Modern humble needles are nowadays considered as useful tools, but we do not attach any special meanings to them. Yet there was a time when sewing tools were considered as very symbolical. Sets of hand-made bone, wood, bronze and stone spindles, spools and needles such as the following ones dated between the 3rd century BC and the 4th century AD and spotted at the Chieti Archeaologic Museum, symbolised indeed women's work in the domestic environment.
Quite a few women from the upper echelons of society would dedicate themselves to such work: the glass spindle found for example inside the tomb of a princess buried in the necropolis of Campovalano (in the Abruzzo region) between the 7th and 6th century BC, revealed interesting notions about a woman's life. Since it was made with a very fragile material, the spindle couldn't be used as a functional object, but it was a symbol hinting at a woman's work and at her moral habits. In Homer's Odyssey, the character of Penelope pretending to be weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law Laertes to delay marrying her suitors and wait for her husband Odysseus to return, incarnated this ideology.
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