Weaving

28 29 the WarpWeighteD loom an ancient technique This loom is one of the oldest, dating back to 7000 BC at Catal Huyuk in Anatolia, and found also in Egypt, Scandinavia where it is still in use, classical Greece, Rome, and among Native Americans. It produces plain weave, including tapestry, and twill weaves. The warp threads hang from an upper beam, and the weaver must stand to work at the loom, beating the weft upward with a beater. In the past, warp weights were different shapes made of stone, fired clay, or lead. Aristotle compared stone weights with testicles, and the Orphics considered warp thread to represent semen. In the Icelandic saga of Burnt Ngal, the Valkyries weave the fate of war on a bloody red loom, with mens entrails as warp and weft, and the heads of slain men as the warp weights. The Chilkat Indians of southeastern Alaska use this style of loom, finger weaving by twining weft around the warp to create beautiful symmetrical patterns, which form clan crests. A Chilkat blanket was a prized and valuable possession, given as a mark of esteem or cremated with a dead chief. In The Odyssey, Odysseuss wife, Penelope, used her weaving skills on this type of loom when her husband had been missing for twenty years and suitors were gathering. By her constant devotion she wove all day, insisting she must complete a shroud for her fatherinlaw, Laertes, before choosing a husband, while secretly at night undoing all that she had done. It is for this reason that Penelopes web means something started but never finished.