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 AEgean pottery was found
and hence it is probably a temporary warp weight of those people and
not an Egyptian article.

[Illustration: 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."

[Illustration: 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.]

[Illustration: 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 WHI