Basic History of Tablet Weaving

This is my original handout for my Basic History of Tablet Weaving class. I will be updating this handout in coming months, making it more comprehensive. I really loved teaching this class and with everything returning to some semblance of normal, I hope to teach it again, but more in-depth.

History & Concepts of Tablet Weaving

Tablet weaving is warp-faced narrow woven bands of incredible strength, and depending on the fiber and pattern, can be quite beautiful.

There are many different ideas about where tablet weaving came from when it started, who started it, and how it traveled around the world, and few people agree on exactly where it comes from.

History

A number of bands were attributed to being tablet woven, such as the girdle of Ramses III (dated before 1197BCE).  The paintings and carvings in tombs seem to support that this girdle is tablet woven, but after a lot of inspection and analysis, it turns out that it’s not tablet woven, it doesn’t have the right twist to the threads.  It appears as though the girdle was made by double or triple sprang, or simple inkle weave.

Another big question from Egypt is three woven bands, which are now missing, that were dated 945-745 BCE.  These pieces were reproduced with four-holed cards, but the real issue is that in reproducing these bands, the weaver needed to use 208 cards to build a band that originally would have taken 158 cards if it had been table woven.

There were some belts found in a couple of Bronze Age graves in Denmark that have been thought to be two-hole tablet woven, and haven’t been disproved.

I mentioned structure is an issue.  Tablet weaving has a slight, but unmistakable twist of two adjacent threads, something you should look for as you turn the cards.  I always choose a checkered pattern when teaching beginners to tablet weave because I find it’s the easiest to really follow the threads and see the twist as you weave.

Richest Finds

Hallstatt Austria 6BCE

Weavers in the Hallstatt culture in Austria were tablet weaving headers onto warp woven fabrics.  They further expanded into footers and selvages of fabrics created on warp-weighted looms.  They were big into contrasting selvages on their fabrics.  They were rarely used as separate trims.

Thorsberg Mantle 2CE

Elite graves were often marked by the buried being wrapped in a cloak with elaborately woven trim.  The most renowned was the Thorsberg Mantle that was found in a bog in Norway.  The cloak was of blue checked fabric, and all four sides had tablet woven borders.  These borders are so wide that they took 178 tablets to create.

Oseberge Viking Ship 9CE

A total of 50 different fragments have been found at that site.  Many splendid bands were found, one with 52 cards still attached.  There were plain woven, threaded-in, and brocaded bands.  There was also an Oseberge loom found on the ship, which is pretty much the earliest known tablet weaving loom (not warp-weighted).  The design is supported by a number of paintings.

Snartemo Sweden 9CE

While a number of bands were found, only two bands are worth noting.  They are quite influential bands.  Snartemo II is a simple band of Ws and Ms, utilizing only two holes of the square tablets for the pattern part of the band.  Snartemo V is a four-colored band – red, yellow, green and blue – one color in each of the four holes, and is considered to be one of the hardest techniques to learn and become proficient at.  

Birka Sweden 8-10CE

The graves outside the wall of the trading town of Birka contained about 60 woven bands.  Each grave is numbered, so each band has a number as well.  Through the years the researchers have taken the tiny pieces of bands and worked hard to reproduce the patterns and made them available online.  Most of the bands are brocade with silver or gold wire, some pounded flat, but it’s possible to find the patterns as threaded in or double face.

Chasuble, Stola and Mantiple of St. Donat 10CE

These are liturgical pieces go together and are the most famous bands woven in 3/1 broken twill.  At about 4.3cm wide, the longest piece being 257cm.  The were woven of blue, orange/red, and white linen, though the foremost authority on the pieces questions this due to dying methods and how colors come about with different fibers, so she wove them out of silk.  Each border is of ten cards, the pattern of 79 cards, used together to create the 29 different patterns on these pieces.

Unlike a lot of what we do these days, the medieval bands were woven of very fine fibers.  50 warp threads per centimeter, warp threads being 1/2 to 1/3 of that number.

Many of the brocade bands were often pounded flat after they were woven to appear as though they were solid gold or silver.  It was a much less expensive way to look higher class than one actually was.

Nomadic tribes in Turkey used long bands to tie, suspend and attach items for travel and daily use.

Vikings used bands on ships when rope wasn’t readily available.

Northern African tribes had weavers in the local markets who wove valuables into belts.

Monks of Burma wore card woven girdles that were red on one side, yellow on the other.

Bulgaria, traditional peasant’s’ garb included a card woven sash of 20-27 feet.  These were in bold patterns and colors that wrapped several times around their waists.

Then there are the ways we use them mundanely and in the SCA.

Trim, belts, reins, bridles, saddle girths, leashes, wall hangings.

S and Z

There are many different meanings to what S and Z could mean, but it’s all referring to how the fiber is threaded through the card.  It could mean the twist of the threads as the tablet is turned, how the thread goes through the holes in the cards or the direction the table leans when it’s threaded.

The worst part is that each book looks at S and Z differently, and sometimes refer to it as up and down, or sometimes, as left and right, or even sometimes as / and \.

Tablet Types

Wood

Bark

Bone

Horn

Ivory

Leather

Stone

Metal – specifically brass

Pressed paper

Loom Types

Oseberg

Tablet 

Inkle

Warp Weighted

Backstrap

Tablet Weaving Techniques

(Most common, but not all.)

Threaded In – Straight and Multi-Pack

More/Less Holes – Anywhere from 2-10 holes – More holes doesn’t necessarily mean a more elaborate pattern.  There’s a limit to the complexity of tablet weaving.

Double Faced

Twill (3/1, 2/2, 2/1, broken, etc.)

Warp Twined

Brocade – Weft Faced

Missing Hole

Pebble Weave

Snartemo / Floating weft