Model of Textile Spinning and Weaving

This model of women spinning and weaving linen was buried with a man called Khetya, so he would be magically provided with clothes in the Afterlife. On the left you can see a standing woman making thread using spindles, while on the right, two seated women are busy weaving on a horizontal loom. The model is formed from a rectangular board painted black with rectangular knotch missing from one corner. The frame of a horizontal loom and warp threads are painted in black lines on the board. Pegs are placed at three corners of the loom. Two female weavers sit at the short end of the loom and one female spinner stands at the other end, with two containers behind her. She holds a spindle in her left hand and from her right another spindle hangs down from some thread. The standing female is now missing linen that was wrapped around her waist, shown in an early (pre 1941?) photograph in our archives. From the tomb of Khetya (no. 575) that was found undisturbed and most of the other objects are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Compare with a similar model in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/model-of-weavers-143965