Loom Weights in Apulia

This exhibit is part of a research project in progress entitled, Native and Greek in Apulia: Contextualizing a recent acquisition by the Museum of Classical Antiquities of the University of Ottawa. It focuses on the loom weights, which are part of a collection gifted to the museum by Maria Verbena Donati Jenkins of Ottawa in 2014.

In antiquity, textiles were produced with the warp-weighted loom, using loom weights to pull down the vertical threads (known as the warp) and  to keep them in place, allowing the weaver to lead the horizontal threads (known as the weft) over-and-under the warp, and make cloth. The proliferation of loom weights found in ancient Puglia (known in antiquity as Apulia) in South Italy, and in all parts of the Mediterranean demonstrates that weaving was a widespread activity of daily life, and that textiles were an important expression of gender, status, family, religion and ethnicity.