Weaving History Timeline

- c. 6000 BC – Evidence of woven textiles used to wrap the dead at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia.
- c. 5000 BC – Production of linen cloth in Ancient Egypt, along with other bast fibers including rush, reed, palm, and papyrus.
- 298 AD – earliest attestation of a foot-powered loom with a hint the invention arose at Tarsus
- "The evidence of surviving textiles and entries in the Edict of Diocletian (A. D. 301) suggest that the first horizontal loom was developed by Roman weavers in the eastern provinces, probably in Syria, not long before A. D. 250. Fitted with multiple heddle-rods, the loom was used to weave damask silks with geometric patterns. An advanced model in which the patterning device was separate from the basic binding device for the first time was available by about A. D. 400, and was used for damask silks with a fluid-outline pattern and for weft-faced compound tabbies." (Wild, John Peter, "The Roman Horizontal Loom," American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 91, No. 3, Jul., 1987).
- Horizontal looms introduced into Europe in the 10th, 11th, or 12th centuries, depending on what authority you reference
- 1733 – John Kay patented the flying shuttle.
- 1784 – Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom.
- 1801 – Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the Jacquard punched card loom.
- 1813 – William Horrocks improved the power loom.
- 1814 – Paul Moody of the Boston Manufacturing Company built the first power loom in the United States; beginnings of the "Waltham System"
- 1842 – Bullough and Kenworthy developed the Lancashire loom, a semi-automatic power loom.
- 1889 – Northrop Loom: Draper Corporation, First automatic bobbin changing weaving loom placed in production.
- c. 1920 – Hattersley loom developed by George Hattersley and Sons.