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Functionnal ancient and modern heddles

Tistus avatarTistus

November 22, 2025

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Description

Here is a reconstruction of ancient weaving heddle, among the oldest known. You can now hold and use these pieces of history, with their real size and shape. I was surprised by the sharpness of the details of these handcrafted objects; it is difficult to get a good idea of what they look like from the images alone. Have fun creating braids or perhaps starting larger pieces of fabric as in the olden days!
I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did.

For those who want to try weaving braids with wool of a more standard thickness, I also have designed more modern weaving combs. I made several tests and I think I have achieved a good level of rigidity, compactness, and practicality.



Warning: you must place the seams at the rear. The default settings will place them slightly to the side, resulting in less clean and more fragile holes.

 

Printing advices:

For reference, I printed those heddles with Prusament PLA Vanilla White (for bone like color) and Blend Viva La Bronze (for bronze).
Using 3-4 perimeters may ensure better durability (I did it). You might want to slow down the print (especially on quick printers, I did not on my Prusa MK3 tough). All those models print fine with default 0.2 layer height, I would not try 0.3.

 

Pompeii heddle

 

Date : 79 CE

Dimensions : 52,1 x 26,5 x 2,8 mm

Description : carved out a piece of bone. Similar to other examples of ancients heddes but very well preserved.

 

© C. Durand/CNRS, UMR 7299

Briord (FR) heddle

 

Date : 1st century CE

Dimensions : 65 x 46 mm

Description: made entirely of bronze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Susan J. Foulkes

South Shields (UK) heddle

 

Date : undertermined

Dimensions : 77 x 45 mm

Description : is a big bone heddle with riveted bronze plates at the top and bottom.

The details are small, so print with a maximum layer height of 0.2 mm (that's what I did), 0.1 mm might give a sharper result.

 

 

 

 

© Susan J. Foulkes

License:

Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial

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