On receiving the threads, the weaver had first to use a pumice stone to
clear off their blackish crust ...
where was this mentioned btw?
Context is as much as I gave you. The author, Anna Contadini, in her
Fatimid Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1998), is talking about the
processing of flax. What she talks about before this statement about removing
the black crust is Z- and S-spun threads. Further, there is no footnote
to the black crust statement, and Goitein doesn't seem to mention it,
although I would need several hours to go back through all his books.
I may have stumbled upon some answers that might give us a possible clue to
this question. Try reading over some of the methods on this web site.
Note the heavy use of ashes.
_The Household Cyclopedia - Bleaching and Scouring_
(http://www.mspong.org/cyclopedia/bleaching.html)
This jives well with what Tom Knisely at The Mannings has suggested: My
guess is that the linen threads were being coated with a type of ash
treatment for sizing of the threads. Wool ash or plant ash many have need used
because the ash would have had lye that may have aided in the finish
processing. That's my thoughts and guess.
Roberta, a friend from a weaving group, has this suggestion: Today they
tumble pumice stones to soften and polish denim. Egyptians used to use
pumice stones to remove unwanted hair from the body. I am thinking that after
the flax is retted it is black (and they probably did not have the
scutching equipment we are familiar with today) so they used the pumice stone
to
rub on the fiber to remove the black and the little hairs in order to make
it more smooth and polished for weaving cloth.
It's starting to look like they didn't really clean the threads
thoroughly before sending them to the weavers, and it was the weavers'
responsibility to make the thread as fine/coarse as they wanted it. There
were umpteen
different grades of linen fabric produced in Egypt in the Middle Ages, so
this stage -- after spinning and before weaving -- may have been the one
that determined a lot of the quality.
I am also wondering if this was some processing method that resulted in a
protective layer on the thread making it better for shipping them, which
they did all over creation at this time.
Nancy
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