Dear Slingers
This single article is one huge leap of faith. I hereby present a new approach to reconstruct a "Kahun" or "Lahun" sling. I propose that the technique used to make this sling was not a sort of weaving but a technique, which in german is called "Zwirnbinden der Kette" (english names: Warp twine tie / bands with twisted warp yarns / warp twining; french name: Galons à fils de chaîne enroulés). A general overview including classification of this technique can be found in: Annemarie Seiler-Baldinger, Systematik der Textilen Techniken, Ethnologisches Seminar der Universität Basel/Museum für Völkerkunde und Schweizerisches Museum für Volkskunde Basel/Geographisch-Ethnologische Gesellschaft Basel, Basel 1991. This book is written in German.
Let's have a look at the sling I refer to:
This photo was posted by David Morningstar:
http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1172017416/270#270 Quote:This is a photo emailed to me from Manchester Museum:
From the Egypt and Sudan Collection - a sling and sling shots dating to the Middle Kingdom (c. 1900 BC), from Kahun, on display in the Daily Life gallery.
Description: A sling and three sling stones, for use either as a toy or for hunting and fighting. Made of woven plant fibre
with long cords at either end, one of which has a loop to fit around a finger.
Period/Dynasty: Middle Kingdom (Dyn. 12)
Site: Africa, Egypt, Faiyum, Kahun (el-Lahun)
In the following posts I will append several pictures of a small model of 10 cm length and 3 cm maximal width. It is made out of rather thick (ca. 2 mm diameter) hemp string. In the photo we see that thinner materials were used in the original sling. Unfortunately I had no thinner cord available, so I made a model with what I had.
I made this little but fully functional model of the pouch within one hour. The only tool used was a knife. I did not use a loom or a similar device.
Why do I think that this could be the "right" technique:
This is my very first try to recreate this pouch but I already have achieved all principal attributes of the sling displayed in the photo.
This attributes are:
- A constant increase of width of the pouch.
- A "weaving pattern" with "V shape" (please regard the center line!).
- A straight outer border.
- If the sling is closed a slight curve of the bottom.
- The above point lets us suppose that the pouch is slightly cupped. This slight cupping was also achieved.
Further judging by the V shape visible at the center line I supposed that the additional material to enlarge the pouch was added along the center line. This was also achieved.
General remarks:
I have not made a retention or release cord but to add one would be no problem at all as they could just be whipped onto the remaining strings. If one would plan to make a whole sling one could also take the strings from the retention/release cords as warps.
The slight diversions of the weaving pattern results from the fact that I have used only weft thread and not two weft threads. The use of only one weft thread results in a slightly asymmetric applied force when the weft strand is tightened. One could remedy this by using two counterpropagating weft threads. As I had no picture of the sides of the pouch I could not determine if one or two weft threads were used. For the sake of simplicity I therefore worked with only one weft thread.
Further this design can be freely scaled to nearly any diameter and executed with any diameter of string. The rate of width increase and therefore also the cupping can be controlled by the amount of material added in each step. A further nice side effect is that different patterns can be achieved by using coloured warps.
There is an article of a reconstruction by Mr. Burgess in Journal of the Arms and Armour Society. I have not read nor access to this article. However, from the description of a reconstruction made by Jörn Michaelsen, in which he followed Mr. Burgess, I know that the above approach is different in that one does not need to use any tools like looms and needles. I personally think that the above approach is more probable, especially if one considers that it is "inefficient" to make one special loom for one special item.
To conclude this article I want to list the next steps and requirements to consolidate if this could be the technique used in this sling:
- Photos with high resolution, especially of the sides of the pouch, the transition from pouch to retention and release cords and the bottom of the sling.
- To make a model with thinner cord to allow for direct comparison.
- To know the exact dimensions of the pouch.
The best solution would be direct access to the sling, but this would require quite a lot of organisation and I don't think that a museum would allow me to probe the sling directly with my fingers.
Teg / Thomas Gartmann