LOOM AND SPINDLE—-HOOPER, 637 
carefully drawn and the pattern of the web—a highly ornamental 
one—is distinctly shown. There are also pegs on the top crosspiece 
of the loom on which spare balls of different-colored weft are kept 
handy for use. Spare warp was also probably hung from them at 
the back of the loom. 
The weights at the bottom of the loom in this case are of a conical 
shape, very much like those found in Switzerland. There is also at 
the back of the loom another stick or beam, which is, I believe, for 
the purpose of holding the length of unwoven warp before it passes 
through the holes in the weights at the bottom of the loom. The 
loose back threads are not shown in the paint- 
ing, but the roll of cloth upon the beam indi- 
cates that more than a loom’s length of warp 
is being manipulated. Probably the artist 
shirked the difficulty of representing these 
back threads, and so made the front ones 
appear to terminate at the weights. 
This painting is particularly interesting, be- 
cause it shows unmistakably that the elaborate 
pattern webs, which the classic poets so often 
referred to, were woven on the simplest of 
looms by skillful handicraft, not by means of 
complicated machinery, as some have sup- 
posed. In proof of this, if you will notice the 
border of grotesque creatures which Penelope 
has just woven, you will recognize its likeness 
to the pattern on the robe of a processional 
figure, copied from another vase painting of 
the same period, which is the subject of figure9. aa iia - ot eae 
On a tiny vase in the British Museum there vase painting. 500 
is a slight sketch of a lady weaving on a small anes 
frame, which she holds on her lap.t In this case the strings of warp 
are merely stretched on the frame, and there are no loom weights. 
There is, however, a peculiarity in the method of working depicted 
which unmistakably links this diminutive loom with those of Kirke 
and Penelope, as we shall presently see. 
Olaf Olafsen, in a work on Iceland, published in Amsterdam in 
1780, gives an illustration and account of a traditional loom still used 
at his time in that country. There are two or three more or less im- 
perfect copies of Olafsen’s drawing in English books which show 
the striking points of resemblance this loom bears to the looms of 
ancient Greece.’ 
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1 Gallery of Greek and Roman life, B. M. 
2 One of these is an illustration to the article “‘ Tela,” in Smith’s ‘“ Dictionary of Greek 
and Roman Antiquities.” 
