Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms Part 4

lib._ But to work an upright warp-weighted loom with heddles is attended with great practical inconvenience, and this difficulty has, no doubt, been one of the chief causes of the complete discardance of this cla.s.s of loom.

In spite of the evidence in favour of the existence of warp weighted looms, the Director of the Hermannstadt Museum, Dr. v.

Kimakovicz-Winnicki, sees fit to deny their existence. He found that in some parts of Transylvania the peasants use wooden pyramids (see Fig. 18) similar to the Roman warp weights for winding the thread from the spindle on to the shuttle. For this purpose sockets are bored into the thin or top end of two pyramids, which are placed just so far apart that a spindle can rest horizontally with one end in the socket of one pyramid, and the other end of the spindle in the socket of the other pyramid, and the thread in being wound off on to the shuttle causes the spindle to revolve in the sockets. From this he argues that what we have hitherto taken to be warp weights are not warp weights at all (_Spinn-u. Webewerkzeuge_, Wuerzburg, 1911), and having denied these articles to be warp weights he gets over the difficulty presented by the ill.u.s.tration of Penelope at her loom, by attempting to prove that what we take to be a loom is no loom at all but a _flechtrahm_, _i.e._ plaiting frame! He then attempts to pull to pieces the idea that the Scandinavian loom in the Copenhagen Museum is a loom and condemns it as unworkable. There can be no doubt about his meaning as he defines his terms. The principle of weaving (_Weben_) he describes "as the absorption of two groups of parallel material elements (warp and weft) at right angles to each other, and the principle of plaiting (_Flechten_) as the absorption by itself in one plane of one group only of material element, (warp)" and he gives diagrammatic ill.u.s.trations showing clearly what he means (_op. cit._ p. 31).[I] Judging from his remarks one must conclude he has not seen a primitive loom of any sort, and were it not for the official position he holds, his remarks would not need answering.

It has, I believe, been suggested more than once that some of the perforated stones, pieces of burnt clay, pieces of chalk and like objects may be and are net-sinkers, and there is some justification for Dr. Kimakovicz-Winnicki's statement that the pyramidic forms are not warp weights; but it does not follow that all the perforated articles are either spindle-holders or net-sinkers, yet that is what his subsequent statements lead one to infer. It is, however, difficult to prove that these perforated articles are warp weights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 34.--Side view and section of chalk warp weight found at Great Driffield. Of three of the weights the following dimensions were taken:

7-3/4" (197 cm.) long, 2 lbs. 3 oz. (10 k) 6" (152 " ) " 1 lb. 8 oz. (07 k) 6-3/8" (162 " ) " 1 lb. 3 oz. (06 k)

Hull Museum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 35.--"Chalk weight, 6" 4" 2" (152 cm. 102 51), similar to those found in pits, at Mount Caburn and Cissbury near Worthing, Suss.e.x. Found with eighteen more in the _filling_ of pit 7, Winkelbury Hill." _Excavations in Winkelbury Camp_, by Lieut.-Gen. Pitt-Rivers (_Excavations in Cranbourne Chase_, Vol. II., 1888). As Pitt-Rivers also found at Winkelbury the fragment of a comb and a chalk spindle whorl, which are textile tools, we may safely presume these fashioned pieces of chalk are warp weights.]

In 1875 several flat irregular oblong perforated pieces of soft chalk were found in enlarging the cattle market in Great Driffield, Yorkshire; they were found in a hole about three feet deep with Anglo-Saxon potsherds, animal remains, and bits of iron. They can now be seen in the Mortimer Collection in the Hull Museum. They consist of pieces of chalk, similar to those which drop annually in thousands upon thousands down the cliffs from the boulder clay between Bridlington and Flamborough. On some a shoulder has been cut, Fig. 34, most have one perforation, but in a few specimens, where the thin portion above the hole has been broken off, a second hole has been made. None of them can stand unsupported. Owing to the soluble nature of the chalk they could not have been used as net-sinkers in the sea (about nine miles off) for they would quickly dissolve in salt water, and the same holds good in regard to fresh water, although in a lesser degree. But I do not think they were used even in fresh water as net-sinkers, for it was a characteristic of primitive peoples, with whom time was of no account, to do their work thoroughly--what they made was intended to last, and chalk net-sinkers would not have lasted. That these were found in a limited quant.i.ty, I believe about seventeen in number, tends to show that they are warp weights, for only a few are required for every loom, in spite of the considerable number shown in the non-technical ill.u.s.tration of Penelope's loom. Not being able to find any other use for these pieces of chalk, and judging that they are suitable for the purpose, I should say they are warp weights. In this case the weaver has made the most of what nature has given him; in other parts of England he has had to fashion the weight out of the rough chalk, Fig. 35.

In the Museum at Devizes there are several hard pieces of perforated and fashioned chalk which offer more conclusive evidence. Of these Mrs. M. E. Cunnington, the Curator, writes me: "All the weights here have holes bored right through. Two large ones stand easily on the floor. Others are more irregular in form and will not stand upright.

This latter type is, as far as I am aware, the more usual in this part of the country. They are commonly cut out of the hard chalk, and weigh about 3 or 4 lbs. (15-2 Kilos). We think these weights are loom weights because we find them with Romano-British remains, as at Westbury, and late Celtic remains on our chalk uplands, far from water where fishing could have been carried on. With the same remains we find weaving combs, numerous spindle whorls and other tools of bone that were also probably used in weaving operations." The Westbury, in Wiltshire, referred to, is some thirty miles in a straight line from the mouth of the Severn, and about forty miles from the English Channel. These pieces of chalk cannot therefore have been used as net-sinkers, leaving out of consideration their composition; they were found with weaving tools and they fit the position. So far the ingenuity of our ablest archaeologists at home and abroad has not succeeded in ascribing the use of these objects to anything else than net-sinking or warp tension. The adaptability of the articles for use as warp weights, the small groups in which they are found, the discovery of weaving implements in the closest proximity, our knowledge of the Greek representations of warp-weighted looms, the Olafsson ill.u.s.tration, and the loom in the Copenhagen Museum all tend to prove that these articles are really warp weights.

As regards the practical possibility or impossibility of working a "Greek" loom, I had a simple frame made in the Museum and showed Mr.

J. Smith, a mill "Overlooker" at Messrs. Wayman and Sons, Ld., Halifax, the ill.u.s.tration in Montelius' book already referred to, and asked him to weave me a small piece of cloth on it. In the course of a few hours he did the warping, beaming and weaving, making the pick with his fingers and using a ball of weft thread instead of a spool or shuttle. The result is shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration, Fig.

36, conclusively proving that weaving on such a frame is quite feasible, and practically proving that Olafsson's and the Copenhagen warp weighted looms are properly constructed workable looms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 36.--A warp weighted loom made at Bankfield Museum, to show the possibility of weaving by this method. There is no heddle nor shuttle used. The weaver made the "shed" and pushed the weft through with his fingers. He naturally worked _down_wards.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 37.--Diagram to show how the warp is kept taut on a Syrian loom.]

Finally, it may not be out of place here to point out that there are other looms, besides the Greek and Scandinavian, on which the warp is made taut by means of warp weights. The Rev. Dr. Harvey Porter, of the American College, Beyrout, Syria, writing about the year 1901, thus describes the common loom of the country. He says: "Two upright posts are fixed in the ground, which hold the roller to which the threads of the warp are fastened, and upon which the cloth is wound as it is woven. The threads of the warp are carried upward towards the ceiling at the other end of the room, and pa.s.s over rollers, and are gathered in hanks and weighted to keep them taut (_Dic. of the Bible_, Edinburgh, 1902, IV., p. 901)." He has kindly sent me an ill.u.s.tration of this loom, but unfortunately the weights are not clearly shown, and the same is the case with an ill.u.s.tration of a loom from Cyprus.[J]

The diagram, Fig. 37, shows the principle. In a Shan loom ill.u.s.trated by Mrs. Leslie Milne, in _The Shans at Home_, London, 1910, p. 120, the warp makes a somewhat similar detour over the head of the weaver, it is, however, not weighted but tied to a beam. The point to be observed is that these warp-weighted looms are horizontal and not perpendicular, and also that the weaving is the reverse of that on the Greek loom but similar to that on our horizontal looms, so that the present Syrian and Cyprian looms have nothing in common with the old Greek loom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 38.--Hand of Penelope clutching her shuttle. From a corner of a piece of sculpture discovered by O. Kern and described by C. Robert, (_The Feet Washing of Odysseus_, fifth Century B.C., _Mitt. Kais. Deutsch. Arch. Inst._, Athens, XXV., 1900, pp. 332-3).

The author considers Penelope to be in the act of unravelling what she has woven: "We see her holding the spool with her right hand, while the left hand, half closed, is raised to about shoulder high, and the fingers, if I read the traces correctly, are posed as though she held a thread."]

The Greeks evidently used a spool in weaving, that is a piece of stick round which was wound the thread that became the weft, as is shown in the hand of Penelope, Fig. 38, and in Kirke's loom, Fig. 15.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] I find frequent references, by various writers, to an upright loom mentioned by E. H. Palmer as used by a Bedawin woman near Jebel Musa, but on looking up his description (_The Desert of the Exodus_, I. p.

125), I find it to be so indifferent as to be quite useless for purposes of comparison.

[F] My attention to this was kindly drawn by Mr. F. N. Pryce, a.s.sistant in the Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[G] The existence of warp weighted looms amongst the prehistoric Lake Dwellers of Switzerland was first surmised by Pauer (_Keller's Lake Dwellings_) from the discovery of the weights, and was made practically certain by Messikommer and Jentsch.

[H] Comparing the loom Olafsson saw with the description in the Nial Saga, he concludes this sort of loom was in use A.D. 1014, in the North of Scotland.

[I] He criticises the detail of the ill.u.s.tration of Penelope's loom.

It must be remembered this ill.u.s.tration is not a technical drawing, but an artist's representation where correctness of detail cannot be expected. In his own drawing of the Egyptian horizontal loom many of the warp threads are shown over instead of under the laze rods, and yet this is supposed to be a correct technical drawing!

[J] Since writing Dr. Porter has sent me photograph of another sort of loom in which weights are used as counter balances to keep the heddles raised. The subject requires further elucidation.

III. CONCLUSION.

From the foregoing we gather that the Ancient Egyptians had two forms of looms. The earlier or horizontal form, date about B.C. 2000, has in a modified way survived to the present day in desert Egypt and is also found in Seistan. It required a large area of ground for working and probably in earlier times when there was plenty of s.p.a.ce this did not much matter. But as the population in the towns increased and with the increase of civilisation and its concomitant increased demand for cloth, probably out of proportion to the increase of population, s.p.a.ce would be begrudged and this may have caused the invention or the introduction of the vertical form of loom which we find in use some 500 years later. In Egypt therefore the horizontal loom preceded the vertical loom but it does not necessarily follow that such was the case elsewhere. In so far as we can gather from the small amount of information at our disposal, in the earlier days the women were the weavers, and later on with the introduction of the upright loom the men were the weavers with an occasional female weaver. In the Egyptian Desert and in Seistan in the present day with horizontal looms the weavers appear to be males, but among the nomads of Persia who likewise use horizontal looms the weavers are females. In the use of either form of loom the Egyptian weavers beat the weft downwards or towards themselves and _not_ upwards or away from themselves. They had the heddle in one of its earliest forms and had consequently made the first great step in the evolution of the loom as we now know it. In the beginning they made no selvedges so that for every pick a separate length of weft thread was used. The adoption of the selvedge was another improvement and until it was introduced the weft would no doubt have been put through with the fingers, later on a spool being used. It is possible also that in very late times the weavers' comb was introduced. It is safe to say that the Egyptians had no knowledge of the reed. Both forms of looms were simple, without harness or other complicated pieces of mechanism. The Egyptians accomplished fairly good work and judging these people from their looms alone we must conclude they were a progressive race.

The Greek form of loom was an upright one on which the warp threads were kept taut by means of weights and similar to the form which existed in Central and Northern Europe (in the latter until recent times) but of which so far there is no trace to the east, or south, or west. The Greek loom may have been furnished with a heddle but the drawings are not clear on this point. A spool was used. The weavers were women and the weft was beaten upwards or away from the weaver. It was not a form of loom so capable of improvement as the Egyptian forms and there appears to be no connection between the forms used on either side of the Mediterranean. The Greek tapestry loom could hardly have been more primitive. In respect to the forms of looms used by the two peoples the Egyptians were considerably in advance of the Greeks.