FIG. 39. WOMAN CARDING WOOL
FIG. 40. EMBROIDERED CLOTHING
The loom used in Greece and Italy was upright, consisting of two posts with a cross-bar. The threads of the warp, alternately long and short, were held by terracotta weights tied to the lower ends. A loom-weight from Crete is marked with the owner’s name, Kaleneika, wife or daughter of Teriphos (Case 5).
FIG. 41. GREEK COUNTRY-WOMAN SPINNING
Cloth was woven in the size desired for a particular garment, so that no cutting was necessary and consequently there were no edges to hem. Sewing was therefore restricted to seams, of which few were required, but a great deal of time and skill could be devoted to embroidered ornament upon fine garments. The earlier fashion, seen on black-figured vases, was to cover the cloth with patterns, but later only borders were used, or bands of figures. On an oinochoë of the fifth century, in Case C in the Fifth Room, are two ladies perfuming clothes. The garments and head-dresses they are wearing and the clothes they are folding are worked with beautiful borders in the wave pattern and ornaments in the form of conventionalized flowers ([fig. 40]). Besides providing fine apparel for themselves and their families, women also expended their skill on garments which they offered to the goddesses: the treasuries of Athena and of Artemis at Athens contained chests full of many-colored robes offered by worshippers ([fig. 37]). Naturally in the course of time various industries sprang up which contributed manufactured products to the household, but spinning and weaving continued to be domestic occupations, at least to provide clothing for the slaves. Some conservative families in Rome prided themselves upon wearing garments made at home; the Emperor Augustus is said to have worn, except on special occasions, the handiwork of the ladies of his family as an example of simplicity in a period of general extravagance.
FIG. 42. BAKING BREAD IN A PRIMITIVE OVEN
