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Material : Painitd Wood
Width : 42 Height : 25
Found in : Deir AlÂbahari , Tomb of Meketra (1919-1920)
Period : Middle Kingdom
Dynasty: XII
Belonged_to: MEKETRA
Excavation : The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Inside the serdab of the tomb of the notable chancellor Meketra (of early the Twelfth Dynasty) was found a great corpus of realistically-portrayed grave good and miniature models which were skillfully made for the deceased to accompany and serve him/her in the journey in the hereafter . Made from painted wood , one of these models shows a scene of a group of weavers at work . In ancient Egypt , weaving linen and spinning thread were important activities of the household economy . Weavers had to supply the city with fabric not only to make clothes but for other things like canopies for boats . Linen was a very important fabric because it was what most of the Egyptians’ clothes were made from . Weavers produced linen by soaking flax plant stems in water until only fibers were left . Then the fibers were combed into fine strands and spun together making string to weave into linen . The miniature model in question is realistically-portrayed showing a group of female weavers at work in a room whose door is half open . Sitting near two looms placed on the ground , the black-skinned women are shown spinning .
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