Talk:Gauze

Damn, how was there not a gauze page before now? There's already a big one on the band muslimgauze (not that that's relevant). Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 07:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Every now and then I'll find one of these, like unguent, grist, brat... I guess everyone was busy making episode guides for their favorite sci-fi show... Jokestress 08:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

All too true. Someday I should just skip around in the dictionary for words that can be turned into actual non-wiktionary articles but probably haven't been. Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 08:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Petroleum Gauze?

What is it? Seems to have to do with wound dressings? --Cancun771 (talk) 12:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Biased edit

This edit ignores several sources that do in fact attribute the etymology of Gauze to Gaza, that explicitly mention its key role in disseminating the fabric from the port of Gaza (which is why in Spanish it is Gasa). I invite anyone to peruse the literature. It is not one man's opinion . Plus, the edit detailed high quality sources explaining just that. It should be undone. 2A10:8012:15:2C4:B162:4C99:6E6C:7241 (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

See also this revision for more sources. It is very clear that some editors are trying to downplay the connection to Gaza for political reasons. Please more eyes on this article are needed. 2A10:8012:15:2C4:B162:4C99:6E6C:7241 (talk) 14:25, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Attempts to link "gauze" to "Gaza" began with Du Cange (cited on the page). Du Cange says that perhaps (forte) they are connected, and further speculates that Gaza may have originally produced the fabric (quod Gaza Palæstinæ urbe primitus advectum sit). He does not cite, and no one has ever discovered, any physical, linguistic, or historical evidence to suggest that gauze originated in Gaza, beyond the phonetic similarity of the two words. Du Cange (inadvertently?) emends the Baden text to refer to "gazzatum", thus retrojecting this similarity to the 13th century, but in fact Baden (cited on the page) referred to "garzatum".

Western scholars very often attempt etymologies like Du Cange's gauze proposal, because the names of cities are better known than any other form of vocabulary, and because their own histories are rarely understood, making for complete blanks which can serve any etymological function. One can as easily say "gauze must be from Gaza, which therefore must have been a textile center" as "gaze must be from Gaza, which must have invented telescopes" as "gas must be from Gaza, which must be one giant oil rig". It's very convenient. For a similar example, in popular sources you can easily read that "keffiyeh" comes from Kufa in modern Iraq, and that therefore Kufa must have some historical connection to the headdress. But actually there is no reason to think this, beyond the two words sounding vaguely similar to someone with a limited Semitic vocabulary, and more convincing proposals include cuffia (the Late Latin source of English "coif") and kubaya (the Aramaic word for head covering, related to Biblical Hebrew koba). GordonGlottal (talk) 14:05, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Western scholars very often attempt etymologies like Du Cange's gauze proposal, because the names of cities are better known than any other form of vocabulary, and because their own histories are rarely understood, making for complete blanks which can serve any etymological function. One can as easily say "gauze must be from Gaza, which therefore must have been a textile center" as "gaze must be from Gaza, which must have invented telescopes" as "gas must be from Gaza, which must be one giant oil rig".

This is a fallacious argument; "their histories are rarely understood" does not apply to Gaza and Palestine, which does have well-understood history as a textile center. This history must not be erased, even though attempts are being made as we speak.

And I don't mean to ad hominem since I think the above counter-argument stands on its own, but given the circumstances I must point out that this fallacious argument is coming from a user with a clear political bias, given their edit history. Feigning neutrality, and then putting to question the validity of Palestine's well-known textile history due to the supposed lack of Western sources, while the people who carry that history are being killed every day, is disgusting. -- LodeRunner (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC) LodeRunner (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Also, given the edit history of this article , it is clear that you are patrolling it with the single objective of downplaying the Gaza connection. Your history shows that you don't seem that interested in textiles, but you are clearly very interested in other things related to Israel and Palestine. The bias of the patrolling is evident. -- LodeRunner (talk) 19:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Please direct me (and other editors) to any evidence of a historical connection between gauze and Gaza. Your reference is entirely about modern history and doesn't mention gauze. Reminder, the word garzatum/garças is first used about 800 years ago. GordonGlottal (talk) 20:28, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

The number of sources that have been marshalled in this article specifically to prevent any association of Gaza with gauze is a dreadful example of bad-faith editing that everyone should deplore. Editing shouldn't be this tendentious; we should pay equal attention to all inaccuracies rather than coming back, again and again, to defend an edit that says very little about gauze but a helluva lot about the editor's views on Gaza. Keep Wikipedia hasbara-free 2405:6E00:2228:FE80:11B6:DE96:DD4A:BEF0 (talk) 01:46, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Please direct me and other editors to any evidence of a historical connection between gauze and Gaza. Thanks. GordonGlottal (talk) 19:12, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

I am inviting you @HatesARage once again to provide any citation which discusses evidence of a historical Gazan textile industry. As far as I can tell based on the sources cited on the page, there is no link whatsoever between gauze and Gaza except that Du Cange thought they sounded similar. Thanks. GordonGlottal (talk) 12:36, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal There are sources included which support the history of Gazan textiles and significance in the silk and spice routes of the early middle ages. Quotations and sources provided.

"The Early Islamic period (7-8th centuries CE) yielded four (out of 310) silk textiles from Nahal 'Omer on the Spice Routes joining Petra, in the Edom Mountains of modern Jordan, and the mercantile outlets on the Mediterranean Sea, notably Gaza and El Arish. The most important silk textile assemblage in the Southern Levant was found near Jericho at Qarantal Cave 38 and dates to the medieval period (9th-13th centuries CE)."

Source: SHAMIR, Orit (Department of Archaeological Museums and Exhibits (in Israel) and Department of the International Exhibitions, Israel Antiquities authority)Head of the International Exhibitions Department, Textile Researcher Israel Antiquities Authority

SHAMIR, Orit (2022-06-15). "Silk Textiles from the Byzantine Period till the Medieval Period from Excavations in the Land of Israel (5th-13th Centuries CE): Origin, Transmission, and Exchange". Acta Via Serica. 7 (1): 53–82. doi:10.22679/AVS.2022.7.1.003

"The textiles excavated at Nahal Omer, a farming village on the Spice Routes joining Petra and Gaza from the Early Islamic period (7th century CE) display a remarkable variety of materials, techniques and dyes. Preserved by the arid climate, most of the textile material, much of which had been cut into small pieces, was discovered in waste dumps. Most significant are a number of cotton fragments decorated in the warp-ikat technique coloured in blue, brown, cream, reddish-brown and/or red"

Citation: Shamir, Orit, and Ana Baginski. "Stories behind Archaeological Textiles: Fragments from the Early Islamic Period till the Medieval Period in the Land of Israel." The Narrative Power of Clothes: Proceedings of the ICOM Costume Committee Annual Meeting, London, 25–29 June 2017, edited by Johannes Pietsch, ICOM Costume Committee, 2018.

"indeed textiles are mentioned in Assyrian tribute lists relating to Palestine (Browning 1988: 154-158). ANET 282 and ANET 283 mention locally-produced garments with multicoloured trimmings that were received by Tiglat Pileser III from the states of the southern Levant, including Damascus, Tyre, Israel and Gaza."

Source: Boertien, Jeannette H. (2009). Travelling Looms: Textile Production Crossing Borders. In: Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, Vol. 10, pp. 413–422. Amman: Department of Antiquities of Jordan. https://publication.doa.gov.jo/uploads/publications/25/SHAJ_10-413-422.pdf

There are direct linguistic links between the word ‘gauze’ in Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Hungarian, English, and French, all conveying a similar meaning. The Arabic gazz/kazz (قز) meaning raw silk, Persian gaz/kaz for coarse silk of little value, and Turkish gazī (گزی) referring to coarse cotton cloth. All sources are included in the revision.

Please ensure that ideological bias does not compromise historical accuracy with your edits. HatesARage (talk) 15:18, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Nahal Omer is not in Gaza. Are you claiming that the European word "gauze" is based on 8th century BCE textiles? What is your source? In any case, there is no question that, at whatever time Europeans began to use the word "gauze", the people of Gaza wore clothing. I will ask you, again, to provide any source with evidence for the claims you want to make in mainspace.GordonGlottal (talk) 20:59, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal, although Nahal Omer is not in Gaza, it lies on trade routes linking Petra to Gaza, showing Gaza’s historic role in textile trade in the seventh century. Claims denying Gaza’s textile history ignore archaeological evidence, including Assyrian tribute lists mentioning Gaza garments and textile fragments studied by Orit Shamir of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Boertien’s research on Jordan also supports textile production and exchange in the region from Assyrian tribute lists. A definite answer in your argument that there is no history or that this theory has been discarded is also just as biased

Reputable medieval sources and linguistic parallels in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish support a plausible link to Gaza. Removing references to Hungarian and Roman Bologna sources that are cited by the CNRTL is disingenuous. Closing the case on this theory overlooks important scholarship.

The term appears in medieval Latin as garza in Bologna in 1250 and Rome in 1361, and as gazzatum in Budapest in 1279, according to Du Cange. The English gauze (see the New English Dictionary) and the German gaze (see Kluge) were borrowed from French, but exactly how the word and the fabric entered Europe remains uncertain.

Thanks,

@HatesARage HatesARage (talk) 15:38, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm getting a bit frustrated. Du Cange tells us very clearly where he believes there is a word "gazzatum", and we can all look at the book he's citing, which has only: garzatum. I've linked it on the page. Careful reference works (like the excellent Lexicon mediae et infimae latinitatis Polonorum. Vol. 4 p. 497) are not shy about pointing this out. Latin "garzatum" is related to the Italian verb "garzatore" (to nap cloth), as is well understood by specialists. There is literally no evidence whatsoever to connect either to Gaza. Anyone who has much experience with pre-modern reference works knows that they rely on hand-written collation, often by assistants, and are therefore very prone to typos of this kind. Or it's possible the Du Cange intended to emend the word, but why wouldn't he say so? IMO I've treated it generously on the page by assuming that. The word is garzatum. There is no gazzatum.

Obviously the people of Gaza have used textiles for thousands of years. Archaeological finds confirm this, but are hardly necessary—almost every location on planet Earth could say the same. This is very, very far from demonstrating that Gaza ever had industrial textile production, a characteristic textile, or a textile export industry—let alone one connected to garzatum or gauze. Even if it had had a textile industry in Assyrian times, what could that possibly prove about the likely source of garzatum, first mentioned more than 2,000 years later, or gaze, 2,300 years later?!

There's really no shortage of information about 16th-century Gaza, in the period that gaze and gauze appear. If it had a textile industry, one of the many hundreds of contemporary books written in Gaza or about Gaza would mention it. GordonGlottal (talk) 20:00, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal added reduntant links to dictionaries that themselves reference to an already referenced source.

The claim "and no trace of a historical Gazan textile industry has been found." is based on these links.

[10] https://archive.org/details/etymologische00lokoguat/page/54

Lokotsch, Karl (1927). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Europäischen (Germanischen, Romanischen und Slavischen) Wörter Orientalischen Ursprungs

This is where the claim is stated, that no textile industry has been found. A simple research proves this is false, since Gaza was a port city and an important trade node for cloth.

[4] https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/gaze

This french dictionary, with "GAZE : Etymologie de GAZE", ultimately referes to the FEW, Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, https://lecteur-few.atilf.fr/index.php/page/lire/e/125235

which describes how Deiz supported the claim that the word originated from the port city of Gaza, while Littmann refuted it with, wait for it, "no textile industry has proven to be documented in Gaza". That sounds oddly similar to what Lokotsch claimed. Oh, look what the source is, Lokotsch. @GordonGlottal also ignores the bit where it says: "However this argument against Diez is hardly consclusive since inland products often are named after the port which it is shipped through and traded.

[7] https://books.google.com/books?id=poMYAAAAIAAJ

I don't think @GordonGlottal ever read this, since it refers to Gauze being of Persian origin, not belonging to the Spanish-Arabic dictionary, the origin is unknown and probably arrived through commerce. You can find the pdf here:

https://desocuparlapieza.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/corominas-joan-breve-diccionario-etimolc3b3gico-de-la-lengua-castellana.pdf

[11] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Derivati_da_nomi_geografici_F_L/pJ1xmEtMa8gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA230&printsec=frontcover

This refers straight to Lokotsch [10], so it's just repeating his words and doesn't add new weight of proof.

I think it's pretty obvious someone is making false claims and creating inaccurate references that doesn't support the claim so it looks well funded, hoping no one will actually read them. Lardglob (talk) 14:29, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

You say "A simple research proves this is false". Please point me and other editors to any evidence of a historical Gazan textile industry and/or any evidence of gauze being related to Gaza. Thanks! GordonGlottal (talk) 02:51, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

References

Two separate meanings mixed up

For encyclopedia purposes, gauze has two quite different meanings, though both belong in this article:

1. Gauze is a woven fabric made in one specific way, and called "gauze" because it has that weave. (Under this meaning, there is no such thing as non-woven gauze.)

2. Gauze is a fabric intended to function in a certain way, and called "gauze" based on function. (Under this meaning, the way it's made is not important.)

I think the article should begin with something like the following. My wording is not important, I just want us to begin by saying there are two meanings, and it's important that this be the very first sentence in the article. Here's a rough draft:

Gauze has two meanings: it is a fabric made using a particular weaving technique, or any fabric functionally similar to it. TooManyFingers (talk) 19:19, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Edit war

GordonGlottal and HatesARage, you are reverting each other's edits without discussing anything here on the talk page. Please begin a discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 see above discussion GordonGlottal (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

My mistake. I looked only one section upward. Please settle on a consensus before continuing the back-and-forth reverts, one of which included a revert to a completely wrong version with a nonexistent template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:42, 3 July 2025 (UTC)