Object Name: Woven cotton textile in process on its loom, including loom bars, heddle rods, shuttle sticks

Place of Origin: Possibly South Coast of Peru

Medium/Materials: Cotton wrap and weft, sticks, reeds; warp-faced plain weave

Dimensions: 27 x 14 cm

Credit Line: Fowler Museum at UCLA. Gift of the May Company Department Stores.

Accession Number: X65.14334a

Beginning and ending woven warp selvages are extant as well as weft edges.

A Peruvian loom is a set of sticks. The warp and weft give it shape and form. Here the basic loom holds a partially woven warp. The sticks – one at each end – are the loom bars that hold the warp yarns, lashed to the set of yarns by a cord. The weaver begins at one end and inserts the wefts, using a shuttle, the small stick wrapped with cotton yarn. After a few insertions, that stabilize the selvage, the loom is turned around, and the weaver begins at the opposite end. On this particular cloth, the weaver finished only a small portion of the weaving at each end. The weaving process would hava been aided by the lifting of the heddles — the darker brown loops; these loops were likely lifted with another stick, the heddle rod, which is now missing. The close spacing of the warp yarns has created a warp-faced fabric, where the warp yarns cover the wefts, which are almost invisible.

Source: Elena Phipps, The Peruvian Four-Selvaged Cloth. Ancient Threads / New Directions.Fowler Museum Textile Series, No. 12, Los Angeles, 2013