This monograph bears the title Le monde grec des foulons. Histoire et archéologie d’un métier du textile dans l’Orient grec (which may be translated as The Ancient Greek World of Fullers: History and Archaeology of a Textile Profession in the Greek Orient), yet the book offers considerably more than the title suggests. It is a genuine tour de force: a cultural history of fulling that spans Greek, Roman, Egyptian and even medieval Europe.
In the introduction, Enora Le Quéré formally delimits the study to the period from the sixth century BCE to the fourth century CE. In practice, however, the chronological scope is broader, encompassing earlier material, such as Linear B tablets, and extending into the medieval period through both textual and iconographic sources. In particular, the inclusion of medieval and even early modern illustrations proves highly effective for elucidating the technical aspects of fulling, washing, bleaching, dyeing, and related textile processes.
The reference in the title to the “Greek orient” remains deliberately imprecise. While it might be understood as referring primarily to the Anatolian coast, the book draws equally on evidence from mainland Greece and, above all, from Greek-language sources in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Egypt, in fact, provides some of the richest and most detailed documentation for the practices under discussion.
Le Quéré’s work actively engages with Miko Flohr’s influential studies on Roman fulling. Her explicit aim is to produce a comparable history for the Greek-speaking world. While Flohr’s work serves as a conceptual and methodological point of departure, Le Quéré goes beyond it by introducing new perspectives and by identifying significant differences between Greek and Roman practices. Another major academic point of reference is Kerstin DroßKrüpe’s economichistorical analyses of textile production in Roman Egypt, which inform Le Quéré’s own economic discussions.
In her wide-ranging and clearly written introduction, Le Quéré explicitly situates her work within the collaborative and interdisciplinary traditions of the École des Annales. This intellectual inspiration is evident throughout the book. It requires scholarly ambition to attempt such a comprehensive synthesis while simultaneously maintaining a high level of empirical detail, and the author succeeds in doing so.
Methodologically, the study is interdisciplinary, diachronic, and comparative. It is structured around three principal themes: techniques, crafts, and workspaces. Each chapter presents the evidence in broadly chronological order, beginning with Classical and Hellenistic Greece and moving on to Asia Minor and Egypt.
Earlier scholarship on fulling in antiquity emerged primarily from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century studies of ancient technology, based largely on museum objects and surviving textiles. Because very few fulling workshops were archaeologically preserved (or identified), these studies depended heavily on literary sources, which often portray noisy and dirty trades in moralizing and disrespectful terms. Archaeological discussions moreover have focused disproportionately on two well‑known archaeological sites, Ostia and Pompeii, whose evidence came to dominate interpretations of both fullers and dyers. Le Quéré rightly emphasizes that archaeological discoveries over the past several decades, including workshops at Delos, Helike, and Corinth, have significantly expanded the evidentiary base and require a reassessment of earlier conclusions.
A further advance in the study of fulling came with twentieth-century excavations and with progress in the publication of epigraphic materials of a private nature, especially funerary monuments and inscriptions relating to professional associations. Conceptually, the field has also been reshaped by approaches drawn from material culture studies, which shift attention away from institutions and legal categories toward tools, techniques, materials, and bodily practices.
More recently, experimental archaeology has begun to shed light on the chemical processes and technical procedures involved in fulling. Such research remains difficult to access, as it is unevenly documented and published and often circulated outside traditional academic venues. Nevertheless, a greater integration of experimental archaeological data might have further enriched the monograph.
Throughout the book, textual and archaeological sources are often examined separately but are consistently brought together in the concluding discussions. The systematic summary sections at the end of each chapter and subchapter are particularly helpful and enhance the book’s usability.
The monograph is divided into four main chapters, each addressing a different dimension of fulling and each drawing on distinct bodies of evidence.
Chapter I (p. 29-82) analyses the textual sources. These include epigraphic evidence from funerary monuments and dedicatory inscriptions of individuals and professional groups, as well as literary texts ranging from Aesop’s fables and Aeschylus’ tragedies to philosophical reflections in Plato. Plato’s references to fulling, in particular, form part of his textile metaphors for the ideal state. The most concrete and technical information, however, derives from private letters and business archives in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.
Chapter I focuses on technique: what fulling entailed, and how it related to adjacent occupations and crafts. Le Quéré provides a detailed discussion of the substances used in washing and fulling, including lye, alkali, natron, and soapwort (saponaria officinalis), attested, for example, in the Zenon archive (P. Cair. Zen. III 59430). The technical complexity of the craft is reflected in its terminology: across Greek and Roman sources, no fewer than seventeen occupational designations are identified for practitioners involved in washing and fulling.
Although Aristophanes (Ploutos 166‑167) distinguishes between those who are fulling cloth and those who are washing sheepskins, and despite the wide range of professional titles, Le Quéré convincingly demonstrates the proximity and frequent overlap of these specializations. Indeed, while the book’s title explicitly addresses “a textile profession”, one of its central conclusions lies in showing that fulling encompassed a broad range of activities and skills.
Within the logic of artisanal production, the fuller intervened at multiple points in the chaîne opératoire of wool textiles, participating not only in finishing processes but also in maintenance, repair, and hygiene. Fullers were responsible for cleaning, washing, bleaching, surface treatment, and very likely dyeing. For this reason, fulling does not fit neatly into a rigidly linear model of the chaîne opératoire. The study thus implicitly invites us to reconsider of how crafts were defined in antiquity and how their boundaries and overlaps should be conceptualized.
Chapter II (pages 83-155) turns to the archaeological evidence, focusing on the spatial organization of fulling and the placement of workshops within urban and rural landscapes. Here Le Quéré draws on her experience with the fuller workshops of Delos. The chapter also offers careful methodological reflections on how to identify and classify fulling installations.
Importantly, the author avoids evolutionary explanations that would associate increasing multi-functionality with later historical periods. Early fullers were not necessarily more specialized than their Roman or Late Antique counterparts, nor does the degree of specialization correlate straightforwardly with rural versus urban contexts. Instead, specialization emerges as a historically dependent phenomenon that must be assessed through the combined analysis of terminology, archaeological context, regional traditions and technical craft requirements.
Chapter III (pages 157-220) examines fullers as individuals and as social and gendered groups. Epigraphic evidence attests Athenian fullers already in the second half of the sixth century BCE (e.g. IG I³ 554, 616, 905), where they appear in a religious context, including figures such as Polykles, Simon, and Polyxenos, son of the fuller Mneson. Papyrological sources from Egypt further inform about a range of professional and semiprofessional practitioners. The social identity of fullers proves difficult to pin down because it covered a wide spectrum: from workshop-owning professionals with employees, to loosely organized labor groups, itinerant workers, and men and women combining fulling, washing, and dyeing according to clients’ needs and demand.
The Egyptian evidence for female fullers is particularly compelling and raises the question of whether women’s involvement in fulling has been systematically overlooked elsewhere or subsumed under other occupational labels such as “washer.” Quantitative data from villages and the countryside show that fullers formed a common and familiar socio-economic group, recognised by other socio-economic groups. Fullers in Egypt were located in the cities and also in villages, in contrast to dyers, who appear more concentrated in larger urban centers. Although Greek literary authors often mock or distance themselves from fullers, funerary monuments attest to professional pride and recognition. Significantly, Theophrastus, the successor to Aristotle as head of the Lyceum in 323 BCE, was reportedly the son of a fuller from Lesbos (Diogenes Laertius 5.2).
Chapter IV (pages 221-273) offers a detailed micro and macro-economic analysis of fulling, providing an innovative complement to the cultural and terminological discussions of the previous chapters. Engaging with long-standing debates over the nature of the ancient economy, Le Quéré follows scholars such as Kai Ruffing in applying modern economic and financial concepts including investment, transaction costs, basket of consumables, inflation and deflation. Drawing mainly on papyri from the third century BCE to the third century CE, she correlates the cost of living with the price of clothing and food, especially grain. The aim is to situate expenditures for fulling in the ancient economy and in the household economy. The analysis demonstrates that new clothing represented a substantial expense, potentially expanding the market for fullers who cleaned, repaired, and refurbished used garments. Price volatility further reflects economic instability and contextualizes the reforms of Diocletian and Ptolemy IV. Le Quéré also reconstructs the revenues and expenses of fulling workshops, showing that operating costs, notably for soap products, natron, and taxation, were significant.
Particularly valuable is the attention paid to the close relationship between fullers and their clients. Fullers handled garments and household textiles that belonged to the most intimate sphere of daily life, serving individuals across all levels of society.
Ultimately, the book prompts readers to reconsider fulling as part of a broader knowledge sphere encompassing fibers, texture, water, humidity, hygiene, and practices of purification. The title may thus be somewhat misleading, not least because Egypt provides some of the most important source material, and the designation of Egypt as part of the “Orient” reveals more about historiographical conventions than about geography.
The monograph inspires because of its bold and broad approach. It presents a cultural and economic history of fulling and can inspire students and scholars to dare combining sources and new theories. More than fifty years ago, textile scholar John Peter Wild observed that “virtually nothing is known about fulling before the Roman conquest.” This was true for many years. With Enora Le Quéré’s monograph, this statement can no longer be sustained.
Marie-Louise B. Nosch, University of Copenhagen
Publié dans le fascicule 1 tome 128, 2026, p. 237-240