of the warp are not shown, no difference being made between any woven part and the warp threads; to all is given one smear of white paint. Two discs E are seen hanging against the frame posts, one on each side, the earlier sketch showing a larger disc than the final drawing in dark red.

“Two slender laze rods F are shown on the large loom and heavy bars G, H, lower down; a somewhat similar laze rod and beams are also shown on the smaller loom.

“The weavers sit on benches with their backs to the spectator. The artist has not dared to draw a back view of their heads, but has turned each man’s head to the right to show a profile. They are holding a heavy looking rod which looks like a ‘beater-in.’ One would expect to see a shuttle but perhaps this was too small an object for so rough a picture—perhaps the man at the smaller loom holds an exaggerated shuttle L in his right hand.

“The lines M seen alongside the framework are the faint red sketch lines not cords. The diagonal line N on the left I do not understand, it does not seem an accidental one.

“On the left hand of the two looms the original shows a man spinning coarse thread into finer(?) using two spindles at once; the threads pass through rings fixed in the ceiling as in a picture at Beni Hasan. Behind him two girls are breaking up the flax and two others are making coarse threads of the fibres, almost exactly like those in the tomb of Daga (No. 103) a couple of hundred yards away.”

To this description of Mr. Davies I would like to add a word about the discs E. Wilkinson indicates these as rings apparently joining the horizontal beam to the post of the frame, the form of the ring being arrived at as explained by Mr. Davies by the original outline of the sketch having been made larger than the final drawing of the circle, or disc, and not obliterated. In Mr. Davies’ drawing these discs hang on or are fixed on to the uprights only, and I am inclined to think they represent balls of weft thread hanging up in the same way as we see whole rows of coloured balls hanging on the looms of Persian rugmakers, and as can be seen on an Indian rug loom in Bankfield Museum.

It is also very clear that these Egyptian vertical looms are very different from the Greek looms in so far as we know anything about them. The Greek looms had an upper beam only and the warp threads were bunched at the lower end and weighted with metal or clay balls to keep them taut, Fig. 15. The individual warp threads were not weighted; they were bunched and then weighted. The pyramidal shaped clay warp weights found in Egypt are I understand considered by Egyptologists to belong to the Roman period, but in the Manchester University Museum there is a mud article which Miss M. A. Murray describes as a warp weight, Fig. 17, so that it is possible vertical looms with warp weights may yet be forthcoming as an Egyptian and not a foreign industrial tool. But Dr. H. R. Hall informs me this weight was probably found in the ruins of houses where Ægean pottery was found and hence it is probably a temporary warp weight of those people and not an Egyptian article.

Fig. 15.—Greek loom with spool and warp weights. Illustration on a skyphos (van Branteghem vase in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). From H. B. Walters’ paper on Odysseus & Kirke on a Boeotian vase, Jour. Hellenic Studies, 1892-3 XIII. p. 81.

Since writing the above Mr. N. de G. Davies has very kindly sent me on a new set of illustrations, Fig. 16, of which he says; “My attention was called to the scene by Dr. Alan Gardiner. The scenes which represent the preparation of the flax and the stretching of the warp are almost replicas of those in the tomb of Daga of the Middle Kingdom, so far as we can judge, while the pictures of the looms resemble closely those in the tombs of Thot-nefer and Nefer-hotep. The work is done by both men and women. Men prepare the flax while women stretch the warp. Men mostly work the loom, either singly or with a companion. But in one case a woman is seen at work at one of the upright looms. She is shewn sitting sideways on the low bench and is not pictured in a back view with widely spread legs like the men. Unfortunately the work is so slovenly and so much injured that few exact outlines can be secured, and hence all detail is insecure. There are also superfluous lines in red colour which confuse the picture. The tomb is Ramesside in date (circa 1200 B.C.) The inscription over the seated man is too broken to be read.”

Fig. 16A.—Weavers at work as represented in the Tomb of Nefer-ronpet, Superintendent of Weavers at Thebes. Date about 1200 B.C. From a drawing by Mr. N. de G. Davies.

Fig. 16B.—Weavers at work as represented in the Tomb of Nefer-ronpet, Superintendent of Weavers at Thebes. Date about 1200 B.C. From a drawing by Mr. N. de G. Davies.

The drawings appear to confirm generally what we have gathered from Mr. Davies’ previous illustration, Fig. 9.

PORTIONS OF LOOMS WHICH HAVE COME DOWN TO US.

In so far as I know, not many loom parts have yet been discovered, and those which I have had an opportunity of studying do not assist us to much knowledge beyond that which we have gained by a study of the wall paintings. We have the article from Kahun already mentioned, which may possibly be a warp weight, as it somewhat resembles the later warp weights found elsewhere. It is of hardened mud with a perforation at the thin end through which a piece of string has been passed and knotted (Fig. 17), but so far no illustration of a loom with weights has been found, either for the period to which this article belongs or to any other period. On the other hand the material is not suitable for a net-sinker, nor is it intended to be made to stand up. As mentioned above it is probably Ægean.

Fig. 17.—Piece of perforated hardened mud. Possibly a warp weight, 10 cm. × 8·7 × 4·2 (315/16 in. × 27/16 in. × 15/8 in.) Weight 470 gramms (1 lb. ½ oz.) Probably of Ægean origin. Kahun. Manchester Museum.