[Illustration: Fig. 28.--A Bushongo weaver at work. From Torday and
Joyce, _Notes Ethnographiques_, _Ann. du Congo_, p. 182.]
We have now to say a few words about an upright loom which differs
very materially from the Egyptian loom already described. Whether the
horizontal loom is a later product than the vertical loom, or was
evolved from it, or whether both were independent inventions cannot be
discussed here, but I may point out that there is an intermediate form
between the two. It is doubtful as to whether this is a transition
form. It was first brought to my notice by Mr. T. A. Joyce, as in use
amongst some negro peoples in Central Africa possessing an old, high
and possibly introduced civilisation, and is figured in Messrs. Torday
and Joyce's Notes _Ethnographiques ... Bakuba ... et Bushongo_
(_Annales du Congo_) pp. 24 and 182. In this loom the warp is
stretched between an upper beam and a lower beam at an angle of about
90 degrees, and the weaver sits underneath at his work, Fig. 28. It is
not at all uncommon to meet with illustrations showing the warp
stretched at an incline, and apart from the fact that in many the
weavers are posing for illustration, and therefore, are most probably
not exactly in their natural positions, the tilted arrangement has
this advantage, namely, that the work of beating-in is improved by
the fall given to the "sword" which, with less exertion by the
weaver, drives the weft home more effectively. In all these cases,
however, the weaver sits or stands in front of the loom, but in the
case of the Bushongo the loom is tilted to such an extent that the
weaver finds it more convenient to sit underneath the warp.
The discovery by Messrs. Alan Gardiner and N. de G. Davies of
illustrations of Egyptian upright looms, confirms Wilkinson in his
statement and illustration that the Egyptians had this class of loom
as well as the horizontal one. The vertical loom is found in Europe,
Asia, Africa and America, and is, probably, ethnically as old if not
older than the horizontal loom.[E] But this Egyptian upright loom
differs from another, the Greek, or Central European, or Scandinavian
form of the upright loom, in having an upper and a lower beam so that
the warp is made taut between two beams, while in the Greek loom there
is only _one_ beam. The warp hangs from this beam, the warp threads
being made taut by means of weights attached at the lower ends.
[Illustration: Fig. 29a.--Illustration on a small lekythos of an
Athenian girl at work on a tapestry loom, together with a full size
tracing of the tapestry loom. British Museum. B.C. 500.]
[Illustration: Fig. 29b.--Illustration of a Greek woman with a
tapestry loom. From Stackelberg's _Graeber der Hellenen_, pl. xxxiii.]
The Greeks were, however, acquainted with the tapestry loom, for there
exists in the British Museum a small lekythos with an illustration,
Fig. 29a, of such an article resting on the knees of a lady weaver.[F]
[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Greek woman at work on a loom. From C. Robert
+Eph arch+ 1892, pl. xiii., p. 247. It is not possible to say from
this illustration whether this is a warp weighted loom or not.]
[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Penelope at her loom. Illustration on an
Athenian skyphos found in an Etruscan tomb at Chiusi, and at present
in the museum there. The illustration is taken from _Monumenti d.
Inst. Archeologico_, IX., pl. xlii.]
It has been described by Mr. H. B. Walters in _Jour. Hellenic
Studies_, XXXI., 1911, p. 15, who says: "In front of her, Fig. 29a, is
a white wool basket (_Kalathos_) and on her lap is a frame somewhat in
the form of a lyre, being formed by two upright pieces with knobs at
the top, diverging slightly towards the top, across between which are
stretched two threads at the top and two at the bottom, seven vertical
threads being also visible. Her hands are placed on the threads, which
she is engaged in manipulating. This object can only be intended for a
hand loom, though there is apparently no evidence for the use of such
objects in ancient times or among Oriental races either in the past or
the present day. The only other parallel to the representation on this
vase is one published by Stackelberg, Fig. 29b, where a woman holds a
similar frame and is similarly occupied with her hands. The writers of
the articles _Sticken_ in Baumeister and _Phrygium Opus_ in Daremberg
and Saglio, misled by the likeness of the object to the modern
crewel-frame, interpret the process as embroidery. But this kind of
work implies cloth or other textile substance already woven, on which
patterns are worked in, whereas in both vase paintings the textile is
obviously in course of construction." He is right in so far as he
goes, but both representations are those of _tapestry_ looms which
fact is indicated by the warp threads in both cases, and by the design
marked on the warp threads of Fig. 29b--a method of preparing their
work in use to this day by tapestry weavers. Some authorities consider
that tapestry weaving is more closely related to mat making than to
true weaving. In other words, I take it tapestry is an early stage in
the development of weaving. From this we get some idea as to how far
the Greeks had progressed in the textile arts.
As pointed out by MM. Daremberg and Saglio, _Dic. des Antiquites
Grecques et Romaines_ pt. 46, p. 164, "illustrations of Greek or Roman
methods of weaving are very rare, they are much reduced and in so far
as the art is concerned purely diagrammatic." On the other hand if
there are numerous references in the texts of classic authors, these
references seem rather to obscure than elucidate the method of
working. However, there are three illustrations--the Penelope loom,
Fig. 31, and two Boeotian looms, one of which is illustrated in Fig.
15--quite sufficient to explain the principle of the upright loom as
used with warp weights by the Greeks, and the discovery of numerous
articles, considered to be the warp weights, confirm the illustration.
The principle is the same throughout, viz.: the looms are vertical,
there is a warp beam on top, there are two cross rods one of which is
a laze rod and _possibly_ the other is a heddle; and the warp threads
are all kept taut by means of attached weights. On one of the Boeotian
looms a bobbin or spool is shown. Along the top of Penelope's loom
there are indications of nine pegs, on six of which balls of coloured
thread have been placed, evidently for working out the designs, very
much the same as shown on the rug loom in Bankfield Museum already
referred to. The warp weights on this Athenian illustration are
triangular in shape, and perhaps resemble the pyramidic weights found
in Egypt and attributed to Roman times. Assuming these pyramids are
Roman warp weights it would appear that both Greeks and Romans had
vertical looms on which the warp threads were kept taut by means of
weights. In one of the few clearly expressed technical classical
references, Seneca speaks of the warp threads stretched by hanging
weights.
In the above classical illustrations which are after all only rough
diagrams, the warp weights appear to hang from a _single_ thread only,
but this can not have been correct. The warp threads must have been
bunched, because a single suspended thread with a tension weight
immediately begins to unravel, and so loses the advantage of its
having been spun, as any one can ascertain for oneself. As regards the
same point on the Lake Dwellers looms, Cohausen was the first to
surmise that the warp threads were bunched to receive the weight, and
Messikommer proved it by practical experiment.[G]
As can be surmised with this class of loom the weaving begins at the
_top_, working _down_wards, and the beating-in of the weft is
_up_wards--the exact opposite to the method adopted with other
looms--for the pendant warp ends, although weighted to keep them taut,
do not appear to have been further fixed in position, so that to
commence weaving at the lower end made the operation so extremely
difficult as to be almost impossible.
[Illustration: Fig. 32.--Illustration of a Scandinavian warp weighted
loom in the Copenhagen Museum. The illustration is taken from
Montelius' _Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_, translated by
the Rev. F. H. Woods, London, Macmillan & Co., 1888, p. 160.
[In the illustration of this loom published by the Trustees of the
British Museum, in their _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron
Age_, London, 1905, p. 139, the shape of the warp weights has been
altered to suit the shape of such weights in the British Museum
collections.]]
[Illustration: Fig. 33.--Icelandic Loom after Olafsson.
_a a_ Beam on which the warp is fixed. _b b_ Weights to make the warp
taut. _c c_ Brackets which support the beam and on which it can be
revolved by means of the spoke _e_ when the warp has to be lengthened,
on account of the weft _f_ working downwards and so shortening the
finished portion of the woven cloth. _g_ A sharp bone or tough piece
of wood to beat the weft into proper position. _h_ The wound up weft
which is pushed through the warp with the fingers. _i i_ The unbeamed
warp. _k k_ The heddles or shed openers. _l l_ The supports on which
the heddles rest when the "pick" is made [_i.e._, the pushing the weft
through]. _m_ The beater-in. _n_ and _o_ Laze rods. _q_ The template
for regulating the width of the cloth. _r r_ and _s s_ Beam on to
which the loom is fixed.
Some of the descriptions are not as clear as could be wished. It is
probable that _g_ is a preliminary to _m_. N. Annandale mentions that
he obtained in the Faroes a beater-in made of a whale's jaw or rib;
while in Iceland he saw some of the perforated stones to which the
warp threads were attached (_The Faroes and Iceland_, Oxford, 1905,
pp. 195-6).]
The Scandinavian form of the "Greek" loom from the Faroes Fig. 32, is
made known to us through the article itself in the Copenhagen Museum,
illustrated by Montelius, _Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_,
Lond. 1888, p. 160, and through the very clear illustration and
description given us by Olafsson in his _Oeconomische Reise durch
Island_, 1787, translated from the Danish edition of 1780. The loom
figured by Olafsson, Fig. 33, shows an advance on that of Montelius,
in being provided with heddles.[H] Upright looms with a lower beam
instead of with warp weights and furnished with heddles, are not
uncommon. There are the well known Indian and Persian rug looms, and
Du Chaillu figures one in his _Journey to Ashango Land_, London, 1867,
plate facing p. 291. Randall-Maciver and Wilkin illustrate a vertical
loom in use among the Kabyles, _Libyan Notes_, London, 1901, Pl. IX.,
and although the details of the illustration are not clear the text
indicates the existence of one heddle: "The warp is decussated by
means of a horizontal rod and leashes." Dr. Washington Mathews figures
several Navajo looms with heddles, _Third Ann. Rep. Bureau of
Ethnology_, p. 291; Ancient Peruvians also used them, as shown by Dr.
Max Schmidt, _Baessler Archiv, I. pt. 1_, and so on practically _ad.
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 class 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 illustration 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 illustrations 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.
[Illustration: 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" (19.7 cm.) long, 2 lbs. 3 oz. (1.0 k)
6" (15.2 " ) " 1 lb. 8 oz. (0.7 k)
6-3/8" (16.2 " ) " 1 lb. 3 oz. (0.6 k)