referred to, the lower portion is all that has come down to us. The cloth is not shown contracted as in the Beni Hasan representation, the two laze rods are drawn close to each other and here also an attempt appears to have been made to show the over and under lapping warp threads; the laze rods appear each with a hook, the hook on the upper rod turned upwards and the hook (if it be one) on the lower rod turned downwards. It is possible these hooks may be pegs to prevent the shifting of the laze rods. It may be that one of the two rods is a heddle rod the indication being the fine double lines, but this may not be compatible with the hook at the end of the rod. The weaver on the left holds a spool in her hand, evidently a piece of stick with the weft thread wound round it, which she is pushing through with her fingers. The weaver on the right holds a beater-in as shown in the Beni Hasan drawing. The breast beam is held in position by two pegs near the right one of which there is a curved article of indeterminate use.

Fig. 12.—Study of a Bedawin Arab weaving, from a sketch taken in the Forties of last Century, by Frank Goodall, R.A. The original sketch is in Bankfield Museum. The weaver appears to be provided with one heddle and a beater-in.

There is no very clear evidence as to how the finished cloth was “taken up” unless we accept it that the bulging out of the part G2 means that it was wound round the breast beam as is done on hand and power looms of the present day. Some very long pieces of cloth have come down to us and unless they were “taken up” in this way a long stretch of ground would have been necessary. A modified form of this horizontal loom has been met with in recent years among the Bedawin Arabs, as shown in the illustration of a study sketch, Fig. 12, made by Frank Goodall, R.A., in the forties of last century. The loom was provided with pegs like the old Egyptian loom but it was supplied with a primitive heddle resting on a stone at each side of the warp and it would appear that the weaver, to a certain extent, did not take up the woven cloth by winding it round the breast beam and by that means retaining his position, but, as the weaving progressed and the line of finished cloth got beyond his reach, he crept up to it and so got farther and farther away from the breast beam until in the end he arrived at the warp beam. Similar looms are still used for mat making by the Egyptian fellah.

VERTICAL LOOMS.

Fig. 13.—Upright or vertical loom. Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, London, John Murray. 1st ed., Vol. III., p. 135.

Apart from the horizontal loom Wilkinson and Robert Hay[C] also recorded the existence of an illustration of an upright loom, said in error to be at Eileithyias (El Kab). Wilkinson’s copy, Fig. 13, is more elaborate than that of Hay. Mr. Davies informs me that the original is not at Eileithyias, but in the tomb of Nefer-hotep at Thebes. Wilkinson in regard to this illustration quotes the oft-repeated statement of Herodotus (circa 460-455 B.C.) in reference to looms in general:—“Other nations make cloth by pushing the woof upwards, the Egyptians on the contrary, press it down.” On this statement Wilkinson remarks: “This is confirmed by the paintings which represent the process of making cloth; but at Thebes, a man who is engaged in making a piece of cloth with a coloured border or selvedge, appears to push the woof upwards, the cloth being fixed above him, to the upper part of the frame” [Fig. 13]. But I am unable to follow Wilkinson in this, for I can find no indication in his illustration which shows how the beating-in of the weft is accomplished. From the illustration all one can say is that it might have been done either way. Wilkinson’s illustration is lettered from a to p but this lettering is not explained by him at all, excepting in the case of the letter k, of which he says: “k is a shuttle, not thrown, but put in with the hand. It had a hook at the end ...” and he proceeds to refer to the drawing elsewhere of the horizontal loom. He does not show the hooks in his illustration. In Fig. 14, I give the sketch made by Mr. N. de G. Davies of the remains of the original from which Wilkinson made his illustration.

Fig. 14.—Drawing by Mr. N. de G. Davies, Jan. 1913, of an Upright Loom in Tomb 49 at Thebes, belonging to Nefer-hotep, at end of XVIII. Dynasty, B.C. 1330. Drawn when in a better state by Wilkinson, Fig. 13, and Hay.

A more satisfactory drawing of upright looms is that which Mr. N. de G. Davies has placed at my disposal for reproduction here. I append his description, Fig. 9. “The picture of men working at two looms is taken from the tomb of Thot-nefer at Thebes, who was a royal scribe in the middle of the 18th Dynasty, circa 1425 B.C. In his tomb his house is shown. He himself sits in the hall, while inside some servants spin and weave, make bread, store the grain, etc. The roof of the chambers is supported on pillars, and between two of these the looms are set up which are here depicted. They are not attached however, either to the roof or the pillars. Faint sketching lines are mixed up with the darker reds in which the picture was re-drawn, and the whole very simply and carelessly executed. I have found it difficult to make it clear. In my sketch the first faint sketching outlines appear as lines. The more solid red lines which replaced these I have ‘hatched,’ and certain portions including the men’s flesh colour, the stools, the discs I have put in solid black, partly because they are for the most part more solid and dark red in the original, and partly to distinguish the portions more clearly from one another. The horizontal lines which cross the web are very faintly drawn and almost as good as obliterated by the white paint which had been put on the web. I have put them in just to show that the bars were conceived of as passing behind or under the web and concealed by it.

“The larger loom is worked by two men, the smaller by one man only. The looms consist of an oblong frame A set up on two stones B. The warp is attached to the warp beam C on top and the breast beam D at the bottom. The threads