Chapter 1

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Transcriber's Note

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Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms

BY H. LING ROTH (Keeper).

WITH 38 LINE BLOCK AND ONE COLLOTYPE ILLUSTRATIONS.

BANKFIELD MUSEUM, HALIFAX APRIL 1913

PREFACE.

Halifax, which is situated in the heart of the great textile trade of Lancashire and Yorkshire, has been a home of the woollen manufacture since the earliest time, and it is only meet, therefore, that its museum should possess specimens of the tools used in the early days of spinning, weaving, and cloth making generally. In spite of the considerable progress made towards that end, many typical specimens are still wanting, and, while we have plenty of material for the study of weaving in various parts of the world, we are lacking in everything relating to the industry in Ancient Egypt and Greece. Failing specimens I have had recourse to illustrations, but the Egyptian ones published by Cailliaud, Rosellini, Sir J. G. Wilkinson and Lepsius, contradict each other in many important points, so that those who study them find them practically useless for an understanding of the art as carried on in the Nile lands. Fortunately, last year, Mr. N. de G. Davies, the well-known Egyptologist, hearing of my difficulty, very generously placed some of his copies of tomb drawings at my disposal, and with this invaluable help I have been enabled to complete the present paper, and to lay before Halifax students some new details of manufacture bearing upon their staple industry.

H. Ling Roth.

Bankfield Museum, Halifax. April 1913.

I. EGYPTIAN LOOMS.

HORIZONTAL LOOMS.[A]

In the tomb of Chnem-hotep, at Beni Hasan, there is a wall painting of a horizontal loom with two weavers, women, squatting on either side, and at the right in the background is drawn the figure of the taskmaster. There are also figures represented in the act of spinning, etc. For the present we are concerned with the weaving only.

Of this illustration, there appear to be six reproductions. We have first of all, Fig. 1, that of Fred. Cailliaud (_Recherches sur les Arts et Métiers_, etc., Paris, 1831) with illustrations of drawings made by himself in the years 1819 to 1822. His publication was followed by Fig. 2, that of Sir J. G. Wilkinson (_Manners and Customs_, etc., London, 1837). Mr. John Murray, whose house has published Wilkinson's work from the first edition to the last, informs me that a few of the drawings were made by George Scharf, afterwards Sir George Scharf, Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery, but that most of them seem to have been made by Joseph Bonomi, the well known Egyptologist. Wilkinson's woodcut, although clearly and neatly done, is on a very small scale; nevertheless it admits of a fair comparison with those reproduced on a larger scale.

After him, Fig. 3, N. F. J. B. Rosellini began the publication of his great work (_I Monumenti dell' Egitto_, Pisa, 1832-1844). The similarity between the comparatively few drawings published by Cailliaud and the very large number published by Rosellini is very great. It is of course quite possible Rosellini may have made use of some of Cailliaud's drawings. Five years after Rosellini's publication came that of C. R. Lepsius (_Denkmäler_, Leipzig, 1849), Fig. 4, his drawings having been made in the years 1842 to 1845. Since the time of Lepsius until quite recent years I can trace no further copying until we get the illustration, Fig. 5, in Prof. Percy Newberry's _Beni Hasan_, London, 1910. In this work the reproduction is about one twentieth of the original, or about three fifths of the size of that of Wilkinson, and unfortunately so crude as not to be available for our present purpose.[B] Lastly we have the reproduction, Fig. 6, from Mr. N. de Garis Davies' drawing made in 1903, and now first published by kind permission of Mr. F. Ll. Griffith.

In the various reproductions by the above explorers, the only three which agree very closely are those of Cailliaud, Rosellini and Davies. The others vary considerably and in essentials do not agree with the above nor with one another. The differences may in the first instance be due to difficulties in copying the original in the tomb. Others may be due to ignorance of detail on the part of the secondary copyist--the man who prepared them for publication--so that he was unable to follow up the clues on the drawings laid before him. The differences may also be due to careless copying and to "touching up" of the copies when made; they may be slightly due to deterioration and obliteration of the original in the course of time.

The _Encyclopædia Biblica_ gives a variant from all six illustrations, but approaching nearest to that of Cailliaud, Rosellini and Davies. It is misleading in so far that the drawing has been made to suit Professor Kennedy's idea as to what it should be.

Some of the differences are of minor importance, but a comparison will help materially to our understanding of the method of weaving adopted by the Egyptians from the XIIth to the XIXth Dynasties, or about B.C. 2000 to 1200. To go into details, and taking Mr. N. de G. Davies' illustration as our basis, we find slight differences in the shape of the pegs B, B1, which are immaterial. A more pronounced difference is seen in the way in which the threads are attached to the warp beam A. Neither Wilkinson nor Lepsius carry these threads over the beam, the former carrying them only as far as the laze threads C, while the latter carries them up to a line drawn parallel to and below the beam; Cailliaud and Rosellini carry them over the beam while Mr. Davies carries them half way only. The object of this half carrying over is not clear. The threads in chain-form at C are probably laze threads, apparently placed there so that in case of any disarrangement of the warp threads the weaver can from that point run her fingers along them and get them disentangled. It has been suggested to me that this chain-form might be a tension chain for taking up slack warp, but the former explanation seems the more likely.

All the drawings but Wilkinson's show the warp threads converging towards the breast beam; Wilkinson shows them parallel and in Lepsius their convergence is excessive. There should be a slight convergence shown, as in the course of weaving the threads get drawn in, and in later forms of looms in semi-civilised countries we find an endeavour to counteract this tendency by the use of a tool known as a "temple."

The cross sticks D1, D2, look like laze rods. It may not be out of place here to point out that in primitive weaving laze rods serve two purposes, or one more than in the later somewhat more advanced looms. They serve throughout to keep the warp threads in place, and they serve to separate the odd threads from the even (1, 3, 5, 7 from 2, 4, 6, 8, &c.), and in so doing take the place of the fingers in making the "shed," _i.e._, the opening through which the "weft (or woof)" is passed, a function which in turn is usurped by the "heald (or heddle)." The heddle therefore becomes a very important factor, and Dr. H. G. Harrison by no means overstates the case when he says that the development of the heddle is the most important step in the evolution of the loom (Horniman Museum Handbooks, No. 10, pp. 47-49). We may now return to the drawing. Wilkinson shows the rod D1 indistinctly and the left hand end only of D2. Lepsius' artist seems to have taken a liberty with D1 but in the right direction, by making it more definitely into an early form of heddle--the loop and rod--but he shows D2 the same as Cailliaud and Rosellini. Prof. Kennedy argues that these rods are in the wrong position and that D1 which is a heddle should be in the place of D2. Mr. Davies' drawing as well as those of Cailliaud and Rosellini show that D1 is a heddle while D2 is shown to be a laze rod. Asiatic primitive looms, like those from Borneo and Bhutan, have two laze rods but no heddle; on the other hand many primitive African looms have one laze rod and one heddle as is the case with this Egyptian loom. More threads are shown on the left hand end of D2 than on the right hand end. Mr. Davies informs me that the same quantity should be shown from end to end across the warp, but on the right hand side they are so indistinct that he was just able to detect but not to trace them and so he omitted them.

We now come to the rod E. Cailliaud and Rosellini show an undulation at the one end _a_, but do not make the other end clear. Wilkinson shows a small hook at the end _a_, which appears to me to be a transcriber's development of the curved end of his two predecessors; in the text Wilkinson says there is a hook at each end of this stick, but he does not show any at the end opposite to _a_; he refers to these hooks more than once (1st ed., III., p. 126 footnote). Lepsius has altered the shape of the curve and transferred it from the end _a_ to the opposite end. In Mr. de G. Davies' drawing, it has been inserted in dotted lines, as the original is in such a state that tracing is almost impossible. Wilkinson, Erman, v. Cohausen (_Das Spinnen u. Weben bei den Alten_, in _Ann. Ver. Nassau. Altherthumsk._, Wiesbaden, 1879, p. 29), and others call it a shuttle, but I am more inclined to consider it a slashing stick ("sword" or "beater-in") for pushing the weft into position. A tool which appears to be a beater-in and of similar end shape is seen held in the hand of a woman on a wall painting at El Bersheh--see Fig. 11, top right-hand corner. We have in another illustration, Fig. 7, an article which appears to be a spool, which I think confirms the view that E is not the shuttle but the beater-in. In all the illustrations, too, the pose of the hands of the women bearing on this stick is indicative of a downward pressure and not of a grasp.

The selvedge F on the one side of the cloth and not on both sides is also interesting from the fact that selvedges do not appear on the Egyptian cloths until the XVIII. Dynasty _circa_ B.C. 1600.

The breast beam:--It appears to me that the three portions marked G1, G2 and G3 joined up are intended to represent the breast beam and its holding pegs, similar to the warp beam A and its pegs B1, B2, but the portion K is not clearly drawn in any of the reproductions. Wilkinson omits this altogether, but in its place has two black pieces which also are still less clear. Lepsius has omitted G2 altogether and appears to have made G1 and K and G3 into treadles, by raising G1 above the level of G3, and to support the view that these are treadles, he makes use of the overseer's foot by placing it on the supposed treadle, and the casual observer thinks it is the foot of the woman weaver. However, Mr. Davies' copy seems to offer a solution. He agrees with Cailliaud and Rosellini in so far as G1, G2 and G3 are concerned. With him K takes quite a different form, in fact it looks very similar to an article which an attendant woman in another panel has close by her, see Fig. 8. It might perhaps be a rest to prevent the beater-in being driven home too forcibly--this, however, is still only a surmise--as the length of the beater-in makes it heavy at the far end.

In Cailliaud the warp threads are coloured in pale blue and red on top of the black lines of the drawing; he has painted the selvedge and finished cloth a pale blue, as well as that portion of G2 which is covered by the cloth indicating that this is the breast beam, G3 and G1 are painted a dark red. Rosellini colours A, B1, B2, D1, D2, G3 orange; G1 and K dark red, but E from end to end light ochre. This shows that K is distinct from E.

In consequence of this loom being represented as upright it is often spoken of as an upright or vertical loom. But it is drawn upright because the Egyptian artist did not understand perspective, and it was only by making the loom upright that he was enabled to show the details we have just been examining. For the same reason mat making is illustrated edgeways. If the loom were an upright one the two women weavers would have had their backs turned towards the onlooker as can be seen in Fig. 9. Any doubt on the matter has however been set aside by Prof. John Garstang's extremely interesting discovery of a wooden model depicting a group of women spinning and weaving which he illustrates in his work, _The Burial Customs of Ancient Egypt_, London, 1907. After referring to the woman spinning, he continues: "The other seated figures apparently represent women at work upon a horizontal loom; the frame and the woof [_sic_, should be _warp_] threads are faintly represented upon the board. It is possible that they are making mats or, perhaps, weaving (p. 132)." He gives an illustration of the group taken from a photograph, but as it does not show the lines which indicate the loom lying horizontally on the ground nor the warp threads, I have asked him to let me have a drawing made of it and, with his kind permission, it is now reproduced here, Fig. 10. The threads of the warp and the finished piece of cloth at the breast beam end are clearly indicated. The whole model supports conclusively the well founded supposition that the loom we have been considering is a _horizontal_ one. Curiously enough, Prof. Garstang does not appear to appreciate the important bearing of his discovery, for on a later page (p. 134) in speaking of Lepsius' illustration, discussed above, he says: "the weavers are seen at work at an upright loom."

It must not be thought that the Beni Hasan representation is the only one which illustrates a horizontal loom. A second one is reproduced by Prof. Percy Newberry from the tomb of Tehuti-hetep _circa_ 1938-1849 B.C., see Fig. 11. In the upper portion the women are seen spinning and preparing the thread generally, while in the lower portion two women on the left are warping, and in the centre three apparently are "beaming," _i.e._ putting the warp on to the beams preparatory to commencing to weave, the warp threads being apparently drawn over pegs to ensure the proper tension. This illustration shows the warp flat against the wall like the mat making shown at Beni Hasan.

A third representation of a horizontal loom is reproduced from the forthcoming volume of the Egypt Exploration Fund by kind permission of Mr. N. de G. Davies, who made the copy. In this, Fig. 7, already referred to, the lower portion is all that has come down to us. The cloth is not shown contracted as in the Beni Hasan representation, the two laze rods are drawn close to each other and here also an attempt appears to have been made to show the over and under lapping warp threads; the laze rods appear each with a hook, the hook on the upper rod turned upwards and the hook (if it be one) on the lower rod turned downwards. It is possible these hooks may be pegs to prevent the shifting of the laze rods. It may be that one of the two rods is a heddle rod the indication being the fine double lines, but this may not be compatible with the hook at the end of the rod. The weaver on the left holds a spool in her hand, evidently a piece of stick with the weft thread wound round it, which she is pushing through with her fingers. The weaver on the right holds a beater-in as shown in the Beni Hasan drawing. The breast beam is held in position by two pegs near the right one of which there is a curved article of indeterminate use.

There is no very clear evidence as to how the finished cloth was "taken up" unless we accept it that the bulging out of the part G2 means that it was wound round the breast beam as is done on hand and power looms of the present day. Some very long pieces of cloth have come down to us and unless they were "taken up" in this way a long stretch of ground would have been necessary. A modified form of this horizontal loom has been met with in recent years among the Bedawin Arabs, as shown in the illustration of a study sketch, Fig. 12, made by Frank Goodall, R.A., in the forties of last century. The loom was provided with pegs like the old Egyptian loom but it was supplied with a primitive heddle resting on a stone at each side of the warp and it would appear that the weaver, to a certain extent, did not take up the woven cloth by winding it round the breast beam and by that means retaining his position, but, as the weaving progressed and the line of finished cloth got beyond his reach, he crept up to it and so got farther and farther away from the breast beam until in the end he arrived at the warp beam. Similar looms are still used for mat making by the Egyptian fellah.

VERTICAL LOOMS.

Apart from the horizontal loom Wilkinson and Robert Hay[C] also recorded the existence of an illustration of an upright loom, said in error to be at Eileithyias (El Kab). Wilkinson's copy, Fig. 13, is more elaborate than that of Hay. Mr. Davies informs me that the original is not at Eileithyias, but in the tomb of Nefer-hotep at Thebes. Wilkinson in regard to this illustration quotes the oft-repeated statement of Herodotus (_circa_ 460-455 B.C.) in reference to looms in general:--"Other nations make cloth by pushing the woof upwards, the Egyptians on the contrary, press it down." On this statement Wilkinson remarks: "This is confirmed by the paintings which represent the process of making cloth; but at Thebes, a man who is engaged in making a piece of cloth with a coloured border or selvedge, appears to push the woof upwards, the cloth being fixed above him, to the upper part of the frame" [Fig. 13]. But I am unable to follow Wilkinson in this, for I can find no indication in his illustration which shows how the beating-in of the weft is accomplished. From the illustration all one can say is that it might have been done either way. Wilkinson's illustration is lettered from _a_ to _p_ but this lettering is not explained by him at all, excepting in the case of the letter _k_, of which he says: "_k_ is a shuttle, not thrown, but put in with the hand. It had a hook at the end ..." and he proceeds to refer to the drawing elsewhere of the horizontal loom. He does not show the hooks in his illustration. In Fig. 14, I give the sketch made by Mr. N. de G. Davies of the remains of the original from which Wilkinson made his illustration.

A more satisfactory drawing of upright looms is that which Mr. N. de G. Davies has placed at my disposal for reproduction here. I append his description, Fig. 9. "The picture of men working at two looms is taken from the tomb of Thot-nefer at Thebes, who was a royal scribe in the middle of the 18th Dynasty, _circa_ 1425 B.C. In his tomb his house is shown. He himself sits in the hall, while inside some servants spin and weave, make bread, store the grain, etc. The roof of the chambers is supported on pillars, and between two of these the looms are set up which are here depicted. They are not attached however, either to the roof or the pillars. Faint sketching lines are mixed up with the darker reds in which the picture was re-drawn, and the whole very simply and carelessly executed. I have found it difficult to make it clear. In my sketch the first faint sketching outlines appear as lines. The more solid red lines which replaced these I have 'hatched,' and certain portions including the men's flesh colour, the stools, the discs I have put in solid black, partly because they are for the most part more solid and dark red in the original, and partly to distinguish the portions more clearly from one another. The horizontal lines which cross the web are very faintly drawn and almost as good as obliterated by the white paint which had been put on the web. I have put them in just to show that the bars were _conceived_ of as passing behind or under the web and concealed by it.

"The larger loom is worked by two men, the smaller by one man only. The looms consist of an oblong frame A set up on two stones B. The warp is attached to the warp beam C on top and the breast beam D at the bottom. The threads of the warp are not shown, no difference being made between any woven part and the warp threads; to all is given one smear of white paint. Two discs E are seen hanging against the frame posts, one on each side, the earlier sketch showing a larger disc than the final drawing in dark red.