La filière textile en Égypte dans l’Antiquité tardive : capital, métiers et division du travail
Résumé
The article questions the consequences on Egyptian textile production of the country’s
integration into the Roman Empire. First, important papyri (accounts and receipts of public orders) are considered, alongwith the pieces of clothes found at the Egyptian and Eastern sites: those texts and artefacts highlight that the production was characterized by high volumes and significant levels of standardization. Secondly, the article explores late antique loan contracts in which a merchant gives gold in exchange for the processing of the first stages of flax production. During this period, a part of the
textile production was thus controlled by traders, who obtained the threads and clothes at low prices, integrating high hidden interests into the price of the product. The article concludes that this system shares similarities with the modern putting out system, in which the producer was not merely a craftsman, but rather a hired worker within a productive chain in the hands of merchants.