zontal looms, so that the
present Syrian and Cyprian looms have nothing in common with the old
Greek loom.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Hand of Penelope clutching her shuttle. From
a corner of a piece of sculpture discovered by O. Kern and described
by C. Robert, (_The Feet Washing of Odysseus_, fifth Century B.C.,
_Mitt. Kais. Deutsch. Arch. Inst._, Athens, XXV., 1900, pp. 332-3).
The author considers Penelope to be in the act of unravelling what she
has woven: "We see her holding the spool with her right hand, while
the left hand, half closed, is raised to about shoulder high, and the
fingers, if I read the traces correctly, are posed as though she held
a thread."]

The Greeks evidently used a spool in weaving, that is a piece of stick
round which was wound the thread that became the weft, as is shown in
the hand of Penelope, Fig. 38, and in Kirke's loom, Fig. 15.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] I find frequent references, by various writers, to an upright loom
mentioned by E. H. Palmer as used by a Bedawin woman near Jebel Musa,
but on looking up his description (_The Desert of the Exodus_, I. p.
125), I find it to be so indifferent as to be quite useless for
purposes of comparison.

[F] My attention to this was kindly drawn by Mr. F. N. Pryce,
Assistant in the Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[G] The existence of warp weighted looms amongst the prehistoric Lake
Dwellers of Switzerland was first surmised by Pauer (_Keller's Lake
Dwellings_) from the discovery of the weights, and was made
practically certain by Messikommer and Jentsch.

[H] Comparing the loom Olafsson saw with the description in the Nial
Saga, he concludes this sort of loom was in use A.D. 1014, in the
North of Scotland.

[I] He criticises the detail of the illustration of Penelope's loom.
It must be remembered this illustration is not a technical drawing,
but an artist's representation where correctness of detail cannot be
expected. In his own drawing of the Egyptian horizontal loom many of
the warp threads are shown over instead of under the laze rods, and
yet this is supposed to be a correct technical drawing!

[J] Since writing Dr. Porter has sent me photograph of another sort of
loom in which weights are used as counter balances to keep the heddles
raised. The subject requires further elucidation.

III. CONCLUSION.

From the foregoing we gather that the Ancient Egyptians had two forms
of looms. The earlier or horizontal form, date ab