Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/206

 190 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. the roof of the stay-at-home Turcoman or the black tent of the nomad, the goodwives are the sole makers of those carpets for which demands have so steadily increased during the last twenty years or thereabouts. In this and other particulars, matters are probably as they were in olden times ; nor is the loom, of which two varieties exist, much changed. The more elementary (?), technically called "high warp," is used for webs of a plain description (Fig. 129'). It consists of two movable cylinders, supported by uprights which enter the ground, held together by cross-beams. Round the upper cylinder, mortised at the sides, is rolled the warp, and round the other, fitted into holes at the end, the web as this is completed. The FIG. 130. Comb of carpet-maker. Reisen, torn. i. Fig. 13. warp is stretched upon the frame and divided by the weaver into two leaves, which are kept apart by a thread passed alternately between the threads of the warp, and by small sticks. The warp consists of balls of coloured wool, some on the ground, others suspended to a cord, stretched across the frame, at the height of the weaver's hand. These worsted threads she dexterously twists and knots, two at a time, into the lengths of the warp. When a series of courses is completed, she strikes the warp from top to bottom with a heavy-handled comb (Fig. 130). The result is a twisted, rather than a woven tissue. The fact is hard to realize that this rude frame is on exactly the same principle as the com- plicated modern loom, with its array of cylinders, glass tubes, 1 Our illustration is taken from Reisen in Lykien und Karien beschrieben, by Otto Benndorf and Georg Niemann, folio, Wien, 1884; a work from which we shall freely borrow in this part of our volume. The loom figured on p. 189 was photographed by the explorers from one belonging to a Turkish household settled hard by Cnidus. Plate VIII. (Reisen) shows a frame akin to this set up in the open near a luruk encampment. Our verbal description is mainly due to Professor Kara- baceck, whose knowledge of Oriental tapestry is well known (Reisen, p. 19). We have also consulted Muntz' excellent manual, La Tapisserie, i2tno, Quantin (Bibl, de fenseignement des Beaux-Arts).