THE WEAVING OF THE TUNICS IN LATE ANTIQUE EGYPT: SOME CONSIDERATION ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WEAVING LOOM ACCORDING TO ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES
Keywords:
Late Antique Egypt, textile technologies, history of costume, vertical weight loom, vertical loom, tunics, Fayoum, Deir al-BanatAbstract
Studies of the ancient crafts and technologies are always challenging for scholars. Despite wealth and abundance of materials the studies of Late Antique archaeological textile techniques are in the formation. Type and appearance of the Late Antique Egyptian loom for tunics are among the most widely discussed topics. With this in view we consider important to observe some aspects of Egyptian Late Antique textile techniques, particularly, to study some peculiarities of tunic’s weaving. Based on the results of latest archaeological finds from Deir al-Banat necropolis we propose reconstruction of the loom used for tunics’ weaving. As a working
hypothesis we suggest that most of the wool Late Antique tunics from Deir al-Banat necropolis were made on the vertical loom with two beams. This type of loom developed in Egypt during New Kingdom time and was adopted in Late Antiquity for tunics’ weaving. The width of this loom could be rather large (not less than 280 cm). This width demands quite extensive use of the working force (4 weavers for one tunic) for the weaving of the body of the tunic (average working area of one craftsman is about 60 cm). The appearance of the Roman tunic in Egypt did not let to adaptation of the vertical weight loom. New type of tunic most probably was made on local vertical loom with two beams with some changes in weaving techniques.
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