Spinning wheel
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A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from fibres. It was fundamental to the textile industry prior to the Industrial Revolution. It laid the foundations for later machinery such as
An elderly Irish woman with a spinning wheel
Hindoo Spinning-Wheel (1852)
Scene from Al-Maqamat, painted by al-Wasiti (1237)
Spinning wheel depicted in the Smithfield Decretals, between 1300 and 1340
Hand spinning
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Spinning is an ancient textile art in which plant, animal or synthetic fibres are drawn out and twisted together to form yarn. For thousands of years, fibre was spun by hand using simple tools, the sp
The Spinner by William-Adolphe Bouguereau shows a woman hand-spinning using a drop spindle. Fibers to be spun are bound to a distaff held in her left hand.
Woman Spinning by Théodore Jacques Ralli c. 1890, shows a Greek woman hand spinning in a small village.
Woman spinning, fanned by attendant with whole fish on table, 700–550 BC from Neo-Elamite period in Susa
Woman spinning. Detail from an Ancient Greek attic white-ground oinochoe, ca. 490 BC, from Locri, Italy. British Museum, London.