warp weights.

As regards the practical possibility or impossibility of working a
"Greek" loom, I had a simple frame made in the Museum and showed Mr.
J. Smith, a mill "Overlooker" at Messrs. Wayman and Sons, Ld.,
Halifax, the illustration in Montelius' book already referred to, and
asked him to weave me a small piece of cloth on it. In the course of a
few hours he did the warping, beaming and weaving, making the pick
with his fingers and using a ball of weft thread instead of a spool or
shuttle. The result is shown in the accompanying illustration, Fig.
36, conclusively proving that weaving on such a frame is quite
feasible, and practically proving that Olafsson's and the Copenhagen
warp weighted looms are properly constructed workable looms.

[Illustration: Fig. 36.--A warp weighted loom made at Bankfield
Museum, to show the possibility of weaving by this method. There is no
heddle nor shuttle used. The weaver made the "shed" and pushed the
weft through with his fingers. He naturally worked _down_wards.]

[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Diagram to show how the warp is kept taut on
a Syrian loom.]

Finally, it may not be out of place here to point out that there are
other looms, besides the Greek and Scandinavian, on which the warp is
made taut by means of warp weights. The Rev. Dr. Harvey Porter, of the
American College, Beyrout, Syria, writing about the year 1901, thus
describes the common loom of the country. He says: "Two upright posts
are fixed in the ground, which hold the roller to which the threads of
the warp are fastened, and upon which the cloth is wound as it is
woven. The threads of the warp are carried upward towards the ceiling
at the other end of the room, and pass over rollers, and are gathered
in hanks and weighted to keep them taut (_Dic. of the Bible_,
Edinburgh, 1902, IV., p. 901)." He has kindly sent me an illustration
of this loom, but unfortunately the weights are not clearly shown, and
the same is the case with an illustration of a loom from Cyprus.[J]
The diagram, Fig. 37, shows the principle. In a Shan loom illustrated
by Mrs. Leslie Milne, in _The Shans at Home_, London, 1910, p. 120,
the warp makes a somewhat similar detour over the head of the weaver,
it is, however, not weighted but tied to a beam. The point to be
observed is that these warp-weighted looms are horizontal and not
perpendicular, and also that the weaving is the reverse of that on the
Greek loom but similar to that on our hori