[Illustration: Fig. 35.--"Chalk weight, 6" x 4" x 2" (15.2 cm. x 10.2
x 5.1), similar to those found in pits, at Mount Caburn and Cissbury
near Worthing, Sussex. 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 quantity, 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 illustration 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. (1.5-2 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 illustration, 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 illustration 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 illustration, 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.
[Illustration: 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.]
[Illustration: 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 pass 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 illustration
of this loom, but unfortunately the weights are not clearly shown, and
the same is the case with an illustration of a loom from Cyprus.[J]
The diagram, Fig. 37, shows the principle. In a Shan loom illustrated
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.
[Illustration: 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.