Dr. Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi is a Marie Skłodowska Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen, leading the project “EgYarn. Unravelling the thread: textile production in New Kingdom Egypt”. She obtained her PhD in Archaeology from the University of Venezia – Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of Prof. Lucio Milano. For her doctoral thesis, entitled “Textile Tools from Egypt and Southern Levant”, she analysed the different typologies of tools related to the production of textiles used in these two areas across a broad chronological timeframe, from the Neolithic Period to 600 BCE. Based on this research, she was able to shed new light on the trends and development of the tools as well as the specificities of each region and period.

Her research interests include archaeology, material culture, social and economic organization and the exploitation of resources. Her research also includes the study of objects in Museum collections, such as the Museo Egizio in Turin, the Louvre Museum and Berlin and, in Egypt, she is a member of the IFAO (Institut français d’archéologie orientale) mission at Deir el-Medina. She has published the results of her work in several academic journals and has presented her research at international conferences.

Within the framework of the Medjehu project, Chiara will study wooden spindles, spindle whorls and other objects relating to the processing of fibres and the production of textiles. One objective of this research is to undertake a technical analysis of each tool in comparison with the remains of fibres and textiles found at Deir el-Medina in order to provide a more detailed assessment of manufacturing processes.