Introduction

Pyramidal loom weight

In antiquity, textiles were produced with the warp-weighted loom, using loom weights to pull down the vertical threads (known as the warp) 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.[1] 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.[2] The evidence-contextual, visual and literary, indicates that in antiquity until the Roman period, textile production was undertaken by women,[3] and that loom weights occur in three contexts: funerary, votive, and settlement.The principal function of loom weights for textile production can be deduced from settlement contexts, the predominant being small family production centres, often connected to farms, on which sheep were raised for fleeces, and less commonly, in larger weaving workshops that produced textiles for market exchange.[4] Loom weights are also found in sanctuaries in southern Italy, both Greek and indigenous (Italic), where they  can be votive gifts to female divinities, and in some cases used to produce sacred garments.[5] Finally when they are found in tombs, loom weights are normally identified as attributes of gender and status, since weaving was an activity undertaken by elite women, who had access to: the resources necessary for the acquisition of looms, assistance in the labour, and the best fleeces for producing fine wool.[6]

The loom weights and ceramic material in the Donati Collection were collected over several years, evidently in the course of cultivating a vineyard in eastern Apulia. It is legitimate to assume that this material, including the loom weights, was originally deposited in tombs; it invites comparison to loom weights and tomb groups from several pre-Roman sites in eastern Apulia, dated from roughly the 6^th through the 4^th centuries BCE. The loom weights range in size from about 5 to 10 cm in height, and in some cases they bear incised and stamped decoration, most likely signifying personal ownership. Studies of the distribution patterns of loom weights with distinctive ownership marks found at sites in southern Italy suggest that these unassuming textile tools were kept by female weavers over the course of a lifetime, given to daughters,[7] and carried to different sites by their owners when they relocated.[8] In fact as we will see, the lifespan of a loom weight encompassed multiple functions, practical and symbolic, often ending in dedication in a sanctuary, or deposition in a tomb.