12/10/2026
The next seminar in the Leeds Centre for Ancient World and Classical Reception Studies Research Seminar Series takes place on Thursday (15 October) at 14.00 UK time. We will be welcoming our very own Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts (Leeds), who will be speaking on ‘From Loom to Goddess: Weaving, Cognition, and Women’s Religious Experience in Ancient Greece.’ All welcome to join on campus or online (details below)!
Abstract:
"Each year, the women of Athens wove a new robe for their goddess. The peplos, presented to the ancient olive-wood statue of Athena Polias at the climax of the Panathenaia, began its life nine months earlier, when the warp was ritually set up on the loom at the festival of the Chalkeia. This paper follows that textile through its full life: from fleece and spindle, through the long months of weaving, into the procession through the city’s streets, and finally onto the body of the goddess herself.
Research in experimental psychology has demonstrated that wearing symbolically meaningful clothing measurably alters cognition – a phenomenon known as ‘enclothed cognition.’ But what of making such clothing? Drawing together cognitive science, sensory archaeology, and the material evidence of ancient textile production, I argue that the weaving of sacred cloth constituted what I call here ‘productive cognition’: a sustained cognitive, sensory, and devotional transformation worked in the maker by the very object she was making. Standing at the warp-weighted loom – hands coated in lanolin, beating the weft into scenes of cosmic battle – the weaver’s thought was shaped, thread by thread, by the garment destined for her goddess.
Tracing the peplos from loom to procession to dedication, and setting it alongside the clothing dedicated by women to Artemis at Brauron, I aim to recover a dimension of ancient Greek religion that our male-authored sources almost entirely ignore: women’s religious experience as it was lived in the hands, the eyes, and the body. The sacred textile, it argues, was the connective tissue of Greek religion – an object that touched every body in the chain, from maker to carrier to goddess, and transformed each in turn."
Find out more about Ellie's work here: https://www.elliemackinroberts.net/
On campus venue: Psychology Seminar Room 2 (1.33)
Join online: https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fmeet%2F368511818153931%3Fp%3D6uw9kXluokmay1jl1R%26anon%3Dtrue&type=meet&deeplinkId=4a682a18-1d35-4bc5-b419-745fdefca49a&directDl=true&msLaunch=true&enableMobilePage=true&suppressPrompt=true
By attending this talk online, you will be agreeing to abide by the University of Leeds’ policy on dignity and mutual respect, which can be found at https://hr.leeds.ac.uk/info/6/support-for-staff/260/dignity-and-mutual-respect
Centre for Ancient World and Classical Reception Studies webpage:
https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/homepage/447/centre-for-ancient-world-and-classical-reception-studies
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Hello! I am Ellie Mackin Roberts. I am an Ancient Greek historian with a focus on material and visual culture. I work on Ancient Greek religious practices, and particularly how people interact with...
