Narrow-strip loom cotton textiles (Tellem)
Tejidos de algodón en telar de banda estrecha (tellem)
- Date
- c. 1050 · confidence medium
- Place
- Tellem caves, Bandiagara escarpment, Mali
- Credited to
- Tellem people
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Cotton textiles woven in narrow strips sewn together, made on a treadle loom with double heddles, preserved in dry burial caves. They are the oldest narrow-strip loom textiles of West Africa.
Studied by Rita Bolland (1991). The narrow-strip loom may have arrived with trans-Saharan trade, but its development and variety are African.
What it led to
- the kente, bogolan and other strip-woven textile traditions
- cloth as currency and a prestige good
- the cotton trade across the Sahel