Textiles and Women in Greek Funerary Ritual

Wendy E. Closterman (Bryn Athyn College)

The prominent role that women played in ancient Greek funerary ritual is well known. Women took the lead especially in the first stage of the funeral, the prothesis or laying out of the corpse. After washing and dressing the corpse for the funeral, women mourned over it in the house, crying aloud, tearing their hair, and performing ritual laments. Women’s roles also continued long after the funeral itself. They made visits to the gravesite to perform post-funereal tomb cult. But evidence points to another, less-recognized contribution that started long before the funeral: the production of funerary textiles.

Textiles constituted a substantial part of Greek funerary equipment. Funerary legislation for Athens, the Labyad phratry of Delphi, Iulis on Kea, Gambreion, and Sparta limited the amount, expense, or color of the textiles, including the clothing of mourners and deceased, as well as materials like the shroud, biercloth, and pillow used in the funeral. Such laws suggest that textiles were a substantial part of funerary expense and display. A 7^th century B.C.E. terracotta model depicting a corpse in transit to the grave during the second stage of the funeral (the ekphora) offers a particularly vivid example of nature of funerary textiles, showing the use of patterns and friezes. Women’s involvement in funerary textile production perhaps is most famously portrayed in the Odyssey’s well-known tale of Penelope weaving and unraveling a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. This scene hints at the scale of the task and importance of the obligation women had to produce funerary textiles for their family. By examining such textual and iconographic evidence, this paper argues that the production of funerary textiles constitutes a significant aspect of a woman’s involvement in Greek funerary ritual.