Greutățile de lut decorate din tell-ul Vitănești Măgurice, jud. Teleorman
Decorated loom weights from Vitănești Măgurice tell settlement, Teleorman County

Summary/Abstract: The loom weights discovered in the Gumelnița culture settlements were used to strain the warp-weighted loom. At Vitănești Măgurice tell, there is a large number of loom weights that have one or more sides with incised decoration, printed or made by stitches. These decorations are known in the Gumelnița A2 levels but especially in the B1 phase, which has been fully researched. In the 2008 campaign, in the S.L. 13 burned house, the researchers found seven burdens, whole and fragmentary loom weights. They are decorated with simple spirals, spiral throats and half-round lines, made by a shallow, deep incision. In the contexts that do not belong to the burning structures of the last level, 56 weights for the warp-weighted loom, both whole and fragmentary, all made of burned clay, have been discovered. Some of them (17 copies) were published in another specialized article. They have been decorated on one side or more, rarely on the base or at the top, with spiral, half-round, circular motifs, angular, triangular motifs, cross or dots. In 2007 campaign, it was discovered in a house that was partially destroyed in a fire, belonging to the level that makes the transition from Gumelnița phase A2 to phase B1, a set of weights that formed the remnants of a warp-weighted loom. One of these weights has printed incised lines on one side and two others, arranged at the ends of the string, have incised on one face a feminine anthropomorphic motif. In Gumelnița A2 levels, there are very few decorated weights, the existing ones have a line or a sliver in the base or the fingerprint left on the bottom of the weight and on the side of the wall. One of the weights, which has a slash in the base, comes from a string of 10 pieces that constituted the remnants of a warp-weighted loom. For the interpretation of the decorated loom weights, starting from the context of their discovery, we can use data provided by cultural anthropology and the history of religions. The anthropomorphic, spiral, angular and triangular motives would indicate a link between the warp-weighted loom, the textiles and the religious ideas which existed in the Chalcolithic.

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