A Group of Loom Weights from Syedra

Abstract

This study examines 35 terracotta loom weights recovered during the excavations in the ancient city of Syedra, located in the Alanya district of Antalya. Humans have three basic needs to survive: nutrition, shelter and cloth-ing. Although the exact date of the beginning of weaving, which emerged in order to meet the need for clothing, is unknown, archaeological data date back to the Upper Paleolithic Period. The development of weaving started with the Neolithic Period. Hand weaving is both tiring and takes a long time, which led to the emergence of weaving tools. Loom weights, used in weaving in Antiquity, were attached to the ends of the warp threads on the looms to keep the threads taut. Weaving weights of various forms are found in pyramidal and discoid forms in Syedra. Within the scope of the study, the artefacts were firstly mea-sured and identified by digital methods, typologized according to the character-istics of their forms, and dated through their counterparts, taking into account the stratum in which they were found. There are no studies on loom weights in the Cilicia Region, which includes the ancient city of Syedra. Although no archaeological data has been found so far regarding the production of weaving tools and the existence of a weaving workshop in the ancient city of Syedra, the large number of loom weights found in the city strengthens the belief that they were locally produced rather than imported