In spite of the evidence in favour of the existence of warp weighted looms, the Director of the Hermannstadt Museum, Dr. v. Kimakovicz-Winnicki, sees fit to deny their existence. He found that in some parts of Transylvania the peasants use wooden pyramids (see Fig. 18) similar to the Roman warp weights for winding the thread from the spindle on to the shuttle. For this purpose sockets are bored into the thin or top end of two pyramids, which are placed just so far apart that a spindle can rest horizontally with one end in the socket of one pyramid, and the other end of the spindle in the socket of the other pyramid, and the thread in being wound off on to the shuttle causes the spindle to revolve in the sockets. From this he argues that what we have hitherto taken to be warp weights are not warp weights at all (_Spinn-u. Webewerkzeuge_, Wuerzburg, 1911), and having denied these articles to be warp weights he gets over the difficulty presented by the illustration of Penelope at her loom, by attempting to prove that what we take to be a loom is no loom at all but a _flechtrahm_, _i.e._ plaiting frame! He then attempts to pull to pieces the idea that the Scandinavian loom in the Copenhagen Museum is a loom and condemns it as unworkable. There can be no doubt about his meaning as he defines his terms. The principle of weaving (_Weben_) he describes "as the absorption of two groups of parallel material elements (warp and weft) at right angles to each other, and the principle of plaiting (_Flechten_) as the absorption by itself in one plane of one group only of material element, (warp)" and he gives diagrammatic illustrations showing clearly what he means (_op. cit._ p. 31).[I] Judging from his remarks one must conclude he has not seen a primitive loom of any sort, and were it not for the official position he holds, his remarks would not need answering.
It has, I believe, been suggested more than once that some of the perforated stones, pieces of burnt clay, pieces of chalk and like objects may be and are net-sinkers, and there is some justification for Dr. Kimakovicz-Winnicki's statement that the pyramidic forms are not warp weights; but it does not follow that all the perforated articles are either spindle-holders or net-sinkers, yet that is what his subsequent statements lead one to infer. It is, however, difficult to prove that these perforated articles are warp weights.
