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.

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.

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]

Fig. 30.—Greek woman at work on a loom. From C. Robert ?f ??? 1892, pl. xiii., p. 247. It is not possible to say from this illustration whether this is a warp weighted loom or not.

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 AntiquitÉs 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 downwards, and the beating-in of the weft is upwards—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.

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.]

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.

Fig. 34.—Side view and section of chalk warp weight found at Great Driffield. Of three of the weights the following dimensions were taken:

Hull Museum.

Fig. 35.—“Chalk weight, 6" × 4" × 2" (15·2 cm. × 10·2 × 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 archÆologists 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.

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 downwards.

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.

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.