Fabric and rite in the iberian cult spaces: fusayolas like object of study

Abstract

The  material  culture  related  to  the  manufacturing  of  fabric, fusayolas  or  loom  weights, predominantly, is  well documented  in  the  archaeological  register  of  the  different  iberan  sanctuaries and  cult  spaces.  However,  the  functional,  symbolic  or  even  social  interpretation  of  these  pieces remains  a  mistery  because  there  have  not  been  any  specific  researches  that  study  these  issues  in  a global  an  systematic  way.  We  still  do  not  know  if  it,  in  these  contexts,  had  a  ritual  meaning  like  an offering  or,  if  instead,  they  were instruments of the operative line of the “sacred fabric” offered to divinity. It is very probable that both meanings coexisted, all this was linked with the femenine world. Also,  it  is  necesary  to  define  the  context  of  use,  considering  the  characteristics  of  the  cult  space  or votive deposit, the chronology and the association to specifics rituals (rites of passage, founding rites, fertility  rites,  etc.).  Solely  from  a  specific  research,  starting  from  a  local  or  regional  scale,  we  could define the rol of this kind of material register in the iberian rituality. Due to this situation, we propouse a specific research around these elements to obtain more information about cult and social practices in iberian  protohistory.  Therefore,  this  article  contains  a  preliminary  research  about  specifics  objetcs such as fusayolas, as a starting point and exposure of intentions of what my future research will be.