Sunday, August 19, 2012

Egyptian Sprang Cap



 Egyptian Sprang Cap - CE 400 to 699 AD, Whitworth Art Museum, Manchester UK

So this is how a fiber adventure starts. Somebody created a Pinterest page of Sprang pictures
http://pinterest.com/rosemaryeskew/sprang/

I post the link on the yahoo group Sprang_List
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sprang_List/

One of the questions asked was "does anyone have a clue how the yellow is incorporated into this Egyptian piece? seen alone here:"
http://emu.man.ac.uk/emuwebwag/objects/common/webmedia.php?irn=21756

Which is the cap pictured above. I would like to see the bottom edge but it is cropped out of the picture. I was poking around the the picture and it seemed like the yellow is a supplementary yarn.

If you would like to see how such a cap is constructed you should download this document (1.3MB MS Word Doc format)

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/petrie/documents/Textiles_in_the_Petrie_Museum

It shows construction of common pieces of traditional Egyptian clothing. Including a sprang cap with twined edging. It even shows the gathering at the top and the rope securing it. So if twining is common maybe the yellow is supplementary yarn.




 So I enlarged and digitally enhanced the picture using a program called Photoscape. Above you can see the red/green creates the open mesh familiar as sprang. The yellow yarn seems to fill the gaps in the mesh created by the red/green yarn. I expect there are knots on the inside where the yellow yarn circles are made.


 Looking at enlargement near top of the cap you can see yellow stripes are part of the design. The top of the cap in this case is the "middle" of the sprang. So maybe the yellow yarns are carried along the inside of the cap, kind of like stranded knitting. It also looks like the yarns are somehow twined together then interlinked. This is a fascinating possibility of technique.


 Finally, I enlarged the right side edge to see how the side was sewn up. I can't see it very well, except that it appears to be less organized in that area than the rest of the piece.

So that is a short adventure in sprang. If you have any theories to share, feel free to comment.

Have good day!

EDITED TO ADD:
Sarah Goslee gave us this link on Sprang_List,
the yellow yarn kind of floats on the back side of the piece.

Collingwood describes it, and see also here:

Whitworth Art Musuem, click link below and enter "sprang" in search box
http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/collection/






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