The first mechanical spinning wheel was invented by a resident of an English city. This man had golden hands and a bright head. The spinners of this city, fearing that the new spinning wheel would make their work unnecessary, destroyed the spinning wheel, and the inventor himself was driven out of the city. But others took advantage of the poor man's invention and made the spinning wheel work using steam.

In Russia, we have long had wonderful clothiers. In Kyiv and Novgorod, there were cloth rows back in the 5th century. The sellers of this product behaved arrogantly.

Peter founded the first army cloth factory in Russia. The first spinning machines were called self-factors. They were periodic machines. They were then superseded by continuous ring spinning machines due to their complex operation and maintenance.

Currently, Italian companies have resumed the production of sulfactors based on electronics and automation, which allows us to hope for the possible operation of machines at our enterprises, since these machines produce high-quality and even yarn.

Continuous ring spinning machines are widely used. Rewinding of yarn into large packages is carried out on a rewinder machine.

Currently, double twisting machines are used to produce twisted yarn.

Weaving was invented by man in the Neolithic era - about 8 thousand years BC. Before the birth of weaving, primitive people dressed in animal skins, which were sewn with threads made from the veins of the same animals. Weaving is the production of fabrics from threads of animal or plant origin. The weaving process is preceded by the spinning process. Threads are spun from short wools or plant fibers by twisting the hairs or fibers together. Then the threads are intertwined. Weaving as a craft arose as a result of man's transition from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle, from gathering to the domestication of animals and the cultivation of plants.

In Ancient Rus', ordinary and artistic weaving has been known for a long time. Ancient Russian fabrics of the 11th-13th centuries. archaeologists have found in different areas. A handloom with a vertical warp appeared approximately 5-6 thousand years BC. e. His invention was one of the most important achievements of man at the first stage of his development. Over time, the design of the machine is improved, many options arise, including the horizontal machine, which has survived among the Russians and many other peoples to this day. On the outskirts of Voronezh, not far from Bald Mountain, archaeologists discovered and recovered from excavations tashi - sinkers made of baked clay for fishing gear, a whorl for spindles, which eloquently speaks of the development of spinning, weaving and net-knitting crafts among our distant ancestors at that time.

Women provided their families with clothes made from hand-woven fabrics. The threads were obtained mostly from bast - the stems of wild hops that grew in great abundance in forest clearings. Its young shoots were eaten in early spring. From bast-rich hop stems, when processed, a long and strong fiber was obtained, from which threads were spun and linen was woven - canvas. Hop fruits - cones - were used to make greenish paint for dyeing canvas.

Spinning and weaving are one of the most important branches of ancient Russian industry. The separation of weaving from spinning in Russian cities occurred in the pre-Mongol period. The weaver in the city became a craftsman, and spinning remained for several centuries the domestic activity of women in town and country. This process of division of labor in the textile industry, very reminiscent of the division of labor in the metallurgical industry, where village metallurgists and urban specialized blacksmiths worked, was directly related to the technique of textile production.

The most labor-intensive process in fabric production is the production of thread. It consisted of obtaining raw materials - wool, flax and hemp - and their long-term preparation for spinning and spinning itself.

Further operations of textile production: the weaving itself, as well as the finishing of the fabric, account for no more than 25% of the total labor costs, but they required quite high professional skills and special equipment (See N.I. Lebedeva. Spinning and weaving among the Eastern Slavs in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "East Slavic ethnographic collection". M.. Ministry of Health of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1956, p. 462. (TIE, no, vol. 31).).

Home (not handicraft) weaving, which survived in the Russian village until the 20th century, differed qualitatively from urban handicraft, especially in the production of woolen fabrics. This difference can also be traced in ancient Rus'.

Novgorod archaeological material provides a very clear and convincing picture of the separation of weaving from spinning. At the huge Nerevsky excavation site, where more than 400 residential buildings were uncovered, more than 2,000 spindle whorls (slate and clay) and more than 800 wooden spindles were found, as well as many ruffles, cards, combs, spinning wheels, scissors and other spinning accessories. The number and placement of finds show that in Novgorod they spun in almost every house. A completely different picture emerges when reviewing finds related to weaving. Screws, parts of reels, warps, as well as many parts of a loom (shuttles) number only in the dozens; they were found, as a rule, in groups in the places where the weaver lived.

Woolen and linen fabrics were produced in Rus'. Wool fabrics were made from sheep's wool, and linen fabrics were made from flax fiber. In addition, silk and cotton fabrics were used, but they were brought from the south and from Central Asia.

The technique of spinning and weaving in the 14th-15th centuries, as in earlier times, can be represented on the basis of massive Novgorod archaeological material.

We will limit ourselves to only mentioning the basic operations and a brief description of tools and devices.

After harvesting and drying flax and hemp, they must be threshed. For this, the Novgorodians used paws and rollers. Perhaps they also used flails, which are well known among archaeological material. Flax and hemp were soaked and, after drying, crushed, ruffled and scratched. Beats were found from the pulpers several times. These are long bars (0.8-1.0 m) of a wedge-shaped cross-section with a handle at one end and a hinge or hole for an axle at the other. To finally free the fibers from the fire, they moved on to scuffing. Hand-held scythes had a knife-like and sword-like shape (50-60 cm in length) and a comfortable handle. To make the fiber as soft and flexible as possible, it was sometimes pounded in a mortar. The archaeological material includes several dozen pestles, as well as mortars. The length of the pestle ranged from 0.8 to 1.1 m, and the diameter of the working rod was 7-8 cm. The last operation of preparing the fiber was carding with a card (special comb) or on a large wooden comb using another, much smaller wooden or bone comb. Large combs had a stand for fastening at the bottom. The width of the blade of the large comb was 11-13 cm, the height of the tooth was about 70 mm.

Preparing wool for spinning was less labor intensive than preparing flax. After shearing the sheep with scissors, the wool was washed, sorted by hand and combed with a comb. The large and small combs for carding wool had the same shape as for carding flax.

The tools for producing thread were a spindle and a spinning wheel. A large number of spindles were found in Novgorod. Novgorod spindles for seven centuries (X-XVI centuries) were made of the same rather strict shape and size: smooth cigar-shaped, tapered towards the ends, wooden sticks about 260 mm long and with a diameter in the middle part of 10-12 mm. They were decorated very often. The most favorite motif is burnt or carved thin concentric stripes. A spindle whorl was always put on the lower thickened end of the spindle. Until the beginning of the 13th century. the spindle whorl was made of slate in the 13th century. and later the spindle whorl was made of clay, bone and metal (tin-lead alloy).

The spinning wheel was a spatula-shaped stand inserted into a horizontal support - the bottom. Distaff blades from the 13th to 15th centuries. had simple, strict shapes in the form of a rectangular or leaf-shaped blade with several holes. A tow of yarn was attached to the shoulder blade with iron knitting needles or tied with a rope.

There are quite diverse sources for the history of textile production. These are the fabrics themselves and, in addition, various technical devices and parts of weaving machines.

Several devices are ethnographically known for rewinding threads into skeins. Talc and reels were found in Novgorod. Talca is a round rod about 80 cm long, with a top at both ends in the form of a transverse rod or a natural fork. The reel is a cross up to 70 cm in length with forks at the ends, set on round spikes. In the center of the cross there is a horizontal axis, which rests in two posts. At the end of the axle there is a handle for driving the reel into circular rotation.

For warping (the preparatory process of weaving on a horizontal mill), which is done on “pegs” on a wall or frame, a device called a yurok is needed. In Novgorod in the layers of the XIII-XVI centuries. More than 100 bramblings were found. These are cylindrical sticks about 10-12 cm long; at their ends, retreating by 5-10 mm, transverse cuts are made up to half the diameter of the bramble, as well as on opposite sides in relation to one another. There are holes at both ends of the bracelet that reach the cutouts. The thread is passed through the holes, then comes out to the surface of the yoke, makes a half turn along the helical line and exits into another hole. Screws were used to ensure that the threads did not cross when warping, lay smoothly on the frame and had the appropriate tension.

Of the parts of weaving looms, among the Novgorod materials, the following were found: a - shuttles with a lantern and a rod, b - parts of the heald assembly - footrests, razluchnitsy, nichenki, dogs, c - details of the batan-bottom, these are strips for holding the reed and other parts.

Wooden Novgorod shuttles are absolutely similar in design and shape to the shuttles of modern handicraft wooden looms. The shuttle body is boat-shaped, streamlined, about 200 mm long. In the middle there was a through (hollow) recess about 100 mm long and 30 mm wide. In the opposite end walls of the recess there are sockets for the rod - the thin axis of the lantern on which the weft thread is wound. The lantern, about 90 mm long and with an outer diameter of 5-6 mm, was made of reed.

The pedal footrests were made of thin cord 100 mm wide and 550 mm long. At one end of the step there is a hole for fastening to the floor or lower beam of the mill, and its other end has an arrow-shaped shape with an interception, to which the rope pull of the heald apparatus was tied.

Razluchnitsa - a strip about 280 mm long with holes at the ends for disconnecting rope pulls in the machine.

Heald dogs are wooden rods 12-15 cm long and 12 mm in diameter. Along the edges and in the center they have sockets cut out, to which the rods of the heald device were tied. One, the middle rod, went up, and the other two went down to the healds.

In Novgorod, several thousand finds of tissue fragments have been collected in all layers.

Technological study of fabrics of the 14th-15th centuries, as well as fabrics of the 10th-13th centuries, showed that Novgorod weavers used several systems of weaving. Among them, three groups with different options can be distinguished: plain, twill and complex ( See A. Nakhlik. Fabrics of Novgorod. Experience in technological analysis. MIA, No. 123. M, 1963, p. 228.).

In the first group of the simplest weave - plain - the warp and weft threads are arranged in a checkerboard pattern, overlapping each other alternately (the fabric count is 2 threads). The front and back sides have the same appearance. Tissues from this group make up 26% of those studied.

In the second group of a more complex weave - twill - the threads are not arranged in a checkerboard pattern, but with a shift so that a pattern of diagonal stripes is formed (the fabric count is 3, 4, 5 threads). In addition, twill weave has been found - simple (with equally repeating diagonals) and complex, when the diagonals are unequal and form a rhythmic pattern. Fabrics of this group make up 46%.

The third group is fabrics of complex combined weaves, with a pattern reminiscent of rep weave (with longitudinal and transverse scars). Fabrics of this group make up 28%.

A microscopic study of woolen fabrics for the quality of wool showed that Novgorod weavers produced three types of fabrics: fine-wool, semi-coarse-wool and coarse-wool. Fine wool fabrics include different types cloth

Observations of the color of fabrics are very interesting. The overwhelming majority of fabrics are red, followed by black, green, yellow, blue and white ( 36 See N. B. Chernykh. Novgorod textiles from the Nerevsky excavation site. VMU, i-fs, 1958, No. 4, p. 102.).

Dyeing of wool and linen fabrics was carried out by specialized craftsmen - artisan dyers. These fairly numerous artisans in ancient Russian cities populated entire streets. For example, the Novgorod Chronicles from 1385 mention “Krasilnitskaya Street”.

Technical analysis of various parts of the loom and the weaves of Novgorod fabrics allows us to determine the design of the loom of the 14th-15th centuries. In Novgorod, weaving looms had a horizontal design with a baton and a complex multi-shaft system. The number of healds, that is, devices for mechanically separating the warp threads (forming a shed for the shuttle), is always numerically equal to the fabric size. To produce twill weave fabrics, the count of which was 3, 4, 5 threads, the machine required 3, 4, 5 healds, respectively.

To move the healds, mechanical devices are required, which are driven by a foot drive - footrests. These machines had up to four footrests.

In addition, the presence of fabrics of the third group with a complex weave indicates the use of two wefts when weaving, this is a braided technique.

Novgorod weavers, like weavers of other Russian cities, in the XIV-XV centuries. worked on complex horizontal looms and produced dozens of types of high-quality fabrics of different designs.

The production of felt products and ropes was widespread in ancient Rus'.

In Novgorod, thousands of fragments of felt were collected in all layers. The overwhelming majority of felt is coarse wool, sometimes semi-coarse wool. Felt had very wide applications. Shoes, hats, insoles, collar pads, sweat pads and other products were made from it.

There are quite numerous finds of ropes and various cords. Ropes, which were very widespread in households, crafts and shipbuilding, were made from hemp and bast. The diameter of archaeologically known ropes ranged from 5 to 30 mm. All kinds of cords, used mainly in clothing, were most often made from wool.

Weaving weaves: 1.1" - 2/2 twill weave, 2.2" - 2/2 cross weave, 3.3" - 2/1 twill weave, 4.4" - 1/2 twill weave. Novgorod. (NAE Collection).

Origin

It is difficult to judge the time of the birth of art and crafts, the roots of which are lost in the depths of millennia, and the material traces (wood, fibrous materials) are fragile and short-lived. We have only one path left - the path of a reasoned hypothesis based on the following main groups of information sources:

Ethnographic - ancient devices and methods preserved in the traditions of modern civilizations or used by primitive tribes;

Archaeological - finds of weaving devices or their parts, fabrics;

Artistic - images in works of art of the corresponding period (vase or wall paintings, reliefs, etc.);

Literary-folklore - historical descriptions from various literary monuments of the corresponding period or descriptions preserved in folklore;

Analytical - based on the analysis of socio-economic conditions, preserved tissues, and their possible distribution across geographic regions.

In relation to the initial period of the history of weaving technology, only the fifth group will be useful, in that part where we are talking about the analysis of socio-economic conditions. The main incentive for the appearance of clothing in humans is considered to be the need to protect the body from adverse environmental influences. According to some researchers, an additional incentive was the satisfaction of the instinct of creation among ancient people, especially among those who lived in places with favorable climatic conditions.

A necessary prerequisite for weaving is the availability of raw materials. At the weaving stage, these were strips of animal skin, grass, reeds, vines, young shoots of bushes and trees. The first types of woven clothing and shoes, bedding, baskets and nets were the first weaving products. It is believed that weaving preceded spinning, since it existed in the form of weaving even before man discovered the spinning ability of the fibers of certain plants, among which were wild nettles, “cultivated” flax and hemp. Small livestock farming provided various types wool and fluff.

None of the types of fibrous materials could survive for a long time. The oldest fabric in the world is linen fabric, found in 1961 during excavations of an ancient settlement near the Turkish village of Catal Huyuk and made around 6500 BC. e. Until recently, this fabric was considered to be wool, and only a careful microscopic examination of more than 200 samples of old woolen fabrics from Central Asia and Nubia showed that the fabric found in Turkey was linen.

During excavations of settlements of the lake inhabitants of Switzerland, a large amount of fabrics made from bast fibers and wool was discovered. This served as further evidence that weaving was known to people of the Stone Age (Paleolithic). The settlements were opened in the winter of 1853-1854. That winter turned out to be so cold and dry that the level of the alpine lakes in Switzerland dropped sharply. As a result, local residents saw the ruins of pile settlements, covered with centuries-old silt. During excavations of settlements, a number of cultural layers were discovered, the lowest of which are dated to the Stone Age. Coarse, but quite usable fabrics made from bast fibers, bast and wool were found. Some fabrics were decorated with stylized human figures painted with natural colors.

In the 70s of the twentieth century, with the development of underwater archeology, research into settlements in the vast Alpine region on the borders of France, Italy and Switzerland began again. The settlements dated from 5000 to 2900 BC. e. Many remains of fabrics were found, including twill weave, balls of thread, reeds of wooden looms, wooden spindles for spinning wool and flax, and various needles. All finds indicate that the inhabitants of the settlements were engaged in weaving themselves.

The first fabrics were very simple in structure. As a rule, they were produced using plain weave. However, quite early they began to produce ornamented fabrics, using religious symbols and simplified figures of people and animals as decorative elements. The ornament was applied to raw fabrics by hand. Later they began to decorate fabrics with embroidery.

The monuments of culture and applied art that have reached us have made it possible to restore the nature of the patterns used at that time, covering the border of the collar, sleeves and hem of clothing, and sometimes the belt. The nature of the patterns changed from simple geometric ones, sometimes using plant motifs, to complex ones with images of animals and people.

Western Asia and fabrics

Weaving and weaving were widely developed in Ancient Mesopotamia. Reed was most often used for weaving. Reed braids were used to cover or wrap the dead, they hung door and window openings, and the walls of houses. Baskets were woven from reeds to store documents in temples and palaces. Finer things were woven from grass. Such weaving is depicted on a gold filigree scabbard from the Meskalamdug tomb.

The date palm culture played a leading role in the economy of Mesopotamia. Reins, whips, various covers, and wickerwork for cargo carts were made from its leaves.

In the fine art of Mesopotamia there is only one relief of late time depicting a noble Elamite woman engaged in spinning, but in the most ancient settlements of Khlam, spindle whorls and copper axes wrapped in pieces of fabric were found. Whorls made of baked clay and stone were found by R. Koldevey during excavations in Babylon. The texts from Fara-Shuruppak mention threads, fleece, and yarn wound on a bobbin. During excavations in Ur, remains of fabric (or felt) were found, which was used to line the famous golden helmet of Meskalamdug.

Weaving was practiced by both slaves and free artisans. Slaves worked under an overseer in the “weavers’ house” on royal and temple farms and were divided into two categories: senior and junior weavers. Free artisans lived in a special quarter: a text from Kerkuk, kept in the Louvre, mentions the “weavers’ quarter.” Records of weavers working around 2200 BC. e., found in the Chaldean city of Ur. In large farms, weavers were given “copper looms” on a count basis: probably, we are talking about some kind of weaving equipment.

Entire lists of clothing from the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur have been preserved, where, along with clothing made of fiber and “grass,” they speak of luxurious clothing covered with gold and precious stones, soft, delicate, hard and dense clothing. The clothes made were weighed (one of them, for example, weighed about 1300 grams).

Bas-reliefs give a good idea of ​​the fabric patterns of that time. For example, the alabaster bas-reliefs that once covered the walls of the palaces of Nineveh date back to no later than the 8th century BC. e. According to many Assyriologists, the ornamentation of the bas-reliefs is nothing more than an imitation of Babylonian fabrics, and the bas-reliefs themselves are indirect evidence of the existence of carpet production.

Among the first textile materials were wool and linen. In the 7th century BC. e. After the conquest of Babylon by Sennacherib, the peoples of Mesopotamia became acquainted with cotton. "Wool-producing trees" are mentioned on an Assyrian cylinder of the time.

Babylonian fabrics, known in antiquity, were famous for their multicolored and intricate patterns. According to Pliny the Elder, it was in Babylon that multicolor embroidery was invented.

Copper and bronze needles found during excavations indicate that embroidery and sewing in Mesopotamia were known perhaps earlier than 1100 BC. e.

The weaving technique of the peoples of Ancient Mesopotamia still remains unknown, since neither parts of weaving looms nor their images have yet been found, and the weaving technology is also unknown to us.

The oldest textile colored products of Western Asia are carpets and fabrics found in the glaciated mounds of the Altai Mountains. The oldest knotted wool carpet in the world is the 5th century BC. e., discovered in the fifth Pazyryk mound, made somewhere in Media or Persia. The rectangular carpet measures 1.83 x 2 meters and has a complex pattern that includes images of riders with horses, fallow deer and vultures. In the same mound, fabrics were found that covered a felt saddle cloth and a bib and were made on a horizontal loom with vertical lines of the pattern along the weft. All fabrics are double-sided, multi-colored, warp density 22-26 threads per centimeter. In the fabric covering the saddle cloth, the weft density is 55 threads per centimeter, in some patterned areas - up to 80 threads per centimeter, the width of the fabric is at least 60 centimeters.

A strip of fabric 5.3 centimeters wide and 68 centimeters long with a weft density of 40 to 60 threads per centimeter is sewn onto the bib. The fabric depicts 15 lions walking in a line; along its edges there is a border of alternating colored triangles.

The quality of the fabrics and the fineness of the design allow us to judge a fairly high level of weaving in Western Asia in the middle of the first millennium BC. e. For example, it can be noted that in the images of human figures on the fabric covering the saddle cloth, even fingernails can be distinguished, and this is with the width of the fabric itself being 6.5 centimeters. High quality fabrics suggests a good level of weaving in an earlier period. The famous Soviet art critic S.I. Rudenko believes that “the needle-sewn patterns mentioned by ancient authors... are not embroidery at all in the modern sense, but the finest tapestry designs obtained in the process of making fabric on a loom.”

Ancient Egypt

Starting around 3400 BC. e. It is quite easy to follow the development of weaving. The Egyptian method of mummification, the burial of many objects from everyday life with the deceased, the special climatic conditions of Egypt, which contributed to the preservation of a large number of burials, gave humanity significant practical information about the life and habits of the ancient Egyptians. In addition, many monuments of Egyptian painting and sculpture have reached us, from which we can also judge the development of weaving.

Linen fabrics from the Neolithic, Badarian, Predynastic and 1st Dynasty periods have been preserved. Fragments of linen from a predynastic burial at Gebelein depict a scene of a hippopotamus being hunted in two boats different sizes. In the tombs of the pharaohs of the 1st and 2nd dynasties (3400-2980 BC) fabrics were found with warp and weft threads of the same thickness and with a warp density of 48 threads per centimeter and a weft density of 60 threads per centimeter. Fabrics of the Memphis dynasty (2980-2900 BC), found in tombs in Upper Egypt, are thinner than modern linen and have a density of 19X32 and 17X48 threads per square centimeter.

Wooden and clay figurines (circa 2500 BC) of weavers and warpers at work have also been found in Egyptian tombs. Warping with pegs driven into the ground is still used by some peoples in hand weaving (for example, in Guatemala).

Among the paintings on the walls of the tomb of Hemotep from Beni-Hasan (2000-1788 BC) there are several drawings depicting a vertical loom and working weavers, as well as the processes of making yarn and preparing it for weaving. Similar images are found on the walls of several more tombs of the XII dynasty in Beni Hassan and El Bersha, as well as in the tombs of the XVIII dynasty in Thebes. In Thebes, archaeologist Winlock found a model from the 11th Dynasty depicting women weaving.

The fabrics of Egyptian mummies show that the people of Ancient Egypt had perfect weaving skills. With all our modern equipment, we cannot achieve some of the results once obtained by ancient masters. In some fabrics of Egyptian mummies, the warp density exceeds 200 threads per centimeter, while modern weaving equipment does not allow the production of fabrics with a warp density greater than 150 threads per centimeter. For example, the bandage on the forehead of a mummy kept in one of the English museums is made of linen with a warp density of 213 threads per centimeter. The linear density of the yarn in this fabric is 0.185 tex (that is, the mass of one kilometer of yarn is 0.185 grams). The mass of one square meter of such fabric would be 5 grams.

Interesting results from studying a tissue sample Egyptian mummy, stored in the Ivanovo Art Museum. The fabric dates back to the 16th-15th centuries BC. e. and consists of four layers: canvas impregnated with a transparent substance of yellow-ocher color, white primer, reminiscent in color and shine of loose snow, paint of green, red and yellow colors, transparent varnish of a grayish-ash color. Plain weave fabric has a warp density of 24 threads per centimeter and a weft density of 13 threads per centimeter. The soil consists of small anisotropic crystalline fragments of white color, insoluble in ether. The paint is amorphous, with crystalline inclusions, insoluble in either water or universal organic solvents, and has retained its freshness and brightness. The varnish is amorphous and has not undergone crystallization. The results obtained indicate that at that time, Egyptian craftsmen knew how to make durable linen fabrics, knew how to protect them from decay, and they knew a non-crystallizing varnish that preserved the brightness and freshness of colors for a long time.

Museums around the world contain a large number of examples of ornamented fabrics dating back to around 1500 BC. e. Several examples of colored tapestry linen were found in the tomb of Pharaoh Thutmose IV (1466 BC). The carpet from this tomb shows a pattern in the form of lotuses, semicircles and a cross-shaped amulet common to Ancient Egypt. In the burial of the young pharaoh Tut, dating back to approximately the same time, a large number of amazingly beautiful fabrics were found.

On the wall of a bedroom in the main palace of Akhetaten, the capital of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton), remains of a painting depicting the pharaoh's daughters sitting on pillows are preserved. The pattern of the fabrics on the pillows consists of parallel blue diamonds on a pink background. The relief from the tomb of Parennefer in Akhetaten also contains an image of a pillow covered with patterned fabric. The fabric pattern is made in the form of “roads” of rhombuses of different sizes. The lid of a casket from the tomb of Tutankhamun (1375-1350 BC) depicts a scene of the pharaoh hunting lions. The pharaoh wears clothes made of golden-colored fabric with simple geometric patterns. The horse in the pharaoh's chariot is covered with a patterned fabric, probably a carpet, with geometric motifs on a golden background and with three dark blue stripes along the edges. The field of fabric between the stripes is filled with the same pattern as the main background of the fabric.

The ancient Egyptians knew and widely used yarn dyeing. The mummies' fabrics have blue and yellow-brown edges. The bed of Tutankhamun's mummy was covered with dark brown cloth. The fabric covering the ceremonial staffs was painted in a color close to black. A thin dark yellow cloth was draped over the bodyguard statue at the entrance to the tomb. Several items made of colored tapestry linen fabric were also found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

In ancient Egypt, weaving was closely associated with small peasant farming. Fabrics were a natural tribute to landowners in both the Old and New Kingdoms. During the 18th dynasty, Vizier Rekhmir accepted various types of fabrics among the gifts presented to him.

Based on Roman period textiles found in Antinous and Alexandria, archaeologist E. Flemming suggested that they were made on a garter loom. However, the question of the origin of these tissues remained controversial for a long time. The first finds were made in Antinous back in 1896-1897, and the leading orientalists of that time - Strzygovsky and later Herzfeld - recognized the Iranian origin of the fabrics, dating them to the Sassanid period (224-651). The German art historian O. von Falke, in his famous work “The Artistic History of Silk Weaving,” defended the hypothesis of the local origin of fabrics. This point of view was held by many scientists, including E. Flemming, until R. Pfister, based on additional materials obtained by a French archaeological expedition, proved that the fabrics were made in Sasanian Persia. The greatest historian of textile art, A. Mayer, who devoted her entire life to the study of artistic fabrics, like E. Flemming, believes that the mentioned fabrics were produced on a loom with garters. Iran is the birthplace of this remarkable technical invention, which we will talk about later.

Let's return to Egypt. During the Ptolemaic period, weaving was a royal monopoly, but from the 2nd century BC. e. Private weaving production also begins to spread. As a rule, private weaving production was family-owned, but sometimes hired labor was also used.

America

North and Central America. Weaving on the American continent, like weaving in the countries of the Old World, has its roots in ancient times. Excavations of settlements that existed long before the Incan civilization have shown that ancient people were very skilled in weaving.

The Indians, like the Egyptians, began with simple plain weave fabrics, but soon produced fabrics in such weaves as twill and leno. They created complex geometric patterns that were woven or painted by hand.

Ancient people used flax, grass, bison hair, rabbit hair and opossum hair for weaving. Later they learned to use the wool of these animals, and their acquaintance with cotton occurred simultaneously with the peoples of the Old World. The looms were similar to those found during excavations in Egypt. The only difference was that instead of a shuttle they used a long twig to insert the weft into the shed.

Woven bags, fishing nets, shoes woven from grass, and clothing made from feathers have been found in ancient rock caves in the Ozark Mountains. Ancient Algonquin pottery vessels have fabric or rope marks, indicating that the vessels were wrapped in woven material during manufacture.

The so-called basket makers (2000 BC) made woven bags and finely woven baskets. A significant step forward in the art of weaving was made by the peoples who lived after the “basket makers” in the southeast of North America. Among the samples of fabrics produced at that time are fabrics made from yarn obtained from fibers wild plants. After cotton began to be used as a raw material for yarn, feathers (for example, turkey feathers) were often woven into cotton fabrics. Prehistoric Indians passed on their ability to make fabrics to descendants of the Camino Indians, about whom there is written evidence. The latter, in turn, trained the Navajo Indians, who moved to the southwest of North America after Spanish colonization. The Navajo proved to be capable students and soon surpassed their teachers. They made finer and more complex fabrics.

And now Indian women of the Navajo tribe weave on handlooms in the same way as their distant ancestors did. They weave blankets, the patterns of which are stored only in their memory. Navajo blankets and bedding are made using the tapestry technique. Most of these products are woven so tightly that they do not allow water to pass through. Until now, Indian women in one place disturb the design so that the “evil spirit” can come out of the blanket. This distinctive marking distinguishes Navajo blankets.

From Mayan weaving, only a whorl and a small number of fragments of fabrics found at the bottom of the Chichen Itza spring remained. And only frescoes, ceramics and sculpture tell us about Mayan fabrics, which, judging by the images, were as beautiful as Peruvian fabrics. The raw materials widely used were annual and perennial cotton, which grows throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. Rabbit wool was brought from Mexico. Before weaving, the yarn was dyed in accordance with the symbolism adopted by the Mayans. They made simple, coarse “manta” fabrics 16.5 m long, colorful “huipil” fabrics for women, fabrics for men’s pants and curtains, capes for leaders, priests and idols. Protective equipment was made from manta cloth soaked in salt solution.

The Mayan weaving devices were no different from the conventional devices used by all American Indians. Weaving among the Mayans was a domestic occupation for women. Unlike the Incas, the Mayans did not assign “selected women” to weave in monasteries. Fabrics were made both for themselves and for sale.

Peru. One of the outstanding centers of ancient weaving is Peru. The dry climate of the Peruvian coast resembles Egypt. As in Egypt, burial sites were chosen in desert areas where there is practically no rain, which ensured good preservation of the tissues. Peruvian “mummies,” like Egyptian ones, were wrapped in thin fabrics, probably specially made for funerary purposes.

The ancient inhabitants of Peru knew cotton, wool and bast fibers (except flax, which was unknown). We have no information about the beginning of textile production in the mountains, but on the coast the first fiber was cotton; bast fibers were used mainly for special products: thin hair nets, ropes, etc. Very early wool from llamas, alpacas and wild animals appeared among the materials. vikun. For coarse fabrics, llama wool (yellow-brown) was used; finer fabrics were alpaca wool (white, black and brown).

The earliest Peruvian textiles were found during excavations at Huaca Prieta, a Paleolithic site on the North Coast dating back to around 2500 BC. e. About 3 thousand fragments of fabrics were found, mostly cotton, and only a small amount of some local bast fiber; there were no woolen fabrics at all. About 78 percent of the fabrics are made using the leno technique, which directly developed from weaving.

Europe

Animal bones were used by our ancestors to make a variety of things. In Northern Europe, including in Ancient Novgorod, where more than 400 such bones and 0 tools were collected during excavations. But even more sharp objects were found there, called piercings and made from the bones of a sheep, goat, horse, dog, elk or other animals. Largest number Novgorod perforations belong to the most ancient horizons of the 10th century; fewer of them were found in the layers of the 11th century, and the number of even later ones is completely insignificant. The same is typical for other centers of Ancient Rus'. If we assume that such pointed bones were used as a tool for piercing the skin, then the decrease in their number could be associated with the advent of more advanced tools. This, however, is not observed.

Most likely, the piercings served as a tool for the weaver, who used them to beat the weft threads and, by the way, sword-shaped wooden tools, usually mistaken for children's toys, could be used for the same purpose. The decrease in the number of both in later archaeological layers is apparently associated with a period of improvement in weaving production. The fact is that such padding was needed only when working on a vertical loom, where the fabric was woven from top to bottom. Such machines - due to their exceptional simplicity - were available in literally every household, because all clothing in those days was homespun. With the advent of the horizontal loom, the weaving technology itself changed: a special lattice device began to evenly distribute the warp threads and press the weft threads.

The horizontal machine was already much more efficient and usually belonged to a professional artisan. In Western Europe, it became widespread in the 11th century - with the emergence of the first large centers of the textile industry in Flanders, England and northern France.

Archaeological evidence of the appearance of the horizontal machine is scarce: some of its parts are found in the strata of the 11th century in Hedeby and Gdansk. And its distribution is often judged by the absence of vertical machine parts in the layer - such as piercings and sword-shaped objects from Novgorod.

Weaving in Rus'

The entire history of Slavic weaving can be told from peasant household items. The most common types of folk household art were embroidery, patterned weaving, knitting, wood carving and painting, and processing of birch bark and metal. Such a variety of forms of visual creativity was determined by the very life of the people. Subsistence farming conditions forced people to create home furnishings, utensils, tools and clothing with their own hands. These things accompanied him throughout his life, and therefore it is clear that the peasant sought to make not only useful and convenient, but also beautiful objects.

Patterned heald weaving, an ancient type of folk craft, was developed in many villages of the Nizhny Novgorod region, especially on its northern outskirts. Peasant women decorated rugs, clothes, bedspreads, tablecloths, tabletops, and towels with homespun patterns. The materials used for weaving were flax, wool and cotton. Nizhny Novgorod weaving was distinguished by its large patterned geometric patterns and subtlety of color. The number of colors in the fabric is small, harmonious and noble in shades. These are mainly white, red, blue colors. Thanks to the finely found compositional solution of color and ornament, the weavers' products had a special sophistication.

The art of patterned weaving reached a high level of development among the Slavs. On primitive weaving mills they produced smooth fabrics and patterned fabrics that were beautiful in their artistic merit. Some of the patterned items decorated clothes, while others decorated peasant interiors. The material was linen threads. Often hemp or wool thread was added to linen thread.

Ornamental patterns were created through the use of various techniques of weaving threads in the fabric itself.

The simplest and most common method of ornamentation was used by the Slavs in variegated fabrics with plain weave. These fabrics were used for everyday clothing - men's and women's shirts, sundresses. The motley patterns for clothes were checkered, striped, and very subdued in color. Blue, gray, and lilac tones predominated, echoing the color of the surrounding nature. Sometimes bright and rich colors were used in fabrics with the addition of wool or hemp thread: red, brown, pink and others.

Festive clothes, in particular women's shirts, were made from white canvas, the hems were decorated with a red stripe of a woven pattern. The general coloring and selection of tones in traditional clothing testify to the amazing taste and sense of harmony of Slavic craftswomen.

Woven patterned towels, valances and women's shirts were made using the double-weft weaving technique. The technique of double-weave weaving is not particularly complicated, but it is very labor-intensive and required a lot of attention from the weaver - the slightest mistake when counting the threads caused distortion of the entire design.

The weaving technique determined the nature of the bran patterns and their compositional structure. On valances and towels, the patterns were arranged in strict horizontal rows, with a predominance of three-part compositions: a wide middle stripe and borders symmetrically framing the central border. Especially elegant gift towels were decorated with multi-tiered compositions.

Despite the small range of original motifs, woven patterns are extremely diverse in general appearance, which was achieved through various combinations and rearrangements of figures. Even simple lengthening or shortening of geometric shapes created a new ornament.

The weaving looms of the ancient Slavs were made of thick beams of the bed and palate. All its moving parts are attached to the latter: thread frames - a heald with loops made of linen threads. The even warp threads are threaded into the loops of one of the frames, and the odd warp threads into the loops of the other frame. Ropes connecting the footrests to the healds are passed through movable blocks tied to the palate. Step on one of them - the even group of the base rises, on the other - the odd one.

The peculiarity of North Russian folk fabrics is their patterning, careful graphic development of the pattern itself, sometimes quite complexly woven, and at the same time restraint in its use: only the edge of the product was decorated with a colored pattern, leaving the main part of it either smooth white or with white relief , very modest and discreet design. The coloring of northern fabrics is also restrained: it is based on a classically strict combination of red and white, where white quantitatively predominates (the white field of the fabric itself and the narrow red border). In the border itself, the red pattern appears on a white background, and the white and red colors are balanced, their number is almost equal, which is why the overall tone of this pattern is not deep red, but pinkish. This gives the color of northern fabrics a certain lightness and sophistication. If the fabric is multi-colored, for example, a striped rug or a motley checkered pattern, then the coloring here is often soft and relatively light.

The artistic design of patterned fabrics is largely determined by the weaving technique. And the technique of patterned weaving in Pomerania was very diverse. Thus, for the manufacture of everyday and work clothes (men's shirts, work skirts and sundresses), household items (pillowcases and sheets), the plain and twill weave technique was used. The materials for the manufacture of linen, cloth, canvas and half-woolen fabrics were flax, hemp, paper and wool. The most common were Pomeranian moths. The basis for them was cotton linen fabrics with checks or stripes. Patterned heald weaving was less common in Pomerania. Fabrics made using the multi-shaft weaving technique were called “Kamchatka”. Craftswomen decorated bedspreads, tablecloths, tabletops, and towels with such patterns.

The technique of bran weaving made it possible to create the most complex patterns. Typical types of Pomeranian textile products are towels, women's shirts, and floor runners. Their ornamentation was dominated by geometric patterns.

In the most ancient weaving techniques, belts were weaved without the use of a loom. They were performed - on planks, with weaving, on a reed ("on a thread", "chock", "in circles"). Belts were a mandatory part of the traditional northern costume.

A very stable tradition depicts “exemplary”, that is, homely, hardworking women and girls of Ancient Rus' (as well as other contemporary European countries) are most often busy at the spinning wheel. This applies to both the “good wives” of our chronicles and fairy-tale heroines. Indeed, in an era when literally all everyday necessities were made with one’s own hands, a woman’s first duty, in addition to cooking, was to sew clothes for all family members. What kind of “ports” the Slavic craftswomen cut and sewed is described in the “Clothing” section. Here we will look at the previous stages of the “technological process” - spinning threads, making fabrics and dyeing them, since all this was also done independently, at home.

Work of this kind began in the fall, after the end of the harvest, and tried to complete it by spring, by the beginning of a new agricultural cycle. Scientists write that our great-great-grandmothers worked literally without straightening their backs: for example, in order to weave three canvases 50 m long in six months alone, you need to spend twelve to fifteen hours a day at the loom. And in order to spin threads from one pound (that is, 16.3 kg) of prepared fiber, it required no less than nine hundred and fifty-five hours of hard work...

Of course, the mistress of the house, a big woman, physically could not cope with all this without the help of her daughters-in-law and daughters. Indeed, the upbringing of girls was aimed not least at raising them to be “thin-spinners.” In the chapter “Birth” it is mentioned that they even tried to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn girl on a spindle in order to magically “tie” her to her future occupation from the first minutes of her life. The same is evidenced by a custom preserved among the neighbors of the Slavic tribes - the Karelians: when a little girl laughed for the first time, a spindle was brought to her.

Later, when Slavic children aged five to seven years old began to be taught to do housework, the girl spun her first thread. Of course, this event (like all the “very first” things that happened in a child’s life) was accompanied by magical rituals. So, back in the early twentieth century, this first thread was wound into a ball and ceremoniously burned, and the girl had to drink the ashes with water (in a number of places the smoke of the burning thread was inhaled). This was done so that hard work and art would not leave the needlewoman until the end of her days. There was another, also magical, use for the first spun thread. The girl's mother hid her and saved her until her daughter became a bride. And then, preparing her for the sacrament of the wedding, the mother girded her child with this thread under all the clothes on her naked body. According to our ancestors, the thread of the very first spinning was an impregnable amulet against damage and the evil eye, against evil spirits, which were believed to be especially dangerous for a new family that had not had time to properly develop and find a reliable mystical patron.

Finally, the dowry that the young wife had to bring to her husband’s house consisted mostly of clothes and linen and, as a rule, was prepared by the bride herself throughout her youth, accumulating in a special chest...

“Sloth”, “netka” - these were extremely offensive nicknames for teenage girls. And one should not think that among the ancient Slavs, hard women’s work was the lot of only the wives and daughters of the common people, and girls from noble families grew up as slackers and white-handed women, like “negative” fairy-tale heroines. Not at all. In those days, princes and boyars, according to a thousand-year tradition, were elders, leaders of the people, and to some extent intermediaries between people and the Gods. This gave them certain privileges, but there were no less responsibilities, and the well-being of the tribe directly depended on how successfully they dealt with them. The leader, in particular, had to be a role model in literally everything, and this extended to his family members. The wife and daughters of a boyar or prince were not only “obliged” to be the most beautiful of all (now it is clear that fairy-tale “beautiful princesses” are by no means accidental!), they also had to be “out of competition” at the spinning wheel. Therefore, archaeologists are not surprised when they discover the remains of spindles during excavations and quite ordinary huts, and in rich treasures next to gold jewelry and pearls. Throughout medieval Europe, spinning was considered the "most respectable" pastime for noble women. How can one not recall the fairy tale about Sleeping Beauty, where the royal (!) daughter is in real danger of being pricked by a spindle when she grows up and starts spinning. And here is a fragment from our chronicle of the 12th century, containing praise for a rich housewife: “...she stretches out her hand on the useful, puts her elbows on the spindle...” - and then it is said that her husband, even on a long trip, has nothing to worry about - all the household will be dressed .

As for the most distant times, we already know that, along with the “men’s houses”, where the men of the clan instilled in boys various purely masculine wisdom, mystical and everyday, the ancient Slavs also had “women’s houses”, where older women taught girls feminine magic and crafts, including spinning and weaving. The words “magic” and “craft” rightfully stand side by side here. After all, a spinner or weaver (like a blacksmith, builder, potter...) creates a form (thread) from the formless (a lump of fiber), “organizes space” in a certain way, filling empty space with fabric, and therefore actively participates in the ongoing “creation of the world.”

It is no coincidence that many, many ancient peoples made the masters and guardians of destinies not Gods, but Goddesses sitting at spinning wheels or at a loom. The threads of human destinies were spun by Hittite, Greek, Roman, and Scandinavian Goddesses. The Dolgans and Evenks living in the north of our country represent destinies in the form of invisible threads stretching to heaven from the head of each person. And in Africa, according to the beliefs of the Dahomeans, the Goddess, the fortune teller, is the daughter (according to other versions, the mother) of the Goddess, the patroness of spinners...

The Slavs also had similar beliefs. The fact that for us fate was once a completely material “thread” is evidenced by the still existing expression “to connect one’s fate” with someone or something. The ancient (and not very ancient) Slavs believed: the linen thread, which was used to tie (“twist”) the baby’s umbilical cord, firmly, for the rest of his life, “grafted” his Share to him - a small Deity of personal destiny, bestowed on each person by Mother Lada, the eldest Rozhanitsa , Goddess of the cosmic order of things (for more details, see the chapter “Kind and Women in Birth”). And the patroness of spinning and weaving among our pagan ancestors was Makosh (see the chapter “Mother Earth and Father Sky”), which some researchers consider, without exaggeration, to be the mistress of destinies - the great Goddess of the Earth...

This is the truly “cosmic” thread that our great-great-grandmothers spun and, one must think, they were well aware of it. Hard daily work was a kind of sacred act for them, and not at all a tedious duty, as it might seem to a modern person.

The spinning wheel was the woman's inseparable companion. A little later we will see that Slavic (and not only Slavic) women managed to spin even... on the go, for example, on the road or while looking after cattle. And when young people gathered for gatherings on autumn and winter evenings, games and dances usually began only after the “lessons” brought from home (that is, work, handicrafts) had dried up, most often a tow that had to be spun. At gatherings, boys and girls looked at each other and made acquaintances. The “unspinner” had nothing to hope for here, even if she were the first beauty. Starting the fun without completing the “lesson” was considered unthinkable. It happened that a guy, wanting to quickly get his chosen one for dancing, tried to set fire to the tow on her spinning wheel. And if there were reasons to hope for reciprocity, he could completely take away the spinning wheel and not return it until the girl kissed him...

Let us now consider the raw materials from which Slavic women spun threads and wove fabrics.

Linguists testify: the ancient Slavs did not call just any fabric “canvas”. In all Slavic languages, this word meant only linen fabric (for more details, see below, in the chapter “Varieties and names of fabrics”).

Apparently, in the eyes of our ancestors, no shirt could compare with a linen one, and there is nothing to be surprised about. In winter, linen fabric warms well, and in summer it keeps the body cool. Connoisseurs traditional medicine claim that linen clothing protects human health. It is not for nothing that flax is celebrated by an ancient riddle written down in the 19th century by V. I. Dahl: “They beat me, they beat me, they promoted me to all ranks, they put me on the throne as king...”

Historians write that flax, “domesticated” back in Sumer, Persia and Ancient Egypt, was one of the oldest cultivated plants in Asia and Europe. According to ancient Roman evidence, in the 1st century AD, flax was bred by the Gauls (the Celtic population of modern France) and the Germans: among these tribes, linen clothing was considered the property of women and the privilege of the nobility. Indeed, Scandinavian myths call flax “precious”. Linen enjoyed well-deserved love among the peoples of Rus', Slavic and non-Slavic, and, moreover, from time immemorial. Suffice it to say that seeds of cultivated flax and parts of a wooden spinning wheel were discovered by archaeologists near Lake Vozhe (present-day Vologda region) during excavations of a settlement dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. The observations of our chronicles and the reports of Arab travel writers who came to visit the Slavs and Finno-Ugric peoples and noted their “beautiful linen clothes” are quite consistent with the archaeological finds. Let us also mention that, according to etymologists (scientists involved in finding out the origin of various words and expressions), the Old Russian word “linen” was not borrowed from any other languages. The Latin “linum”, the Greek “linon”, the English “linen”, the Irish and Norwegian “lin”, the Latvian “lini”, the Lithuanian “linai”, the ancient Prussian “linno” are brought to it not by predecessors, but by equal relatives: the common root is lost in the darkness centuries...

They guessed about the flax harvest in advance (“linen doesn’t dry for a long time in winter - the flax won’t be good...”), and the sowing itself, which usually took place in the second half of May, was accompanied by sacred rituals designed to ensure good germination and good growth of flax. In particular, flax, like bread, was sown exclusively by men. Having prayed to the Gods, they went out into the field naked and carried sowing grain in bags sewn from old pants (for more information about the meaning of such actions, see the chapter “Bread”). At the same time, the sowers tried to walk widely, swaying at every step and shaking their sacks: according to the ancients, this is how tall, fibrous flax should sway in the wind. And of course, the first to go was a man respected by everyone, a man of righteous life, to whom the Gods granted luck and a “light hand”: whatever he touches, everything grows and blooms.

Particular attention was paid to the phases of the moon: if they wanted to grow long, fibrous flax, it was sown “on the new moon,” and if it was “full of grain,” then on the full moon.

And there is every reason to think that small statues of Perun were installed in the sown flax field: such statues, wooden and metal, equipped with a special pin at the bottom for sticking, have been found by archaeologists. Perun, the God of Thunder, had to water the young plants with life-giving rain in time...

But if the summer turned out to be excessively damp, the flax became overgrown with weeds, and weeding was required. It was with her that women’s care for flax began.

When the heads of the plants turned brown (which indicated the ripening of the seeds), they were pulled out by the roots. To separate the seeds (from which edible oil was made) from the fibrous stem, back in the early twentieth century in different places in Russia, the capsules were torn off by hand, or trampled under foot, or threshed with the same tools as bread: clubs, flails, rollers, “paws.” – curved, heavy and very strong sticks, cut from “kopan” - a tree trunk along with the root. “Paw,” as scientists believe, has been preserved in the Russian North since the time of settlement of the inhabitants of ancient Novgorod there.

Next, it was necessary to free the fibers from the adhesive substances that give the living stem elasticity and strength. This was achieved in one of two ways. In the southern lands of Rus', as well as in the region of modern Velikiye Luki, flax was “laid” - laid out in a thin layer on a wet meadow and kept for fifteen to twenty days. This was done in September or October: in the southern regions at this time it is still quite warm and dew often falls, which favors the delamination of the fibers. In areas with a more severe climate (Pskov, Yaroslavl, modern Vologda region), flax was often “soaked” - dropped in bundles into a pond, swamp or special hole dug in the lowland. Only standing water was used. The processed flax was dried and then crushed, separating the fiber from the “kostrika” - extraneous tissues of the stem. Ancient crushers have been preserved, which crushed and flattened the stems between two wooden blocks, often ribbed. Sometimes the flax was additionally pounded in mortars.

In order to finally dry out the bonfire, as well as to separate the thin, delicate fiber from the shorter and stiffer one (it was used for yarn for making burlap and other fabrics of not the highest grade), the flax was frayed. The remains of wooden “ruffles” were found by archaeologists during excavations of ancient Ladoga in the layers of the 7th–9th centuries.

It is estimated that the weight of pure fiber is only a fifth of the weight of the stems.

And finally, in order to sort the fiber well and smooth it in one direction for ease of spinning, the flax was carded. They did this with the help of large and small combs, sometimes special ones - in particular, a large bone comb was found by archaeologists at a 12th-century settlement - but sometimes with the same ones used to comb hair. Bearing in mind what we know about magical properties hair (see chapter “Braid and Beard”), we can add a few important touches to our remarks about the magical meaning of spinning.

After each combing, the comb extracted coarse fibers, while fine, high-grade fibers were removed. ’ l - stayed. The word "kudel", related to the adjective "kudlaty", exists in the same meaning in many Slavic languages. The process of carding flax was also called “picking”. This word is related to the verbs “to close”, “to open” and in this case means “separation”. (Compare “moo grief”, “moo” - these words seem to speak of fruitless attempts to escape, to get rid of something.) The tow was therefore also called “moo”: probably it meant that these were “separate”, “chosen” » fibers.

The finished tow could be attached to a spinning wheel and the thread could be spun. Easy to say! But if you think about what great everyday work is behind the short lines of this chapter!..

Humanity most likely became acquainted with hemp earlier than with flax. According to experts, one of the indirect evidence of this is the willing (compared to flaxseed) consumption of hemp oil. In addition, some peoples, to whom the culture of fibrous plants came through the Slavs, borrowed hemp from them first, and flax only later.

The word “hemp” itself, according to linguists, came into the Russian language from Latin (“canapis”, “cannabus”); in turn, the ancient Romans borrowed it from the language of the even more ancient Sumerians (“kunibu”). In general, language experts quite rightly call the term denoting hemp “wandering, of eastern origin.” This is probably directly related to the fact that the history of human use of hemp goes back to primitive times, to an era when there was no agriculture...

Scientists write that in our country this plant spread from Central Asia, South- of Eastern Europe or even from China. Already the Scythians (5th century BC) knew hemp - wild and cultivated; an intoxicating drink was prepared from the seeds, and ropes needed by cattle breeders were made from the fibers (there is no direct evidence, but one can assume). The ancient Thracians, compatriots of the legendary Spartacus, wove excellent clothes from hemp fiber, similar to linen.

Wild hemp is found in both the Volga region and Ukraine. Since ancient times, the Slavs have paid attention to this plant, which, like flax, produces both oil and fiber. In any case, in the city of Ladoga, where our Slavic ancestors lived among the ethnically diverse population, in the 8th century layer archaeologists discovered hemp grains and hemp (“hemp”) ropes, for which, according to ancient authors, Rus' was famous. In general, scientists believe that hemp was originally used for weaving ropes and only later began to be used for making fabrics. An interesting confirmation of this is that fishermen from lakes Ilmen and Pskov literally until recently preferred hemp nets: fish, they said, are more willing to smell hemp fiber...

Fabrics made from hemp were called by our ancestors “sweet” or “skinny” - both after the name of male hemp plants. It was in bags sewn from old “fashionable” pants that they tried to put hemp seed during spring sowing (for more information about the rituals that accompanied sowing, see the chapters “Flax” and “Bread”).

Hemp, unlike flax, was harvested (“pulled”, “pulled”) in two steps. Immediately after flowering, male plants were selected, and female plants were left in the field until the end of August to “bear” the oily seeds. It has already been said that edible hemp oil was valued; According to somewhat later information, hemp in Rus' was grown not only for fiber, but also specifically for oil. They threshed and steeled and soaked (more often soaked) hemp in almost the same way as flax, but they did not crush it with a mill, but pounded it in a mortar with a pestle.

Everyone remembers the fairy tale by H. C. Andersen “The Wild Swans” and the wonderful shirts made of nettle fiber that sister Eliza weaves for eleven brothers, hoping to rid them of evil spells. Similar motifs are present in Russian fairy tales. It is unlikely that popular imagination would attribute such supernatural power to nettle shirts if nettle fiber were not one of the oldest. The special holiness of everything made according to “ancestral” recipes (received, as a rule, directly from the Gods themselves), and the danger of deviating from time-honored traditions, is spoken of in the chapters “Forge and Mill”, “Fire Svarozhich”. Another thing is that in Andersen’s time, the ancient myth had become a little forgotten, and that is why, in order to achieve the desired effect, it was necessary to make ordinary nettles “cemetery.”

It is unlikely that legends were made about nettle, declaring its fiber, like others useful substances, a gift from the Gods; in any case, back in the Stone Age, fishing nets were woven from it along the shores of Lake Ladoga, and these nets were found by archaeologists. Some peoples of Kamchatka and the Far East still support this tradition, but the Khanty not so long ago made not only nets, but even clothes from nettles. In addition, it is known how well many archaic elements, often already lost in “adult” life, are preserved in children's games. Just look at the well-known exclamation “Beware of me!” - a call for help addressed to a long-dead and deified ancestor. So, in the villages of Ryazan at the beginning of the twentieth century, girls did not beg their mothers for scraps and threads to sew dresses for dolls: like the fairy-tale Eliza, they themselves spun and wove them from nettles...

However, according to experts, nettle is a very good fibrous plant, and it is found everywhere near human habitation, as each of us has been convinced of more than once, in the full sense of the word, in our own skin. “Zhiguchka”, “zhigalka”, “strekava”, “fire-nettle” they called it in Rus'. The word “nettle” itself (the ancient Slavs pronounced it “kropiva”, and also with the rearrangement of letters: “koPriva”) is considered by scientists to be related to the verb “sprinkle” and the noun “krop” - “boiling water”: anyone who has ever burned themselves with nettles needs no explanation (by the way, this also includes “dill” because of the scattering seeds). Another branch of related words indicates that nettle was considered suitable for spinning. Unfortunately, there are no direct finds of “nettle” fabrics from Ancient Rus' yet, only indirect considerations (see the chapter “Varieties and names of fabrics”).

... “The Tale of Bygone Years,” the most famous ancient Russian chronicle, tells how the legendary prince-commander Oleg, returning in victory from Constantinople, ordered the “crown” sails to be raised on some of his ships. In other chronicles this word looks a little different: “kropornye”, “kroprovnye”. What did the chroniclers mean – “nettle” fabric or a type of trophy silk – coprina? Scientists argue...

How our ancestors used linden (and not only linden) bast will be partially described in the chapter “Lapti”. However, accessible plant material, easily dissected into fibers, has long attracted people's attention as a raw material for other types of work. Probably, initially, ropes were made from bast, as well as from hemp. For example, such as ropes for fishing nets, found by archaeologists in the Ladoga region: the people who wove them lived in the Stone Age. Bast ropes are mentioned in Scandinavian mythology. But, according to the testimony of ancient authors, even before our era, coarse fabric was also made from bast: Roman historians mention the Germans who wore “bast cloaks” in bad weather.

Now let’s try to remember: what is “matting”? In the Dictionary of S.I. Ozhegov, published in 1949, it is said: “a coarse material woven from sponge for packaging.” V. I. Dahl’s dictionary (1882) also calls matting “cattail” and “rogozina” and interprets it as “fabric, wicker... made from cattail, kuga, or from bast.” Cattail, kuga is a well-known cattail plant. It is found along the shores of swamps and lakes, and is often mistakenly called “reed”.

Such a difference in the explanations offered by two eminent authors indicates how much has been forgotten and gone in less than a hundred years. Etymologists in connection with matting do not mention any bast or bast at all: for them it is obvious that matting was made from cattail fibers, which, in turn, retained this name from immemorial ancient, “proto-European” times. Like “linen” (for more details, see the chapter of the same name), the word “cattail” has relatives in other languages, but it itself was not borrowed from anywhere.

Fabric made from cattail fibers, and later from bast fibers - matting - was used by the ancient Slavs mainly for household purposes. Clothing made from such fabric in that historical era was not just “not prestigious” - it was, frankly speaking, “socially unacceptable,” meaning the last degree of poverty to which a person could fall. “Dress in matting, renounce people,” warns a proverb recorded by V. I. Dahl in the 19th century, when need often knocked on peasant huts: even in difficult times, such poverty was considered shameful. As for the ancient Slavs, a person dressed in matting was either amazingly offended by fate (in order to become so impoverished, it was necessary to lose all relatives and friends at once), or was expelled by his family, or was a hopeless parasite who didn’t care, as long as don't work. In a word, a person who has a head on his shoulders and hands, is able to work and at the same time dressed in matting did not arouse the sympathy of our ancestors.

The only acceptable type of matting clothing was a raincoat; Perhaps the Romans saw such cloaks among the Germans. There is no reason to doubt that our Slavic ancestors, who were equally accustomed to bad weather, also used them. Back in the 19th century, a Russian peasant, caught in a field by rain, covered himself with a matting cape, sewn at an angle, and praised: “The matting is straight (that is, the rarest) - like mother’s dear!”

For thousands of years, matting served faithfully, but new materials appeared - and in one historical moment we forgot what it was.

Many authoritative scientists believe that woolen fabrics (including among the Slavs) appeared much earlier than linen or timber fabrics: humanity, they write, first learned to process skins obtained from hunting, then tree bark, and only later became acquainted with fibrous plants. So the very first thread in the world was most likely wool. According to these researchers, the "primacy" of wool is confirmed by the traditional use of woolen threads for embroidery and the adherence to woolen fabrics in various details women's clothing(for example, ponevakh): it is known how stable conservatism distinguished women’s attire. In addition, the magical meaning of fur (for more details, see the chapter “Outerwear”) also extended to wool.

Wool in the ancient Slavic economy was mainly sheep. It is believed that the sheep was domesticated several thousand years ago in Western Asia and Egypt. In the burial mounds on the Oka River, a piece of woolen fabric was found, which ended up in the ground no later than 1000 BC. Our ancestors sheared sheep with spring shears, which were not particularly different from modern ones designed for the same purpose. They were forged from one strip of metal, the handle was bent in an arc. Slavic blacksmiths knew how to make self-sharpening blades that did not become dull during work.

Historians write that before the advent of scissors, wool was apparently collected during molting, combed out with combs, cut with sharp knives, or... animals were shaved bald, since razors were known and used. By the way, it was also possible to shave the skins needed for leather production; in some cases this is still done today.

To clean the wool from debris, before spinning it was “beaten” with special devices on wooden grids, disassembled by hand or combed with combs - iron and wood. A Scandinavian saga, telling about the events of the 10th century, has preserved an interesting story. A grown man constantly forced the boy to scratch his back. Eventually the teenager rebelled and “scratched” the adult with an iron fur comb. The humiliating duty ended for him...

In addition to the most common sheep, they used goat wool (goat fluff was especially respected), cow hair and dog hair. Cow wool, according to somewhat later materials, was used, in particular, for making belts and blankets. But dog hair has been considered healing since ancient times to this day, and, apparently, for good reason. “Hoofs” (see chapter “Footwear”) made of dog hair were worn by people suffering from rheumatism. And if you believe popular rumor, with its help it was possible to get rid of not only the disease. If you weave a ribbon out of dog hair and tie it on your arm, leg or neck, it was believed that the most ferocious dog would not attack... Well, one must think that the “tested remedy” sometimes really added self-confidence to a fearful person, and angry dogs felt it on distance…

Before the prepared fiber turned into a real thread, suitable for inserting it into the eye of a needle or threading it into a loom, it was necessary to: pull out a long strand from the tow; twist it tightly so that it does not unravel at the slightest effort; reel

The easiest way to twist an elongated strand is to roll it between your palms or on your knee. The thread obtained in this way was called by our great-grandmothers “verch” or “suchanina” (from the word “knot”, that is, “twist”); it was used for woven bedding and rugs that did not require special strength. These words are not listed in the dictionaries of the Old Russian language. Nevertheless, scientists write that spinning is undoubtedly the most primitive and ancient form of spinning and, probably, in the era we are interested in was already archaic.

Today's rural owners, who have decided to revive home spinning (mainly, of course, from the wool of domestic animals), for the most part use so-called spinning wheels of various designs, with manual, foot and electric drive: they twist the thread by rotating the wheel. Similar devices (except electrical ones, of course) are sometimes seen in films from “epic” times. Meanwhile, experts point out that the spinning wheel (a manual version of it was used by the ancient Romans) came into use in the West around 1480. It is not known exactly when it came to Russia - at least not later than the 17th century. As for the ancient Slavs, they spun in a different way - on a spindle.

It is the spindle, and not the familiar and well-known spinning wheel, that is the main tool in such spinning. The spindles were made from dry wood (preferably birch) - possibly on a lathe, well known in Ancient Rus'. The length of the spindle could range from 20 to 80 cm. One or both ends were pointed (remember the pricked finger of Sleeping Beauty); It’s not for nothing that there is a characteristic word “spindle-shaped” - the spindle has this shape and is “naked”, without a wound thread. At the upper end there was sometimes a “beard” for tying a loop. In addition, there are “lower” and “upper” spindles, depending on which end of the wooden rod the spindle was put on - a clay or stone drilled weight. This part was extremely important for the technological process and, in addition, was well preserved in the ground. It is not for nothing that scientific articles and entire books are devoted to spindle whorls. What are they for?

The root of the Russian word “spindle” goes back to the deepest Indo-European antiquity, and in all more or less related languages, modern and ancient, it means “something rotating.” Indeed, during spinning, the spindle rotated diligently, twisting the thread, and in such a way that in the hands of an experienced spinner, according to the poems of A. S. Pushkin, it even “buzzed.” The spindle whorl served as a handwheel that helped the accelerated spindle spin long and fast, which was necessary for strong and uniform twisting of the strands of fibers pulled from the tow. The twisted thread was then wound onto a spindle and tied with a loop at its upper end so that it would not unwind or jump off. And again they pulled out a long strand from the tow - the span of the arms (it was called “fathom”, from the word “reach”, “reach” - “stretch”, “reach”) - a strand and twisted it with a quick rotation of the spindle. They reeled it in and tied it around the beard with a loop...

It would seem that from the flywheel-whorl, put on a spindle, the technical thought of man was only one step away from the flywheel-wheel of the self-spinning wheel, set in motion by hand effort (as in Ancient Rome) or legs. In fact, this took centuries; if you listen closely, the word “self-spinning wheel” reflects some surprise: “Just think, it spins itself!”

The oldest spindle whorls found in Slavic lands date back to the Stone Age. Until the 10th century, they were made from baked clay, later they appeared carved from pink and red stone - slate, which was mined in the territory of present-day Ukraine, near the city of Ovruch (chronicle Vruchy). The only deposit of such stone in Europe is located here. According to scientists, the Slavs, having mastered stone cutting, first made a spindle whorl from any suitable soft stone - for example, gray slate. However, subsequently Ovruch craftsmen “monopolized” production. Comfortable and graceful spindle whorls spread from here literally throughout Europe, from the Oder and Warta rivers in the west to the Middle Volga, from Ladoga in the north to Ros and Vorskla. When turning stone spindle whorls, Ovruch craftsmen carefully repeated the most successful shape of clay ones - biconical, that is, the weight seemed to consist of two truncated cones connected by wide bases. The spindle whorl weighed on average about 16 g, its height ranged from 4 to 12 mm, its outer diameter ranged from 10 to 25 mm, and the diameter of the spindle hole was 6–10 mm. If the spindle turned out to be too narrow, it was wrapped with thread so that it would not slip during rotation. Slate is a soft stone; on the samples found by archaeologists, there were abrasions from the threads laid by ancient craftswomen.

There is reason to think that women valued whorls very much: they carefully marked them so as not to inadvertently “swap” them at gatherings when games, dances and fuss began. They scratched personal marks on the spindle whorls, and after writing spread, they signed their names. On one slate spindle whorl, found in Vyshgorod near Kyiv, the inscription has been preserved and reached us almost from the 10th century: “Potvorin spindle.” The other, apparently, was given by a guy to his girlfriend. Scratched on it with the greatest accuracy: “the bride” - “the bride.”

In the 13th century, stone spindles again became clay ones: the Mongol invaders destroyed the Ovruch workshops...

The word “whorl whorl”, which has taken root in scientific literature, is generally speaking incorrect. “Spinning” is how the ancient Slavs pronounced it, and in this form this term still lives in places where hand spinning has been preserved. The spinning wheel (which will be discussed below) was and is still called the “whorl spindle”. Leading archaeologists back in the 40s of the twentieth century proposed to eliminate the confusion in terminology, but the erroneous tradition persists with a tenacity worthy of better use.

Among all the Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples of Eastern Europe, spinners pull the thread from the tow with their left hand, and rotate the spindle with their right. In the Caucasus and Central Asia they do the opposite. But the Aisors (descendants of the ancient Assyrians) both pull and twist with one right hand: their spindle twists and shakes at the same time.

It is curious that the fingers of the left hand (thumb and index), pulling the yarn, like the fingers of the right hand, occupied with the spindle, had to be wetted with saliva all the time. To prevent her mouth from getting dry - and they often sang while spinning - the Slavic spinner placed sour berries next to her in a bowl: cranberries, lingonberries, rowan, viburnum...

Actually, spinning wheels (“whorls” in Old Russian), ancient and not so ancient, are also the subject of extensive scientific literature. Suffice it to say that the ornaments of Russian spinning wheels, even of the 19th century, are literally replete with purely pagan symbols: “thunder signs”, images of the “white light”. These signs can be seen in the illustrations for the chapters “Perun Svarozhich”, “Dazhdbog Svarozhich”.

Both in Ancient Rus' and in Scandinavia during the Viking times, there were portable spinning wheels: the tow was tied or pinned to one end (if it was flat, with a spatula), or placed on it (if it was sharp), or strengthened in some other way (for example , in the flyer). The other end was inserted into the belt - and the woman, holding the spinning wheel with her elbow, worked standing or even on the move, when she walked into the field, drove a cow, looked after the geese... At home, taking it out from the belt, the lower end of the spinning wheel was stuck into the hole of a bench or a special board - “bottom”.

Each type of portable spinning wheel had a fairly clear geographical area of ​​distribution, which, as it turned out, exactly coincides with the boundaries of the settlement of large groups of tribes that formed in Eastern Europe back in the Stone Age. These are the northern forest tribes (shovel-shaped spinning wheels), the farmers of the southwest (stick-shaped spinning wheels with a sharp upper end) and the steppe tribes of the southeast (fly-shaped spinning wheels). Almost already in our time, ethnographic scientists have managed to record the varieties of portable spinning wheels and describe the places of their distribution - both have not changed much over the past many centuries.

At the same time - and also from time immemorial - solid, one-piece spinning wheels were also used. Such a product requires a blank that follows the outline right angle, – “digging” was used. One such spinning wheel, found on the Modlon River (Vologda region), is no less than three thousand years old...

The thread of tradition that stretched to us literally from primitive fires was broken only in the twentieth century. And who would dare to say that the “thread” here is just for “a catchphrase”?

Scientists write: before mastering real weaving, humanity apparently mastered various types of weaving to perfection. In fact, “real” weaving is a technically complex process, which implies, firstly, the division of threads into warp and weft ’ k (weft is a thread passed at right angles to the warp threads), and secondly, the division of the warp threads themselves into two or more groups (the simplest is in half, into even and odd), which can be separated at an angle to each other. This angle is called the “sharp” and serves to pull through the weft.

The simplest and most ancient types of weaving, starting with the elementary “braid”, do not contain either one or the other feature. In more complex ones, something like a weft appears, so experts call this weaving “half-weave.” Then the brilliant masters of antiquity invented devices for the completely “real” weaving of narrow strips - belts, braids and ribbons - with weft and shed. And finally, weaving mills were invented - vertical, and then horizontal. Scientists attach no less importance to the invention of the vertical weaving mill than to the appearance of metal weapons and sea ships: without it, the “cultural revolution” of antiquity would have been equally impossible. However, first things first.

Girls in primary school still amuse themselves during breaks by playing with strings. A cord or elastic band is pulled between the outstretched fingers; two players try to rearrange their fingers so that the most beautiful and complex geometric figure is obtained. It cannot be ruled out that this game preserves an echo of the ancient method of weaving, or “pulling,” braid. They also “pulled” it together, with one worker holding the end of the finished braid and tightening the weaving, and the second putting her fingers on which the loops of the woven threads were put on. By rearranging the loops, we got a pattern - any one, as far as imagination and the number of threads were enough.

According to experts, it was possible to “pull” up to 4.5 m of braid per day.

Such a narrow braid was used for “gashniki” (see the chapter “Pants”), for “ruffles” (see chapter “Baps”) or for lining ponya (see chapter “Poneva”), and on buttonholes. A similar method of weaving was noted by ethnographers not only among the Slavs, but also among the Finns - according to scientists, this indicates its wide distribution in ancient times. Indeed, during excavations, fragments of “twitched” laces and ribbons were found. Ribbons made of thick woolen threads were used, in particular, for making bracelets.

There were other types of weaving that made it possible to obtain wider strips of braid (for a belt or headband), and, moreover, by working alone; however, they required a lot of attention, otherwise it was easy to get tangled in the numerous threads and ruin the pattern.

An interesting and, apparently, very ancient method of weaving, called “half-weaving” by experts, has survived into Ryazan region until the 30s of the twentieth century. In the chapter “Nettle” it was said that in these places the girls themselves spun threads to sew doll dresses. So, while playing, they learned not only to spin, but also to weave, albeit in a very primitive way - by catching the warp threads on the toes of their own bare feet. The other ends of the threads were tied to the belt. This method of “half weaving” is called “on the leg.” “Half-woven” - because here there is already a separation of the weft and the warp, but there is no other feature - the weaving shed: the weft was simply drawn between the warp threads, as in darning. The weft, by the way, was wool, red or black: the result was a piece of fabric that resembled the material of “adult” ponies. The girls made ponies for dolls from it.

As for “real” weaving, one of the most common types was the so-called weaving on tablets. Square planks were used, wooden or bone, with four holes - one in each corner. Warp threads were passed through the holes; it is easy to verify that the pharynx was equal to length sides of the board. Such tablets (carved from bone) were found by archaeologists near Moscow during excavations of a settlement of the 11th century, but this date is clearly not the earliest: for example, in Denmark the same device was found that was used in the 2nd millennium BC, and in the European part of Russia weaving tablets are found together with things from the Stone Age.

Using the boards is convenient and simple. In order to swap the top and bottom threads, just turn the board 90 degrees in one direction or the other; in this case, the fourth part of the base is replaced. Call this method of weaving primitive as much as you like - scientists still consider it one of the ingenious inventions of mankind, and they are right, of course. In fact, it makes it possible to obtain a fairly wide strip of fabric. Weft and warp threads come in a variety of colors; the boards are turned in any direction and in any order, the threads are twisted - in a word, patterns of almost unlimited complexity are created. On planks, our ancestors wove braid, belts, ribbons for straps or edgings of clothes. These products were not only very beautiful, but also extremely durable. In the Middle Ages, the technique of weaving on planks was truly brought to perfection. For example, in Christian monasteries they made decorative silk ribbons with words of prayers woven on them. They used them to bind precious manuscripts.

In the weaving method “on the back”, also intended for making not too wide ribbons and stripes, a kind of hand loom was used. Berdechko, reed - something like a ridge, closed on both sides. Each cane (comb tooth) has a transverse hole: half of the warp threads pass into these holes, half - between the canes. By pumping the bird up and down, the weaving shed is changed and the weft is passed through.

Finally, it is impossible not to mention one more, so to speak, weaving device: this is a “living mill”. Researchers write that ribbons and belts were woven this way, probably back in the era of matriarchy, because this method requires the participation of at least a dozen women and great discipline. Ten women, as in “pulling,” put the warp loops on their fingers and changed the shed on command, and the eleventh pulled the wefts through.

The terms of weaving, and, in particular, the names of the parts of weaving machines, sound the same in different Slavic languages ​​(for example, in Russian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian and Serbian): according to linguists, this indicates that our distant ancestors were by no means and, not content with imported ones, they themselves produced beautiful fabrics. Archaeologists have dug up “material evidence” of this. Thus, during excavations of ancient settlements (including in the earliest – 8th century – layers of the city of Ladoga), rather heavy clay and stone weights with holes were found, inside of which abrasions from threads were clearly visible. Scientists came to the conclusion that these were weights that imparted tension to the warp threads on the so-called vertical weaving mills.

Such a camp is a U-shaped frame (crossbar) - two vertical beams (or thick poles with forks at the upper ends), connected at the top by a crossbar that can rotate. The warp threads are attached to this crossbar, and then the finished fabric is wound onto it - therefore, in modern terminology, it is called a “commodity shaft”. Previously, the more capacious and beautiful ancient Slavic word “navoy” was used. At the bottom of the vertical bars there is a “thread separating rod”: the warp threads, through one, are passed above or below it. Their free ends are wound up, fastened into plump bundles, and the same weights are hung from the bundles so that the base remains taut and the fabric becomes dense. The crosses were placed obliquely, so that the part of the warp that was behind the thread separating rod sagged, forming a natural shed. Each of these back threads was tied with a loop to another transverse stick: such a detail in modern terminology is “heald”, in Old Russian it is “nit”. When the nit lies on the frame, the weaver passes the weft into the natural shed. When the thread is pulled back and inserted into a special fork, the front and back warp threads change places - an artificial shed appears, and the weft is skipped again. If the fabric is linen, this simplest weave is called “linen”, but if wool is woven, the weave is called “cloth”. However, there are several threads, different combinations of warp threads are selected. Ancient weavers knew and were able to make more complex weaves, such as “twill” and “satin”.

Machines similar to the one described above were used in ancient times throughout Europe, including among the Scandinavians. It seems that not a single illustration dedicated to the domestic life of the Viking Age is complete without an image of such a machine; reconstructions based on authentic archaeological finds are presented in historical museums in Scandinavian countries. But not only in museums. In some places, for example in Denmark, experimental scientists have built entire “Viking villages”, where researchers live with their families, trying to understand from their own experience the life of a distant era and turning to modern means only in cases of vital necessity. They dress exclusively in clothes made from fabrics made on similar machines. Tourists readily buy pieces of such fabrics: handmade from natural fibers, bleached and dyed without the use of toxic chemical substances, “ancient” fabrics are much more pleasant to the body, and often stronger than modern ones...

To the credit of today’s Slavs, it should be noted that the life of their distant ancestors is studied in this way not only by Scandinavian experimenters, but also, for example, by Czech and Slovak ones.

In other varieties of the vertical mill, the crosses were placed not obliquely, but straight, and instead of thread, reeds were used, similar to those with which braid was woven. The reeds were hung from the top crossbar on four ropes and moved back and forth, changing the shed. And in all cases, the weft was “nailed” to the already woven fabric with a special wooden spatula or comb.

The next important step in technical progress was the horizontal weaving mill. Its important advantage is that the weaver works while sitting, moving the heald threads with her feet standing on the footrests. According to scientists, such camps appeared among our ancestors in the 9th century. This is evidenced by samples of fabrics, which, according to experts, could only be produced on a horizontal mill, as well as finds of wooden parts of the mill in the corresponding layers. Studies of these finds have shown that Slavic craftsmen skillfully selected the most suitable breed for each detail. Thus, those that experienced significant force loads were made from oak, ash, maple, pine and birch: the wood of these species is durable and also polishes well, which reduces friction and wear during operation. Parts that did not experience much effort, but were subject to friction (for example, constantly moving blocks on which light threads were suspended from the ceiling), were cut from softer, but also well-polished wood - for example, alder. Generally speaking, even at the beginning of the twentieth century, the home weaving mill in the Russian village did not contain a single part made of metal...

The horizontal camp was hardly a Slavic invention; in any case, the idea could easily penetrate from the outside, since similar devices, and very advanced ones at that, were used back in Ancient Egypt. Another thing is that in Egypt, with the advent of the horizontal mill, weaving soon turned from a home craft into a real craft: Egyptian fabrics were exported in large quantities to Greece and Rome. Among the Slavs, the identification of weaving as a profession occurred relatively late. “Oponnik”, that is, a professional weaver, manufacturer of fabrics – “opon”, was first mentioned in the chronicle in 1216...

Old Russian horizontal weaving mills had a different number of threads, and therefore, the footrests that controlled them. During excavations of ancient Grodno, in the 12th century layer, scraps of woolen fabric woven on a mill with four footrests were found. Such mills could be set to a very complex pattern.

Our ancestors were well aware of a special weaving technique, which in the West was called “tapestry”; We called it “mortgage”. In this case, for the weft, they take threads of different colors and pass them not across the entire width of the fabric, but only in certain places - where the pattern should be located. At the point where the weft turns back, a barely noticeable gap remains in the fabric. This technique has been known since ancient times in Egypt, India and China, it was used in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Finns of the Volga region, Bulgarians and other peoples knew it; in a word, here too the ancient Slavs were not at all the “barbarians” that they are sometimes portrayed as.

Another way to obtain patterned material is called “abuse” (from the verbs “take”, “choose”). The fabric or products made from it made in this way were called “brane”. This technique made it possible to decorate the fabric with a unique relief pattern of the same color as the main background, or another (our ancestors especially loved white and red). The woven fabric is somewhat similar to embroidered fabric, and indeed, the woven fabric can be imitated with an ordinary needle.

The bran strip was sometimes woven separately and then sewn, say, to the hem of a shirt, on the chest or on the sleeves. However, clothing for which the used fabric was woven to measure and the patterned stripes were not sewn on, but were created in place directly on the loom, was considered much more prestigious.

“They took it” as follows. According to a pre-planned pattern, several groups of threads were selected and each was tied with loops to make it easier to lift in time. Such groups were compiled for several rows, sometimes more than a dozen - the entire depth of the future pattern. According to experts, it took about six hours of painstaking work to mark an eight-row pattern on a fabric of two hundred and fifty threads. Later, during the weaving process, after passing through the weft, which formed the fabric itself, without changing the shed of the warp, the threads selected for this row were lifted by the loops and twigs or planks were placed (because of this, the braided technique was also called weaving on twigs or on boards ), forming an additional shed, and the weft was passed through again. If it was the same weft, the result was simply a raised pattern. If the second weft was made with a colored thread, the pattern became colored.

It is clear that the possession of a mortgage or a defective technique was a sign of mastery; skill came to the weaver with experience and age, but a teenage girl who did not really know how to “put a cross” had the reputation of being completely incompetent and white-handed.

Samples of woven fabrics were found by archaeologists on the Ugra River in burial mounds of the 12th century - and this is certainly not the earliest date. The fighting technique was very popular among all Eastern Slavs, as well as among their relatives and neighbors - the Lithuanians. Back in the 30s of the twentieth century, home craftswomen of Ryazan made braided stripes for sale, and ethnographers came to villages where, right in the hut, they could buy a weaving mill for the museum, tucked into patterned fabric...

The sad process of the extinction of an ancient tradition can be clearly seen in Russian language dictionaries. V. I. Dahl’s dictionary (1880) lists the words “abuse”, “branina”, “branch fabric” in the meaning of “patterned, which is more precise” ’ It is woven (woven) not just through a thread, but where the warp is moved along the pattern...” - and only at the very end of the long article is it mentioned that “brane” sewing is sometimes also called “canvein” sewing - along the canvas. The dictionary of S. I. Ozhegov (1949) in the article devoted to the verb “to take” does not provide anything related to weaving; the word “abusive” is marked “old.” and is interpreted as “woven with patterns.” And the Dictionary of Modern Russian Literary Language, published in 1991, interprets “abuse” as: 1) ancient patterned fabric; 2) ancient embroidery on canvas. That's all.

The earliest of the three dictionaries provides almost technological details of swearing; a later one mentions that patterns on the material appeared during the weaving process; for the most modern, the material has become simply “patterned” - is this pattern woven, or drawn, or stuffed, or embroidered?..

When will we in Russia move from loud patriotic words to concrete deeds? And they will recreate an experimental village, say, of the 9th century, from the time of the chronicle “beginning of Rus'”, where those interested will be able to see ancient crowns in work, and not on a museum display, will be able to purchase as a souvenir a piece of fabric or braid, woven according to authentic archaeological samples, or even Would you like to learn how to spin and weave in the old-fashioned way?

Directors of historical films about the life of the ancient Slavs often dress their characters entirely in clothes made of harsh (that is, preserving the natural color of plant fibers) linen, apparently believing that in this way they create the “color of the era.” If, however, filmmakers consulted authoritative scientists, they would explain that harsh canvases were rarely used by our ancestors for clothing: before, at least they were whitened.

The threads were often bleached before they were threaded into the loom, and finished canvases were required. This is what this process could have looked like in Ancient Rus' according to ethnographic data.

To begin with, the finished canvas or threads were placed in a large cauldron or pot, filled with hot lye (a solution of wood ash in water) and left in a warm place for the whole night. Any wood ash was used except bird cherry; Ash from straw, for example from buckwheat, was also used (buckwheat was an extremely popular crop). Then the canvas, washed from ash, was rolled out wet on the grass in a sunny place and moistened with water during the day to “burn out” better. Sometimes they spread canvases over snowdrifts on a clear frosty day. It was also believed that dew bleaches fabrics well; For this purpose, the canvases were often left spread out throughout the summer night, and this served as a reason for night vigils and entertainment for young people - boys and girls went together to “look” at the canvases.

The third stage of bleaching again included washing and then beating with special wooden rollers: some surviving specimens have carved ornaments - ancient pagan symbols of the sun and thunder. In places where rollers were not used, the canvases were crushed with feet.

They “starred” and beat the canvases sometimes several times, achieving a white color. And finally, the canvas was “ashed”: it was placed wet in a barrel, generously sprinkled with ash, poured with hot water and boiled, putting “kindled” (hot) stones into the water. Similar technology is described in monuments of the 16th century.

Back in the early 20th century, Russians used flour, whey, bran and even... manure to bleach canvases at home. Archaeologists will have to clarify exactly what kind of “household chemicals” our distant ancestors used a thousand years ago. But here is the opinion of experts: the tools and techniques used by the ancient Slavs are very close, and sometimes completely similar to the tools and techniques used in peasant farming up to the 19th-20th centuries. Moreover, striking examples of this kind of conservatism are provided by the dressing of fabrics!

This fully applies to methods of dyeing materials. Scraps of ancient clothing found in burial mounds, as a rule, became dark brown or black after a thousand, or even more, years in the ground; Very sophisticated laboratory techniques were required to establish their original color. Even criminologists, armed with the necessary instruments, were involved in the work. As a result, it turned out that the homespun clothes of our ancestors were not at all monotonously white and gray, as they are sometimes not quite depicted to us. knowledgeable people. The ancient craftswomen truly had the entire gamut of colors at their disposal: scientists easily compiled a list of more than fifty plants that could give them these colors - not to mention various mineral and animal dyes and the fact that, for example, sheep and goat wool itself can be different colors... The opinion of some authors is a little surprising, believing that a thousand years ago the Slavs knew the properties of “only part” of these plants. It seems that those who point out, rather, are right: ancient people knew the properties of trees and herbs much more fully and better than they are described in modern botanical keys. And should we dismiss the opinion of linguists who claim that the Old Russian language was much richer in color terms than the modern one? Take, for example, shades of red. The word “crimson” is still understood today, but when you say “red”, they will definitely ask again: “black?..”, and “scarlet” will be considered either “golden” or “wormy”...

Here are the plants that our ancestors used to obtain the red color: quinoa, cinquefoil, buckwheat, cinquefoil root, St. John's wort, borer, rennet... The “black” and “scarlet” shades owe their names to the “worm” - an insect that lives on the roots and leaves of some herbs Red paint was also produced by burnt ocher, as well as soft clay iron ore, which was found both in the Novgorod land and in the south of Rus'.

Fabrics were dyed yellow using leotard, rapeseed, immortelle, kupavka, gorse (one of its varieties is called “dyeing gorse”), serpukha, hawkweed, cornflower, cuff, sorrel, string, iris, goldenrod, commonweed, jumper , wild apple bark, birch leaves, heather, hazel, onion peel...

The orange color was given by celandine, the green color was given by clubmoss, nettle, trefoil, tansy, aspen cones, flowers and leaves of a wild apple tree...

Blue paint was obtained from oak and ash bark, cornflower and bluebell flowers, woad, bird buckwheat, blueberries...

Raspberry and violet colors were given by blackberries, brown by willow, alder and buckthorn bark, black by meadowsweet, bearberry, and white...

But these paints can be combined to achieve a variety of shades; you can weaken or enhance the intensity of the color, for example, from dark blue to light blue!

The Slavs knew well which plants dyed flax best and which ones dyed wool. Paint solutions were prepared with bread kvass, lye, or oak broth; rusty iron was added, which strengthened and intensified the paint. They dyed both the finished fabric and the threads before weaving to obtain colorful fabrics, such as striped and checkered ones, for patterned weaving. Printing a design using impregnated paint wooden board has been known at least since the middle of the 1st millennium AD: such fabrics have been found by archaeologists. At first they were considered imported, but then the printed board was also dug out of the ground. Scientists believe, however, that the printing technique was used mainly in cities. It was not widespread in the village.

In the chapter “Linen” it was already said that the word “linen”, the meaning of which in modern speech approaches “fabric in general” (for example, “knitted fabric”), meant in ancient times only linen material and only a very specific weave - through each thread; This kind of weave is called “linen”. Thus, linguistic data already indicate the wide popularity of linen fabrics, and therefore the diversity of their manufacture. Unfortunately, fabrics made from plant fibers are very poorly preserved in the ground. Among the samples obtained by archaeologists, there are significantly more wool ones. There are even scraps of half-wool - linen with wool both in the weft and in the warp - materials in which the linen part has rotted away almost completely, making the remaining wool part look openwork, like muslin. It is even more regrettable that the study of ancient Slavic fabrics, according to the opinions of the scientists themselves, is still waiting for its pioneers. So archaeologists often call any plant tissue found “linen,” forgetting about the widespread distribution of hemp and completely overlooking other sources of plant fiber, such as nettle. Birch bark documents and other documents of past centuries have preserved for us the names of many varieties of fabrics, including linen, but the scarcity and insufficient study of archaeological samples today does not allow us to provide each of them with a label with a genuine Old Russian name.

According to linguists, most of the names of fabrics made from plant fiber in the language of the ancient Slavs are their own, original, not borrowed. Thus, the thickest and coarsest linen (or hem) fabric was called “votola”: it is natural that the word later passed on to a product made from this fabric - a type of cloak (see chapter “Cloak”). Another type of thick, very durable and dense fabric was called “thickness”: scientists write that it was cheap, most likely hemp material, which was used, in particular, for sails. “Uzchina”, “ustsina” was the name given to ordinary, “average” fabric, from which men’s and women’s shirts, tablecloths, and towels were made; the word "uscinka" was one of the synonyms for "canvas". Thinner, carefully bleached, ornate canvases were called “bel”, “tonchitsa”, “chastina”. Probably, a sample of just such fabric was found in the Moscow region in a burial from the 11th century: it is thin and dense, with an even weave, well-bleached fabric. The fiber of the threads, apparently spun by a true “fine spinner”, has not lost its fluffiness and shine over nine centuries...

Hemp fabrics were also used to make clothing: shirts and pants. The names of such fabrics - “poskonnye”, “zamashnye”, “zamashkovye” - appear, according to dictionaries, in written sources starting from the 16th century. However, archaeological finds (for example, seeds of cultivated hemp) indicate that hemp fabrics existed thousands of years earlier, which means there were corresponding terms. The same as in the 16th century, or others?

Linguists attribute the names of woolen fabrics to the most ancient, “proto-Slavic” layers of our language. Such, for example, is the famous “hair shirt” - a coarse woolen fabric, literally “matter woven from hairs”. Subsequently, in the Christian era, this word passed on to very hard and prickly monastic clothing, which was sometimes even woven from horsehair and worn specifically for the purpose of “mortifying the flesh.” Mention should also be made of fabric made from... human hair, found by Czechoslovak researchers. If we recall everything we know about the magical properties of human hair, we can assume that such fabrics were used for ritual purposes.

The word “coarse cloth” in modern speech is often used to mean “coarse fabric in general.” So one sees something unsightly, “gray” behind it. Apparently, on this basis, some authors consider homespun to be a fabric made from plant fiber. However, according to most scientists, the ancient Slavs called “sermyaga” a thick woolen fabric woven “through a thread” (when used with woolen fabric it is called “cloth”). The origin of the word “sermyaga” baffles venerable linguists. Whether it is an ancient borrowing, and if so, from where, is a difficult question. Researchers are inclined to believe that it is “proto-Slavic” in nature.

Other names for woolen fabrics, known from chronicles and birch bark documents of pre-Mongol times, are “vodmol”, “opona”, “ornitsya”, “yariga”, “cloth”. The word “cloth” has been found in written records since the 12th century (things made from it were called “cloth”), but scientists write that both the term and the method of making such fabric are much older. There are several known methods of felting cloth. Here, for example, is one of the most archaic: woolen fabric like homespun was laid out on a wide board and watered little by little, but continuously with hot water. Two strong men sat opposite each other near this board and moved the fabric along it with their feet, first towards themselves, then away from themselves. The surface hairs formed a dense layer like thin felt. So the ancient Slavs probably had not only imported cloth, but also their own.

From the 12th century, according to scientists, they began to fell it using a drive from water mills, already known to our ancestors in those days.

The word "rude" seems to come up too often in this chapter. Archaeological finds indicate that the ancient Slavs were excellent at sorting wool, depending on the quality of the yarn, and later the fabric - from coarse to the finest - they were going to make. Sorting was carried out already at the time of shearing: our ancestors knew that the best yarn is obtained from the fleece from the sides and back of the animal’s body, covered with the softest and most delicate undercoat. During excavations, samples of fabrics from perfectly combed (archaeologists called it “high-grade”) sheep’s “wave” were discovered: only vellus hairs were used, the hard guard hairs were removed. From goat fluff, equally carefully processed and spun, a thin and very warm “tsatra” fabric was made, well suited for warm winter shirts.

The chapter “Poneva” says that, according to many experts, this was originally the name for checkered woolen or half-woolen fabrics, and only then the term passed on to a type of “hip” women’s clothing. In ancient graves, the remains of ancient ponies woven using the warping technique were found. In later times, when the erosion of traditional culture began, bran stripes began to be made separately (and even bought externally) and sewn from below to the hem; in ancient times such “sacrilege” was unacceptable. In wool-blend blanket fabrics, vegetable and wool threads alternate in both the weft and the warp. After several centuries in the ground they become "openworked", as was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. This is one of the few materials that is confidently labeled with the label: “woven fabric”...

Silk fabrics among the ancient Slavs were exclusively imported, mainly Byzantine. They were expensive, and therefore silk clothes were worn mainly by rich people. The common people used the cheapest (plain) varieties of silk only for rarely worn holiday outfits and even to decorate details of clothing - for example, the “eyepieces” of women’s hats. Accordingly, the names of silk fabrics that were common among the Slavs are “bryachina” (“brachina”), “godovabl”, “koprina”, “obir”, “oksamit” (some scientists claim that this is silk, others - that this is a kind of velvet), “olovir” and so on – in our language “not native”. Let's say, “oxamite” is nothing more than a distorted Greek “hexamite” - “six-stranded”. The word “silk” itself, as linguists believe, came into Old Russian from Germanic languages. Its predecessors could be the Old Norse "snake", the Old English "sjoluk" and so on; the Germans, in turn, borrowed it from the Romans: “silk” in Latin “sericus”, that is, “Chinese fabric”, from “Seres” - “China”.

Cotton fabrics were also known in Rus'. Documents from the 13th century preserved the word “wallet,” which did not mean the modern “pocket briefcase” (S.I. Ozhegov’s Dictionary) for money and documents, but a bag made of the appropriate fabric. In a birch bark document of the 14th century, scientists came across the word “zenden”, “zendyantsa”, which also meant cotton fabric: “Buy me zendyantsya good...” - a certain Marina punishes her son Gregory...

There were also names of fabrics based on color. “Motley” and “motley” were materials that combined multi-colored threads in the weft and warp. Words such as “bel”, “crimson”, “greens”, “sinota” (“sineta”), “chervlenitsa” (“chervlen”, “worm”) can still be generally understood without dictionaries. All these are varieties of “dyed”, dyed fabrics. But there were other words to denote color, often very figurative and beautiful. For example, “gloomy” (dark gray), “faded” (dark, black), “sreniy” (white-gray), “zekry” (green-blue, turquoise), “palesy” (dark, brown), “floating "(yellowish), "sexual" (whitish, yellowish-white; hence the ethnic name "Polovtsy" - despite the common misconception, they were fair-haired people!), "thin" (red-haired, reddish), "swarthy" (dark, from “smaga” – heat, flame)… Surely many of them were used by our ancestors when it came to multi-colored fabrics woven at home or seen at a market.

Artsikhovsky A.V. Clothes // History of the culture of ancient Rus'. M.; L., 1948. T. 1.

Bakhilina N. B. History of color terms in Russian. M., 1975.

Vikhrov V. E. Use of wood in ancient Novgorod // Proceedings of the Forest Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. M., 1957. T. 37.

Goncharov V.K. Raikovetskoye settlement. Kyiv, 1950.

Klein V.K. Guide to the exhibition of textiles of the 7th-19th centuries from the collection of the Historical Museum. M., 1926.

Lebedeva N. I. Spinning and weaving of the Eastern Slavs in the 19th – early 20th centuries. // East Slavic ethnographic collection. M., 1956. T. 31. (Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography named after N. N. Miklouho-Maclay. New series).

Levasheva V. P. Extraction and use of auxiliary production materials // Essays on the history of Russian villages of the 10th-13th centuries. M., 1959. (Proceedings of the State Historical Museum. Issue 33).

Levasheva V. P. Products made of wood, bast and birch bark // Ibid.

Levinson-Nechaeva M. N. Weaving // Ibid.

Lukina G. N. Subject-related vocabulary of the Old Russian language. M., 1990.

Malinov R., Malina Ya. Leap into the past: An experiment reveals the secrets of ancient eras. M., 1988.

Rybakov B. A. Craft // History of the culture of ancient Rus'. M.; L., 1948. T. 1.

Rybakov B. A. Craft of ancient Rus'. M., 1948.

Sedov V.V. Clothes of the Eastern Slavs of the 6th–9th centuries. n. e. // Ancient clothing of the peoples of Eastern Europe. M., 1986.

Stackelberg Yu. I. Clay disks from Staraya Ladoga // Archaeological collection of the State Hermitage. L., 1962. Issue. 4.

Weaving is an ancient craft whose history goes back thousands of years. Having mastered weaving in ancient times, humanity never parted with it, and until the 20th century it was one of the most common household activities in many traditional cultures of the peoples of Russia and neighboring territories.

In Rus', hand weaving has been considered a traditionally female occupation since ancient times, and in not a single village was there a woman who could not weave. Shirts and towels were decorated with patterned fabrics, and the cloth itself was used to make outerwear, belts, rugs and many other things necessary for life and useful in the household. Many beliefs and signs were associated with the weaving process, and the basics of weaving were passed on from generation to generation.

Nowadays, hand weaving has turned from an everyday skill into an applied art, because the bulk of fabrics is produced industrially on various mechanical and automatic looms. And yet, there are people who consider the labor-intensive process of hand weaving a fascinating activity, and the things they make are real works of art. Such a master is Olga Minchenkova, a native of Verkhnedneprovsky, who has been studying hand weaving technology for four years now. “Despite the fact that I am an economist by profession, creativity occupies a central place in my life. Since childhood, I loved to knit, sew, draw, and even graduated from art school, where I learned various handicraft techniques, but no one taught me weaving there.

Then I simply admired the original Russian ornaments, sketched them, and studied their history. And four years ago I wanted to get acquainted with the basis of weaving and weave something with my own hands. Weaving turned out to be very close to my heart, and this love does not dry up over the years. My mother told me that my grandmother was engaged in weaving, she had a large loom. Unfortunately, my grandmother did not pass on her secret knowledge to me, but, probably, I got my love for this type of needlework from her.” The needlewoman's first craft tools were a weaving loom - a reed and a knife, which Olga ordered from a woodcarving master. Later, a bastard appeared, with the help of which she began to comprehend other weaving techniques. Learning a complex craft on your own is not an easy task, but the Internet has become Olga’s faithful assistant in creating masterpieces. The craftswoman's first product, a belt in Slavic traditions made with seven patterned threads, pleased the needlewoman and inspired her to create new products. In addition, it turned out that the traditional Slavic belt goes well with modern clothing, and over time, when creating belts for dresses and sundresses, the craftswoman began to fantasize with color scheme products. And those around her began to show remarkable interest in her work and supported her in all her endeavors.

“In Rus' it was to the waist special treatment, he was a kind of amulet that promoted well-being and good luck. The belt was also part of the Russian folk costume, was an indispensable component of both men's and women's clothing, and occupied a significant place in the spiritual and economic spheres of life of the Slavs. Protecting from evil forces, the belt connected bottom part a person from above, his material body with a spiritual component, which is why this element of clothing turned out to be especially attractive to me.” The skills and advice of more experienced weavers allowed Olga to improve her skills, and now the craftswoman creates a variety of belts, the most complex of which are woven in thirty patterned threads.

To create her designer belts, Olga, as has been customary since ancient times, uses only natural materials- wool and cotton threads. She mostly makes product patterns herself according to the chosen ornament, and, of course, the master’s most favorite belts remain those made in traditional Slavic colors. “Native Russian weaving is characterized by a noble combination of red and white colors. Sometimes several threads of a different color were introduced into the warp, and sometimes they could replace the background color, for example, with black. The base of the product symbolized our Russian land, and the red patterned thread was a symbol of fire and sky. Since the belt itself was perceived as the most powerful amulet, it was customary to supplement it with signs that carry a special meaning. These were elements of the ornament familiar to everyone, which later began to be supplemented with inscriptions. The main importance was attached to rhombuses, circles, original Slavic symbols, images of the female figure and animals.” Craft history and study semantic load Each of the elements is of particular interest to Olga, but her favorite thing about this work is to weave for a specific person.

According to the master, it is then that weaving acquires a special meaning. “Now I have devoted myself entirely to creativity, it has become a way of life for me. When you weave, all vanity and bad thoughts go away and peace comes. It’s especially joyful to see how at fairs, looking at my works, both adults and children show genuine interest in the original Russian traditions.” Hand-patterned weaving gives the craftsman many ideas for use. And recently, Olga Minchenkova has become interested in a new direction in weaving - making tapestries, and in the future the craftswoman plans to acquire a new machine and start creating napkins. Such needlework requires special care, visual acuity and patience, but the main thing, according to the craftswoman, is a special attitude towards the culture and traditions of her people and awareness of the importance of reviving crafts.