Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade, Graduate Student Museum Study Day, Dumbarton Oaks, October 13, 2023

In conjunction with the ongoing interdepartmental project “Passage Between Worlds: Exchanges Along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the Middle Ages,” the 2023 Dumbarton Oaks Museum Graduate Study Day Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade will consider Indian cotton textiles found in Egypt, India, and Indonesia and emblematic of a vibrant maritime trade network found east of the Mediterranean Sea in the late antique and medieval periods.

The workshop will be co-taught by Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Dumbarton Oaks), Anna Kelley (University of St. Andrews), Sumru Belger Krody (The George Washington Museum and The Textile Museum), and Arielle Winnik (Yale University), who will discuss the trade, manufacture, and use of textiles across the Indian Ocean in the premodern periods.

In the morning, these scholars will present their current research, with a particular focus on recent exhibitions featuring Indian textiles. After lunch, participants will spend the afternoon studying textiles from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection in object storage and the Cotsen Textiles Collection at the Textile Museum.

Funding 
Dumbarton Oaks will reserve participants’ accommodation in its on-site Guest House for one night (October 12) and will arrange for Friday lunch in the Refectory. Participants should book their own travel to Washington, to be reimbursed up to $600 upon submission of receipts. 

Applications 
Currently enrolled graduate students in good standing are eligible to apply. Dumbarton Oaks does not sponsor J1 visas for Study Day attendees. We encourage applicants from graduate programs in art history, archaeology, history, classics, religious studies, and other fields who might benefit from close engagement with our collections and from training in material culture approaches.