iple of the upright loom as
used with warp weights by the Greeks, and the discovery of numerous
articles, considered to be the warp weights, confirm the illustration.

The principle is the same throughout, viz.: the looms are vertical,
there is a warp beam on top, there are two cross rods one of which is
a laze rod and _possibly_ the other is a heddle; and the warp threads
are all kept taut by means of attached weights. On one of the Boeotian
looms a bobbin or spool is shown. Along the top of Penelope's loom
there are indications of nine pegs, on six of which balls of coloured
thread have been placed, evidently for working out the designs, very
much the same as shown on the rug loom in Bankfield Museum already
referred to. The warp weights on this Athenian illustration are
triangular in shape, and perhaps resemble the pyramidic weights found
in Egypt and attributed to Roman times. Assuming these pyramids are
Roman warp weights it would appear that both Greeks and Romans had
vertical looms on which the warp threads were kept taut by means of
weights. In one of the few clearly expressed technical classical
references, Seneca speaks of the warp threads stretched by hanging
weights.

In the above classical illustrations which are after all only rough
diagrams, the warp weights appear to hang from a _single_ thread only,
but this can not have been correct. The warp threads must have been
bunched, because a single suspended thread with a tension weight
immediately begins to unravel, and so loses the advantage of its
having been spun, as any one can ascertain for oneself. As regards the
same point on the Lake Dwellers looms, Cohausen was the first to
surmise that the warp threads were bunched to receive the weight, and
Messikommer proved it by practical experiment.[G]

As can be surmised with this class of loom the weaving begins at the
_top_, working _down_wards, and the beating-in of the weft is
_up_wards--the exact opposite to the method adopted with other
looms--for the pendant warp ends, although weighted to keep them taut,
do not appear to have been further fixed in position, so that to
commence weaving at the lower end made the operation so extremely
difficult as to be almost impossible.

[Illustration: Fig. 32.--Illustration of a Scandinavian warp weighted
loom in the Copenhagen Museum. The illustration is taken from
Montelius' _Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_, translated by
the Rev. F. H. Woods, London,