De mulieribus claris (BnF Français 599) f

Pamphile ( el, Παμφίλη), ''Panphyle, Plateae filia'' or ''Latoi filia'', was the daughter of Platea, or of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

(Latous),Longman, 1827 ''Classical Manual; or, a mythological, historical, and geographical commentary on Pope's Homer and Dryden's Æneid of Virgil, with a copious index'' a woman of the Greek island of

Kos Kos or Cos (; el, Κως ) is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese by area, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 36,986 (2021 census), ...

. It is said that silk was first spun by her. She also invented the technique of preparing a thread from cotton wool for spinning on a

distaff A distaff (, , also called a rock"Rock." ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. 2nd ed. 1989.), is a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly use ...

. She developed the technique of weaving from cotton thread.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

described in 70 BC: "Silk was obtained by removing the down from the leaves with the help of water". He also recounted the legend of Pamphile, who invented silk weaving on the Greek island of

. He said that Pamphile discovered the technique of weaving like a spider's web and that "she ought not to be cheated of the glory of making a silk dress that covers a woman but reveals her charms". Aristotle also associated Pamphile with inventing the concept of weaving silk. Later Panphyle was mentioned in Boccaccio's

De mulieribus claris ''De Mulieribus Claris'' or ''De Claris Mulieribus'' (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. ...

(XLIV. De Panphyle Platee filia).

Primary sources

* Pliny, ''The Natural History'', XI.26.76

Secondary sources

*Allen, Prudence, ''The Concept of Woman: The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250-1500, Part 2'', p. 631;
''Wax Resist Decoration, An Ancient Mediterranean Art'' by Associate Professor Dr. Margaret Perivoliotis pp. 10,11

References

{{Spinning Ancient Greek women Greek weavers Ancient Koans Women textile artists Ancient Greek inventors