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    History of Weaving

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    The document describes the history of weaving in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians cultivated flax since the 5th millennium BC and they were skilled weavers who used linen for clothing, decorations, and bandages for mummies. They used horizontal and vertical looms, mainly made of linen but sometimes dyed. The Greeks introduced the use of wool. The Coptic textile industry assimilated Greek, Roman and other cultural influences, creating fabrics decorated with geometric motifs,

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    History of Weaving

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    The document describes the history of weaving in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians cultivated flax since the 5th millennium BC and they were skilled weavers who used linen for clothing, decorations, and bandages for mummies. They used horizontal and vertical looms, mainly made of linen but sometimes dyed. The Greeks introduced the use of wool. The Coptic textile industry assimilated Greek, Roman and other cultural influences, creating fabrics decorated with geometric motifs,

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    The document describes the history of weaving in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians cultivated flax since the 5th millennium BC and they were skilled weavers who used linen for clothing, decorations, and bandages for mummies. They used horizontal and vertical looms, mainly made of linen but sometimes dyed. The Greeks introduced the use of wool. The Coptic textile industry assimilated Greek, Roman and other cultural influences, creating fabrics decorated with geometric motifs,

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    The document describes the history of weaving in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians cultivated flax since the 5th millennium BC and they were skilled weavers who used linen for clothing, decorations, and bandages for mummies. They used horizontal and vertical looms, mainly made of linen but sometimes dyed. The Greeks introduced the use of wool. The Coptic textile industry assimilated Greek, Roman and other cultural influences, creating fabrics decorated with geometric motifs,

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    19 views4 pages

    History of Weaving

    Uploaded by

    ScribdTranslations
    The document describes the history of weaving in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians cultivated flax since the 5th millennium BC and they were skilled weavers who used linen for clothing, decorations, and bandages for mummies. They used horizontal and vertical looms, mainly made of linen but sometimes dyed. The Greeks introduced the use of wool. The Coptic textile industry assimilated Greek, Roman and other cultural influences, creating fabrics decorated with geometric motifs,

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    HISTORY OF FABRIC: EGYPTIAN FABRIC

    Introduction

    Textile art is one of the oldest activities carried out by man, since in the Paleolithic (20,000 years BC) the
    presence of bone needles that would be used for sewing skins has already been recorded. It is possibly an older
    activity than ceramics, which was initially influenced in its decoration by textile motifs (impressions of ropes,
    basketry, weaving...) and could have had a common origin with basketry, so that before the appearance of the
    first loom, man was able to manually intertwine fibers, still rigid, to make the precursors of the first fabrics.
    Weaving has always been an element of exchange between communities and a bond of union with divinity, in
    addition to having a protective and ornamental purpose.

    At the end of the Stone Age, man was already able to count on a loom with accessories that may have been made
    up of a simple horizontal tree branch to which fibers would be attached that would constitute the warp,
    tensioned with stones at the other end; and the textile technique was probably already known in the seventh
    millennium, when in the Neolithic the first sedentary populations began to be established that had plants and
    animals at their disposal that provided raw materials. At the Neolithic site of Tell-Halula (Syria), impressions of
    fabrics dating to around 7500 BC have been found. and in Kown (Syria) impressions of fabrics on plaster plasters
    dated around 5800 BC (1) and between the fourth and second millennium, an important textile activity would
    develop in Europe and the Mediterranean area. The fabrics would be made without decoration until man felt the
    spiritual need to embellish them, although it is unknown by what procedures.

    THE EGYPTIAN FABRIC

    The origin of weaving in Egypt dates back to the Neolithic era. There is evidence of the cultivation of flax since
    the fifth millennium BC, and from the first dynastic times the weavers were very skilled in the execution of
    fine fabrics that, in addition to being used for clothing and the decoration of their buildings, were used in
    practice. of mummification, for which several meters of linen bandages – called bissus – were necessary,
    carefully folded and crisscrossed so that they formed an intricate pattern.

    Linen was the raw material with which, since ancient times, dresses and clothing were made. At this time it was
    believed that clothing made from another material or fiber was impure.

    There were 4 types of linen, depending on the thickness of the thread, the combination and the density of the weft, like
    this:
    - royal linen, which is the finest
    - fine subtle fabric
    - subtle fabric
    - smooth fabric

    Linen spinning and weaving.

    The basic color of the dresses was white, but at the same time some threads were dyed with colors, especially red or
    brown.
    From the pictorial representations of the tombs we know that they knew the horizontal loom and the vertical
    loom, thus in the mausoleum of Beni Hassan (around 3000 BC) a horizontal loom is shown although with a
    completely depressed representation and in the tomb of Thot Nefer From the 18th dynasty (15th century BC)
    the vertical loom is already represented. It is possible that this one supplanted the first in the textile activity

    The horizontal loom

    The loom was horizontal with a wooden support for the warp beam and a cloth beam that
    could be rotated, to which the ends of the warp threads were tied and on which the woven
    cloth was wound. The warp threads were lifted with two sticks (lease bars) in order to pass
    through the weft with the help of a shuttle, which according to the aa description was already
    known in the Old Kingdom. The plot was hit with a curved stick.
    Two women usually worked at the loom, in the early days squatting as the looms were very
    low. But sometimes looms were made by three or even four weavers.

    In this Middle Kingdom depiction the woman on the left is in charge of two leasing bars, which were used to
    keep the weft lines taut and to separate odd pairs of warp lines, a later function by the heddle. The weaver on
    the right may be inserting a weft thread with a shuttle or she may be pushing the weft into position with a
    trimming stick. The finished weave near the breast bundle (which is ground in this representation) is shown
    with a seam on the left side to avoid fraying [

    THE VERTICAL LOOM


    Vertical looms with large wooden frames came into
    use during the New Kingdom. A wooden post
    supported the warp beam. The leasing bars lift the
    warp threads worked with the help of a lever. The
    plot was beaten with a matte, which was later
    replaced by a comb. The bundle of cloth or breast
    was at the foot of the loom. The weavers sat before
    him on small stools

    The warp threads, not shown, are attached to


    the warp beam at the top and the breast beam at
    the bottom. The weaver is apparently holding a
    carrying bar or beater in the right hand .

    The almost exclusive use of linen and the difficulty of dyeing


    this fiber enhanced the taste for undecorated fabrics until
    oriental taste penetrated Egypt. The oldest decorated
    textiles were found in the tomb of Thutmose IV (mid-15th
    century BC),

    The Tomb of King Thutmose IV

    Although the most important trousseau comes from Tutankhamun's


    tomb, with fabrics decorated in oriental fashion, contrasted with the
    Egyptian clothing, white and transparent, with meticulous folds
    complemented with jewels and
    polychrome belts (4), a fashion with
    which we are familiar through
    Egyptian figurative arts. Due to the
    resistance that linen fibers offer to
    dyeing, the printing technique was
    developed in Egypt, decorating
    printed fabrics with lotus flowers,
    birds and Nilotic scenes that survived in textile decoration in the Coptic
    period.

    Egyptian customs were modified with the arrival of the Greeks to their territory,
    who imposed the use of wool on a large scale and introduced their decorative
    designs, creating the foundation of what centuries later would be the Coptic
    textile industry. Wool was known in Pharaonic Egypt, although it seems that it would be used above all for the
    coarsest fabrics and to make wigs, and the non-existence of wool fabrics in the Egyptian tombs is due to the
    process that this fiber requires for its degreasing, in which involves urine because it is rich in ammonium and the
    use of this substance provided a character of impurity to the fabrics made with this material that did not make
    them worthy of accompanying the dead in their final resting place.

    (make historical reference)

    In Egypt, the Coptic textile industry assimilated the most varied influences, both from a technical and
    decorative point of view, since the presence of Greeks and Romans in the Nile Valley imposed many features of
    its culture, without forgetting the ancient traditions. Egyptian culture and seasoned with the multiple influences
    contributed by the different peoples who temporarily or permanently established themselves in the territory.
    That is why the Coptic fabrics, of which thousands of copies are preserved in different collections and museums
    around the world, fostered by the funerary customs of the Egyptian people of burying their dead in the dry
    sands of the desert, which have allowed the fabrics to be unearthed in a magnificent state. of conservation,
    from the technical point of view they present relations with Syrian fabrics, characterized by being linen canvas
    fabrics that present the decoration distributed in tabulae , orbiculi and clavi in tapestry technique based on wool
    wefts that form bichrome compositions with geometric motifs, mythological scenes and scenes of dancers with
    complex geometric compositions in the last period, or with pronounced polychromy with Nilotic, mythological
    and Christian scenes. In their ornamentation they show various influences that come from a decorative
    repertoire of Greco-Roman origin - geometric and mythological compositions - to which are added Sassanian
    influences - compositions around an axis of symmetry among which the horsemen spearing animals stand out -,
    Byzantine, indigenous – fundamentally Nilotic scenes – and Christian, until in the Muslim era its industry was
    absorbed by the important Islamic textile manufactures that flourished in the territory. Along with the tapestry
    technique, the loop technique, made with two wefts, the mesh or sprang technique, and wool and silk samitas ,
    were also worked on in Coptic Egypt.

    In Egypt, with the Tulunids and the Fatimids, the Coptic custom of making linen and wool tapestries, often
    intermixed with silk, persisted with a decorative code in which stylization dominated - warriors, dancers,
    quadrupeds, birds and floral motifs - and in which Kufic inscriptions were often not missing. The Fatimid textile
    industry eventually assimilated Coptic production by using a similar technical and decorative language. The fame
    of the Egyptian workshops was such that from the earliest times in the city of Thinis the Kiswa , a sacred curtain
    that covered the Kaaba in Mecca, was woven, which had to be replaced regularly. During this period, large-scale
    sericulture was introduced to Egypt, from where it spread to other western territories dominated by Islam.

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