It is not altogether thrilling to read that civilised people of ancient times wove fabrics for dress and decoration, but it certainly is interesting to learn that they were masters of an art which we carelessly attribute to Europe of six centuries back, and to find that the weaving apparatus and the mode of work were almost identical. The Coptic tapestry of the Third Century is woven in the same manner as the tapestries that come to us from Europe as the flower of comparatively recent times, and its dyes and treatment of shading are identical with the Gothic times. Penelope’s loom as pictured on an ancient vase, is the same in principle as the modern high-warp loom, although lacking a bit in convenience to the weaver; and so we can easily imagine the lovely lady at work on her famous web, “playing for time,” during Ulysses’ absence, when she sat up o’ nights undoing her lovely stint of the day.
And the Egyptian loom shown in ancient pictures—that is even more modern than Penelope’s, although it was set up three thousand years before, a last guide-post on the backward way to the misty land called prehistoric.
But as there is really little interest except for the archeologist in digging so far into the past for an art that has left us but traditions and museum fragments, let us skim but lightly the surface of this time, only picking up the glistening facts that attract the mind’s eye, so that we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more recent times which yet appear antique to the modern.
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COPTIC TAPESTRY
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
