separate cord-markings.
The regularity of the impressions upon the globular body indicates
almost unbroken contact with the interior surface of the woven vessel.
The neck and rim have apparently received finishing touches by
separately impressing cords or narrow bands of some woven fabric.
[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Ancient fabric marked vessel, Pennsylvania.]
Many examples show very irregular markings such as might have been made
by rolling the plastic vessel irregularly upon a woven surface, or by
molding it in an improvised sack made by tying up the margins of a piece
of cloth.
It is necessary to distinguish carefully the cord and fabric markings
from the stamped designs so common in southern pottery, as well as
from the incised designs, some of which imitate fabric markings very
closely.
I shall present at once a selection from the numerous examples of the
fabrics restored. For convenience of study I have arranged them in six
groups, some miscellaneous examples being added in a seventh group.
For comparison, a number of illustrations of both ancient and modern
textiles are presented.
In regard to methods of manufacture but little need be said. The
appliances used have been extremely simple, the work in a vast majority
of cases having been done by hand. It is probable that in many instances
a simple frame has been used, the threads of the web or warp being
fixed at one end and those of the woof being carried through them by
the fingers or by a simple needle or shuttle. A loom with a device for
carrying the alternate threads of the warp back and forth may have been
used, but that form of fabric in which the threads are twisted in pairs
at each crossing of the woof could only have been made by hand.
The probable methods will be dwelt upon more in detail as the groups
are presented. In verifying the various methods of fabrication I have
been greatly assisted by Miss Kate C. Osgood, who has successfully
reproduced, in cotton cord, all the varieties discovered, all the
mechanism necessary being a number of pins set in a drawing board or
frame, in the form of three sides of a rectangle, the warp being fixed
at one end only and the woof passing back and forth between the lateral
rows of pins, as shown in Fig. 74.
FIRST GROUP.
Fig. 62 illustrates a small fragment of an ordinary coffee sack which I
take as a type of the first group. It is a loosely woven fabric of the
simplest constructi
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