636 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
Seeing, then, that similar objects to these are found amongst the 
lake dwellers’ relics, it is reasonable to conclude that they were used 
for the same purpose, and that the form of the prehistoric loom was 
the same as that of the looms of a later period of which we have 
representations. 
sane : Amongst the vase 
Wath 1 & paintings of ancient 
il 
2 eee cee Greece only four 
r= Al 
representations of 
the loom are found. 
= aon sc Two of these are 
Fia. 7.—Greek loom. Dee aii vase painting. rou oh though ex. 
ue pressive caricatures 
painted on Beotian pottery. The loom in each of these sketches is 
very definite and, as far as it goes, evidently correct in detail. One 
of these painted pots is in the Bodleian Museum at Oxford, and the 
other, of which I have a photograph, is in the British Museum. 
The subject of the painting is Kirke presenting the noxious potion 
to Odysseus (fig. 7). 
The loom is simply 
a pair of upright 
posts with a cross- 
piece joining them 
together at the top. 
Beneath the cross- 
piece is a roller or 
beam on which the 
cloth is: wound as it 
is woven. The un- 
woven warp Is seen 
hanging nearly to 
the ground, where it 
appears to terminate 
in two rows of cir- rs 
cular weights. These Fic. 8.—Penelope’s ee he Greek yase painting. 
weights keep the 
warp threads taut, and two sticks intersect the threads in order to 
retain the cross between them alternately, so keeping the warp from 
entanglement and preserving an opening for the passing and inter- 
lacing of the weft. In the Oxford vase the weft is shown wound on 
a kind of mesh such as is used in the making of nets. 
Figure 8 is copied from a beautiful Greek vase painting. Its date 
is about 500 B. C. This is a much more careful and elaborate paint- 
ing, but it tells little more about the loom and its arrangement. The 
loom is of the same simple construction, but all the parts are more 
