use of sails in the Pre-Columbian Americas and Bronze Age Scandinavia
Mikael Fauvelle

Part 3. Boat technology and the significance of ropes and rigging
11. Late Bronze Age Aegean hull-shape, rigging, and seaworthiness
Angiolo Querci
12. The ‘sewn boat’ system from the Cala San Vicente wreck (Pollensa, Mallorca): new insights
Carmen Alfaro and Carlota Viñes
13. Ropemaking from bast and notes on the contribution of ropemaker Ole Magnus to the study of Scandinavian archaeological ropes
Olof Pipping and Mikkel Hollmann

160 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2026

Reviews

[Ida]

*Did not read this one, instead: ”House Urns: An European Late Bronze Age Trans-cultural Phenomenon” (2007) by the same author.