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Ancient mountain weaving on exhibit in Greece

09.06.2016

The University of the Mountains and the Penelope Gandhi mission are documenting, leveraging and highlighting the wealth of Cretan weaving. They are connecting the Greek and Cretan culture, with large fora of the world of art, culture and science. They are developing small-scale-high value economies and new cottage industry forms of production in the villages of the mountainous island of Crete. Sowing flax, producing silk, processing wool, producing handmade yarn, paints with natural dyes and creating numbered, historical certified woven artifacts are among their activities.

The mission, after two highly successful exhibitions at the Basilica of San Marcus in Heraklion in 2012 and the Benaki Museum in Athens in 2013, is organizing a new exhibition, called "Ariadne’s thread and Penelope’s loom", at the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, from 24 May to 20 June 2016.

The Herakleion Archaeological Museum, the largest museum of Minoan civilization in Greece and indeed the world, not only showcases the various aspects of Minoan life and art but also holds a prominent position in the international history of weaving. Minoan textiles present amazingly complex decoration, with geometrical shapes and motifs mainly drawn from the natural world.

Preserved in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum are the traces of two important arts: spinning yarn with a spindle, of which only the spindle-whorls remain, and weaving on the upright warp-weighted loom, evidenced by loomweights. A reconstruction of the warp-weighted loom is exhibited here which was first created by the University of the Mountains.

Building the loom was a major effort by many volunteers - involving carpenters, archaeologists and weavers over the course of many hours and a series of experimental tests, to ensure that the loom operated according to the ancient method. Minoan textiles with distinctive motifs were also woven for the exhibition, using yarns produced in the ancient way and displayed next to the loom.

The loomweights on the ends of the warp threads are copies of ancient ones. The wefts threads were passed horizontally between the warp threads using a shuttle and the cloth was woven from the bottom upwards. Weavers worked standing up, usually in pairs. The fineness of the yarns, the beautiful colours and complex patterns demonstrate the effectiveness of the Minoan loom and the unique quality of Minoan weaving and civilization.

This unique exhibition shows that Cretan and Greek women of the mountains are still able to produce unique masterpieces and handcrafts, household small-scale enterprises of great value that will surpass obstacles raised by world economic crises.

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