Through this collection of articles, the reader gets a wonderful insight into the production and trade of textiles and their sociological meaning in the ancient societies of the Mediterranean and central Europe. The authors present a wide range of archaeological material and most of them draw on further sources, such as textile finds, tools, depictions and written records. The topics of the papers are researched in depth by their authors. In a most convincing way they demonstrate that textile research in archaeology affords interdisciplinary and unconventional approaches when aiming at reconstructing the structures of ancient business activity.