Women have always worked. And up until the modern era, their jobs they’ve done remained fairly consistent.
First and foremost, the care of children. The work that women have done has been tasks that can be scheduled around childcare.
Across cultures, women have been responsible for food production – babies can be brought to the garden – and clothing their families. Although men did some farming, they owned oxen, most of the crops they relied upon were not cereals but orchard crops such as olives and grapes.
Weaving, up until modern times, has always been one of a woman’s primary jobs. Without the textiles the women made, there would be no cloth. Flax – and linen – known since Neolithic times, was joined by wool. Wool is easy to work with since it has a little more stretch than linen. Wool comes in a variety of shades, black gray, cream and more. It takes dyes easily as well How can we be sure they were weavers? Spindles and looms weights have been discovered in the excavations. I saw them myself in Akrotiri, a town buried by ash and now being revealed.
The Minoan men traded these textiles all over the Mediterranean.
The designs were very complicated, so complicated we can only assume a long learning curve, especially if the patterns had to memorized. One of the popular patterns consisted of heart spirals set point to point with red diamonds in the center. Colored spirals were another favorite. How do we know this? Statuary and wall painting depict gorgeously clad women in elaborate clothing dancing, picking saffron, and more. And not just in Crete either. The patterns have been recorded by Egyptian artists.
No wonder Nephele, Martis’s mother is horrified when Martis refuses to become a weaver.
It was not until the Industrial Revolution and mechanization of weaving that hand weaving ceased to be an in-house task and a profession.
Next time: Priestesses.
