Projects

SNSF Postdoctoral Fellowship (2026–present)

Project: ‘Textile Landscapes of Cyprus (TeLaCY): Resources and Strategies for Textile Production from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period’

The project ‘Textile Landscapes of Cyprus’ (TeLaCY) aims to synthesise and model, in the long term, the resources and productive strategies behind ancient textile manufacture in Cyprus. Its chronological range goes from the Bronze Age, which sees the appearance of organised textile work, to the Hellenistic period, when large industrial estates are documented (c. 2500–58 BCE). Recently, textile research has become a strong research field. Its dynamism has led to important developments in Cypriot archaeology, with the appearance of the first systematic studies dedicated to assessing textile assemblages. Textile studies, however, have minimally engaged with questions regarding landscape use, meaning the local capacity of specific territories to exploit their natural resources for this manufacture. This is especially relevant in the case of Cyprus, where textile production held significant social and economic importance and developed to a specialised level, producing a surplus or added value. This manufacturing process depended extensively on natural resources, such as agricultural and herding land, water, etc.

Thus, the key questions driving this research are: what were Cyprus’s textile production strategies and specific needs? Did the island possess all the necessary resources and the capacity for managing them? Answers are sought through a multidisciplinary approach that combines the study of evidence related to ancient textile production in Cyprus with the analysis of the island’s landscapes, supported by the use of innovative methods of textile estimation and network analysis. By mapping the evidence and examining diachronically regional site clusters, the results of the project will outline the developments in the use of textile landscapes throughout different key periods of Cypriot archaeology. TeLaCY represents a unique opportunity to forge and elaborate on a replicable research strategy to systematically incorporate landscape analysis into textile studies, fostering dialogue between archaeology and other disciplines and encouraging public reflection on past and present challenges, like producing goods in fragile landscapes.

SNSF Postoctoral Fellowship grant number 234366
 

E.J. Peltenburg Fellowship in Cypriot Prehistory (2022–2023)

Project: ‘The Fabric Edge. Investigating Textile Production and Its Socio-Economic Role in the Middle and Late Cypriot Transition’
 

Project Curator (2022) and Research Assistant (2022–2024)

Project: ‘Being an Islander: Art and Identity of the Large Mediterranean Islands’ (PI Dr Anastasia Christophilopoulou)

Research Focus

  • Archaeology of textile production in Cyprus, with a focus on technology, chaîne opératoire and craft practices
  • Socio-economic organisation of textile production, knowledge transmission, identity formation through practice
  • Analysis of textile tools and remains
  • Regional and inter-regional connections between Cyprus, the Aegean, and the eastern Mediterranean explored through textile technologies and practices
  • Integrated study of textile production and environmental resources, including raw materials, landscapes, and productive environments
  • Methodological and theoretical approaches to textile archaeology combining material culture analysis, experimental archaeology, cultural heritage, and contextual analysis
  • Ceramics in Early and Middle Bronze Age Cyprus and prehistoric to medieval North Africa
  • Archaeological theory (social learning and communities of practice, New Materialisms)
  • Post-survey, post-excavation analysis and management of archaeological assemblages and management of archaeological archives

Academic career

Jan 2026–present: Advanced Postdoctoral Researcher, PI of the project ‘Textile Landscapes of Cyprus (TeLaCY): Resources and Strategies for Textile Production from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period’, Swiss National Science Foundation Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship (grant number 234366)

Dec 2024–Nov 2025: Research Assistant at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, (Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge) for the reorganisation and cataloguing of archaeological and documentary archives of past projects, with integration and cross-referencing of records.

Nov 2023–Aug 2024: Finds and Environmental Processing Supervisor (A428) at MOLA–Museum of London Archaeology.

Jun 2022–Mar 2023: Postdoctoral Researcher ‘2022 E.J. Peltenburg Fellow in Cypriot Prehistory’ at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI), Nicosia. PI of the project: ‘The Fabric Edge. Investigating Textile Production and Its Socio-Economic Role in the Middle and Late Cypriot Transition’

Mar 2022– May 2022: Project Curator in the project ‘Being an Islander. Art and Identity of the Large Mediterranean Islands’ and for the related exhibition ‘Islanders. The Making of the Mediterranean’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum (University of Cambridge). Afterwards, I remained a non-stipendiary Research Associate of the project until June 2024.

Sept 2016–Nov 2020: PhD in Archaeology at the University of Manchester (UK). Project and thesis title ‘Tracing Ancient Textiles: Production, Consumption and Social Uses in Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Cyprus (2800–1450 BCE)’, funded by AHRC North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership and The University of Manchester.

Conference organisation

12/03/2026–13/03/2026 Co-organiser of the workshop ‘CraftCY. Materialising Past Crafting through Heritage and Practice’

28/08/2024–31/08/2024 Co-organiser of session #717 ‘Interwoven. Textile exchanges across the Mediterranean from prehistory to us’ at the 30th EAA Annual Meeting at University of Rome – La Sapienza

30/08/2023–02/09/2023 Co-organiser of session #305 ‘Weaving and wearing narratives of identity. Production, trade, and consumption’ at the 29th EAA Annual Meeting at Queen’s University of Belfast

14/11/2018–16/11/2018 Co-organiser of the international conference ‘Islands in Dialogue (ISLANDIA). International Postgraduate Conference in the Prehistory and Protohistory of the Mediterranean Islands’ at the University of Torino in collaboration with the University of Manchester

Publications

ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9555-0018

 

Edited books

Longhitano G., Grömer K., Dickey A., Muti G., Hitchens S., eds. (2026). Personal Adornment in Past Societies: Weaving and Wearing Identity. Cham: Springer.

Albertazzi G., Muti G., Saggio A., eds. (2021). Islands in Dialogue (Islandia). Proceedings of the First International Postgraduate Conference in the Prehistory and Protohistory of the Mediterranean Islands. Roma: Artemide Editore.

Book chapters

Bombardieri L., and Muti G. (2017). Miscellaneous artefacts, in: Bombardieri L. Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A Middle Bronze Age Community in Cyprus. Excavations 2009–2014. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology CXLV. Uppsala: Åström Editions, pp. 248–250.

Muti G. (2017). Clay weights, in: Bombardieri L., Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A Middle Bronze Age Community in Cyprus. Excavations 2009–2014. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology CXLV. Uppsala: Åström Editions, pp. 236–239.

Muti G. (2017). Spindle whorls, in: Bombardieri L., Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A Middle Bronze Age Community in Cyprus. Excavations 2009–2014. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology CXLV. Uppsala: Åström Editions, pp. 219–236.

Journal papers

Villani A., Muti G. (2025). There is no smoke without fire. Analysis and interpretation of fire destruction episodes and abandonments in Early and Middle Cypriot settlements, Studii de Preistorie 21/2024, pp. 137–170.

Muti G. (2024). Discoid loom weights on Cyprus: new insights on the adoption of practice-related knowledge from the Aegean, Levant 56 (1), pp. 50–65.

Muti G. (2022).  Through the eye of a needle. A Textile-based perspective on the Chalcolithic – Bronze Age transition in Cyprus, Near Eastern Archaeology 85 (1), pp. 24–32.

Bombardieri L., Albertazzi G., and Muti G. (2022). By choice and by nature? Investigating the environment of textile production in Bronze Age Kouris Valley (Cyprus), Byrsa 39–40, pp. 1–30.                      

Bombardieri L., and Muti G. (2018). To weave or not to weave? Textile production and the development of a technological habitus in Cypriot prehistory, Origini XLI, pp. 25–52.

Bombardieri L., and Muti G. (2018). Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A textile community of practice in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus, Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae XXXI, pp. 25–38.

Papers in edited volumes

Muti, G. (2025). Textile production in Cyprus between the Middle and Late Bronze Age: thread making and weaving in the Famagusta and Morphou regions, in: Spanditaki S., Margariti C., and Iancu A., eds., Tradition and Innovation in Textile Production in the Mediterranean World and Beyond. Proceeding of the Conference Purpureae Vestes VIII, Athens. Athens, pp.127–137.

Bombardieri L., Amadio M., Muti G. (2023). Shades of red. Use and contexts of earth based and plant-based dyes and pigments at Middle Bronze Age Erimi, in: Voskos I., Kloukinas D., Georgotas A., Marda-Stypsianou A., and Mantzourani E. (eds.), Everyday Life in Prehistoric Cyprus (ca. 10000–1700 BC), Nicosia:  Åströms Förlag, pp. 149–166.

Muti G., Albertazzi G. (2022). At the roots of production. Early and Middle Bronze Age Kouris Valley (Cyprus) as a ‘textile environment’, in: Aulsebrook, S., Żebrowska, K., Lewartowski, K., and Ulanowska, A. (eds.), Sympozjum Egejskie: Papers in Aegean Archaeology. Volume III. Warsaw Archaeological Series. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 51–65.

Romani, S., Muti, G., Pettiti, P. (2021), Il ruolo della donna e l’immaginario femminile nell’isola di Afrodite/The role of women and the female imaginary on the island of Aphrodite, in: Bombardieri, L., and Panero E. (eds.), Cipro Crocevia delle Civiltà/Cyprus Crossroad of Civilizations – Exhibition Catalogue. Rome: De Angelis Editore, pp. 133–146.

Douglas S., Muti G. (2019). A case of identity. Investigating the symbolism of spindle whorls in Early–Middle Cypriot tombs, in: Lewartowski K., Ulanowska A., and Żebrowska K. (eds.), Sympozjum Egejskie: Papers in Aegean Archaeology. Volume II. Warsaw: University of Warsaw, pp. 19–30.

Muti G., Fissore M., Saggio A., Monaco M. (2019). Symbols beyond Work Activity? Towards the Evaluation of the Significance of Spindle Whorls in Early and Middle Bronze Age South Coast Cemeteries, in: Glörfeld D., Kittig K., Morstadt B., and von Rüden C. (eds.),The Many Face(t)s of Cyprus 14th Meeting of Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology. Bonn: Verlag Dr Rudolf Habelt Gmbh.

Muti G. (2017). Following the fil rouge. Productive, economic, and social aspects of textile dyeing in Middle and Late Cypriot communities, in: Bombardieri L., Amadio M, and Dolcetti F. (eds.), An Unexpected Journey. Cypriote Early Communities in Continuity and Transition. Proceedings of the Postgraduate Meeting of Cypriot Archaeology, Torino, 25–27 November 2015. Roma: Artemide Editore, pp. 19–45.

Muti G. (2017). The age of innocence. Parallel young lives in Bronze Age Crete and Cyprus, in: Lewartowski K., Ulanowska A., and Żebrowska K. (eds.), Sympozjum Egejskie: Papers in Aegean Archaeology. Volume I. Warsaw: University of Warsaw, pp. 47–56.

Reviews                                                                                                                                                                                   

Muti G. (2019). Review of L. Badre, E. Capet and B. Vitale, Tell Kazel au Bronze Récent. Études céramiques, Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 211, Beyrouth, Presses de l’Ifpo, 2018. Topoi 22/1, pp. 685–688.

Muti G. (2018). Review of L. Zavagno, Cyprus between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600–800). An Island in Transition, Abingdon-New York, NY, Routledge, 2017 (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies). Medioevo Greco 18, pp. 501–503.

Muti G. (2017). Review of A. Nicolaou-Konnari and C. Schabel (eds.), Lemesos. A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015 (Cyprus Historical and Contemporary Studies 2). Medioevo Greco 17, pp. 517–519.

Muti G. (2016). Review of S. Rogge and M. Grünbart (eds.), Medieval Cyprus. A Place of Cultural Encounter. Conference in Münster, 6-8 December 2012, Münster–New York, Waxmann, 2015 (Schriften des Instituts für Interdisziplinäre Zypern-Studien 11). Medioevo Greco 16, pp. 495–497.