Berber Tents and Looms from the Sahara Desert

We have a great little book giving much more information. It can be sent around the world and purchased directly here: Special offer if you buy more than one! Two different types of tent, the ’Persian’ tent, a simple drape of a large sheet of cloth, and the ’Arabic’ tent, more sophisticated with bands of densely woven wool to hold the fabric taught. This allowed larger tents to be made with far less wood in the poles, relying for its strength on a pair of centre poles whose angles can be adjusted to raise and lower the height of the tent. We also look at two looms, the horizontal loom, laid out on the floor of the desert and painstakingly slow to weave on. It takes around six months to weave enough fabric to make a tent, and the vertical loom. This is not a ’backstrap’ loom and every line has to be picked apart by hand.