An ancient tomb in southern China has provided the oldest known examples, in scaled-down form, of weaving machines called pattern looms. Four nonworking models of pattern looms illuminate how weavers first produced silk textiles with repeating patterns. The cloths were traded across Eurasia via the Silk Road, Chinese archaeologists report in the April Antiquity. The models, created between 2,200 and 2,100 years ago, predate other evidence of pattern looms by several hundred years.
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