SUMERIAN TECHNOLOGY—BOBULA 663 
sold, or delivered to the temples, where groups of workers did the 
spinning and weaving. The magic texts of healing tell us about the 
spinsters of the goddess of love, Inanna, who spun “black wool, white 
wool, mixed wool, wonderful yarns.” Such yarns were also used to 
“bind sickness.” 
Wool was tinted. The great ladies wore on festive occasions coats 
of bright red wool, tiny powder-fragments of which survived in the 
graves. However, linen was also known, and there is every reason to 
believe that linen was the everyday wear in the hot climate of Mesopo- 
tamia. ‘Temple accounts enumerate common, hemmed, and splendid 
linen. The simple skirtlike garment of the men, which left the body 
above the belt uncovered, is worn by the relaxed banqueters of the 
Standard of Ur. Women’s bodies are almost always completely 
covered with flounced skirts and fringed shawls. <A long evolution 
of weaving and spinning techniques must have preceded these sophis- 
ticated textiles. 
The earliest textiles of humanity were probably those made from 
water plants. Every child who has access to plants growing in 
marshland starts pleating and weaving them. This primitive and 
natural technique must have evolved into the later forms of spinning 
and weaving wool, hemp, and linen. The loom was already known 
in the early Al’Ubaid culture, as shown by the surviving stone weights. 
In the time of the royal graves, the art of weaving, dyeing, and sew- 
ing was already fully developed. Some of the court ladies went to 
their death in elaborate sleeved coats. 
The ancient art of weaving large, 
beautiful shawls survived for a long 
time in Mesopotamia; there are ref- 
erences to it in classic literature. 
The Greeks called these shawls 
kaunakés. When the Sumerians dis- 
appeared, their high textile art, radi- 
ated into the surrounding areas, 
seems to have been revived in many 
places. The legend of the arch-spin- 
ner, Arachne, localized to Lydia, 
seems to indicate that the Greeks 
learned the art from that direction. 
Paneer Med ite > Arachne, daughter of Idmon of Colo- 
from the queen’s eecdtireaddreseh phon in Lydia, was, according to the 
myth, so skilled in weaving that she 
dared to challenge the goddess Athena to a contest. Arachne won, 
but frustrated, angry Athena changed her into a spider. 
536608—60——47 
