Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/225

heavier ones were employed to stretch the strings of the warp; this method must have been very inconvenient, as the whole warp could swing to and fro. A very obvious improvement, introduced in some countries at an early date, was to have a second beam, round which the lower ends of the warp could be wound. In Scandinavian countries the use of weights con tinued till modern times. In the fateloom of the sagas these weights are heroes skulls, while the shuttle is a sword.

Pre-historic.Some simple form of weaving seems to have been practised by pre-historic man at a very early stage of development. Fig. 3 shows an example of coarse flaxen stuff from the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, dating from the Stone Age.

Fig. 2. Mediaeval low-warp loom, from a cut by Jost Amman; middle of the l6th century.

Wool appears to have been the first substance used, as no skill is required to prepare it for spinning. Weaving was specially the duty of women, and even in the Middle Ages in Europe it was, in some countries, considered a specially feminine employment.^[1] An early Christian sarcophagus in the Lateran has a symbolical relief representing God condemning the future world to labour, tillage for the man and weaving for the woman: He gives ears of corn to Adam and a sheep to Eve.

Fig. 3. Prehistoric (Stone Age) flaxen stuff, from a lake-dwelling in Switzerland.

Ancient Egyptian. The Egyptians were famed for the beauty of their woven stuffs, and almost incredible stories are related of the fineness of their linen, such as a pallium sent by King Amasis to the Spartans, which, Herodotus (iii. 47) says, was made of yarn containing no less than 360 threads; the figures woven on this were partly of cotton and partly of gold thread. Herodotus also mentions a wonderful pallium sent by the same king to the shrine of Athene at Lindus. Few examples of the fine and richly ornamented sorts of Egyptian stuffs now exist, though we have immense quan tities of the coarse linen in which mummies were wrapped. This, though coarse, is closely woven, and usually has in every inch many more threads to the warp than to the weft.^[2] A few fragments of Egyptian cloth of the XVIIIth Dynasty have been found with a border of coloured bands, the blue of which is indigo and the red extract of Kermes (q.v.). In Egypt linen was specially employed for religious purposes, such as priestly and royal vestments, because it harbours dirt less than wool or cotton, which were also worn by the Egyptians, and it was used to bandage mummies, because it was thought not to engender worms. Though priests were allowed to wear outer garments of wool, they were obliged to put them off before entering a sacred place.

Phœnicians. The Phœnicians were celebrated for their weaving, as Phcenifor their skill in other arts. Their purple linen, dyed cia11 with the murex, was specially valued; Tyre and Sidou were the chief places where this was made. Babylon, Carthage, Sardis, Miletus, and Alexandria were all famous seats of textile manufacture in the time of Herodotus.

Assyrian.Though no specimens of Assyrian textiles remain, some notion of their richness of ornament and the styles of their patterns may be gained from the minute representations of rich dresses worn by kings and other important personages in the sculptured wall-reliefs from Nineveh which are now in the British Museum.^[3] The stuffs worn by Asur-banipal are most elaborate in design, being covered with delicate geometrical patterns and diapers, with bor ders of lotus and other flowers treated with great decora tive skill. A large marble slab from the same palace is covered with an elaborate textile pattern in low relief, and is evidently a faithful copy of an Assyrian carpet. Still more magnificent stuffs are represented as being worn by Assyrian captives on the enamelled wall-tiles from Rameses II. s palace (14th century B.C.) at Tel al-Yahudiya (see Pottery, vol. xix. p. 603; the woven patterns are most minutely reproduced in their different colours, and the design, special to Assyria, of the sacred tree between two guardian beasts, is clearly represented, though on the most minute scale.

Greek.Our knowledge of Greek textiles, in the almost com -Greek, plete absence of any existing specimens, ^[4] is chiefly derived from the descriptions of various classical authors. One indication of the patterns commonly used at an early period is given by the designs on much of the archaic Greek pottery, which clearly has ornament derived from textile sources. vol. xix. p. 607, fig. 16, shows examples of these; simple bands, chequers, and zigzags would naturally be the first steps towards more elaborate patterns. Again, recent excavations at Orchomenus and Tiryns have brought to light examples of ceiling and wall decoration the motives of which are obviously derived from textile patterns. A stone ceiling at Orchomenus has in relief a carpet-like pattern, and the painted wall-stucco of the Tiryns palace has many varieties of coarse but effective textile ornament. The poems of Homer are full of descriptions of woven stuffs of the most magnificent materials and design, used both for dresses^[5] and for tapestry hangings.^[6] In later times the most important examples of rich woven work of which we have any record were certain peploi made to cover or shade the statues of the deities

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1. In the time of St Louis (13th century) in France some sorts of weaving, such as "tapisserie Saracenois," were done only by men.
2. Some existing specimens have in each inch 152 threads in the warp and 70 in the weft; in modern stuffs the proportion is the other way. A coarsely woven piece of Egyptian stuff in the British Museum has a border with a man swimming, supported by a float.
3. A very magnificent royal dress, with woven patterns of deities, kings, animals, and the sacred tree, much resembling those on the metal bowls of Assyria, is figured by Layard, Monuments of Assyria, series i., pl. ix.
4. One remarkable example of tapestry from a tomb in the Crimea is supposed by Stephani to date from the 4th century B.C.; see Comp. Rend. Com. Arch., 1878–79, p. 40, pl. v.
5. Il., iii. 125, viii. 288, ix. 200, x. 156, xiv. 178, xxii. 440; Od., ii. 93, x. 220, xiv. 61, and many passages in books xviii. to xx. Homer describes (Od., xix. 225–235) a cloth of purple wool with a hunting scene in gold thread, woven by Penelope for Ulysses.
6. Il., xvi. 224, xxiv. 230, 645; Od., iv. 124, 298, vii. 337. Many Greek vases, especially those with black figures and incised lines, have representations of rich woven dresses,—e.g., an amphora in the Vatican with Achilles and Ajax playing at a game like draughts, c. 460 B.C. A rather later vase in the British Museum has a fine figure of Demeter clad in a pallium covered with figures of chariots and winged men and horses.