Inkle Dinkle Do

I've mentioned that I rather dislike when a character in a historical novel starts going around inventing modern technology. I mean the sort of stuff that seems obvious in hindsight, like the stirrup or paper clips. I don't think it works. It doesn't really make the character seem smart and insightful, because we have paper clips. It does make the society they are in look dumber, because if it was so obvious, why didn't they have it already?

First there's context. Stirrups do you no good in an age of chariotry; you need horses and the horsemanship to fight from horseback before the extra stability is helpful. Then there's development; there were a thousand variations of paperclip (and even more, the zipper); the trick was figuring out how to manufacture it economically. Inventing a technology is nothing if you can't get it adopted.

And lastly there's a nasty little observation, and that has to do with the subsistence trap. The people who kneel over a floor loom for generation after generation don't invent the standing loom, because they don't have the spare time. They can't take a chance on something that might work when it takes every waking hour just to put food on the table. It is the same economic trap every poor person in the developed world falls into.

So, no, I don't want my Cretan weaver to invent a tablet loom.

Yeah...there's an academic paper which I'm currently trying to track down, which apparently argues convincingly that a certain embroidered belt belonging to Rameses II could not have been constructed on a tablet loom. The best evidence for them is 800 BCE Europe -- and most textile and metal technologies seem to have spread from Europe to the Aegean.

Pity, in part because this means I need to learn what the actual technology for decorative strips was. So more research.




Also pity because tablet weaving just seems like so much fun (well....for a certain level of fun; you really have to grade this one on a curve because weaving and spinning are almost defined by being monotonous and extremely time consuming.)

I'm very much going to try hand-spinning on a drop-spindle. I found a place called The Woolery which has wool top from Navaho Churro -- the most similar thing to Bronze Age sheep I've found so far, although I remember reading somewhere there is a breed that definitely comes close (the distinction is, bronze age sheep shed instead of being sheared.) And the Woolery has Dew-Retted Flax, for when you want to get really crazy.

I've also found some plans on Thingiverse for simple laser-cut looms. I am thinking of lasering at least some tablets and shuttles, and possibly design up a mini fixed-heddle loom. And perhaps 3d print or even wood lathe a spindle whorl.

Because even more than doing a little historical recreation bronze-age weaving, what I rather need to do now is get checked back in on as many tools of the reborn TechShop as I can.