The Seba library treats Wool in 8 passages, across 5 authors (including Onians, R B, Harrison, Jane Ellen, Beekes, Robert).
the obvious origin that yet does not seem to have been suggested is in the action of the χερνῆτις, the weighing of the portion of wool to be spun, the pensum.
Onians argues that Zeus’s scales (talanta) derive from the spinner’s practice of weighing out her allotted portion of wool—the pensum—making wool the material substrate of mythological fate.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
ears with white wool and let down the ends of…the thread from the right shoulder and the forehead and place in it whatever you can find and pour into it ambrosia.
Harrison documents a ritual prescription in which white wool is bound around a sacred vase before the pouring of ambrosia, demonstrating wool’s function as a consecrating, liminal material in Greek religion.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
DIAL Myc. po-ka /pokā/ ‘shorn wool’. .COMP Also with ὑπο-. Furthermore πόκ-υφος [m.] ‘wool weaver’ (pap. IP); εἰρο-πόκος ‘wool-fleeced’, εὔ-πόκος ‘with fair wool’ (A.); νεό-πόκος ‘newly shorn’
Beekes traces the PIE root *pek- (‘to comb, card, shear’) through Mycenaean attestation and a rich family of Greek compounds, establishing wool’s extreme antiquity as a lexical and cultural category.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010thesis
DER εἴριον (epic Ion.), Att. Cret. ἔριον ‘wool’, ἔρι (Hell. poet) with artificial abbreviation…εἰρινεός ‘of wool’, Att., etc. ἐρεοῦς, ἐρείους (for -ίους) ‘id.’
Beekes reconstructs the derivational family of the primary Greek word for wool (ἔριον/εἴριον), tracing its Mycenaean precursor we-we- and connecting it to Latin vervex, revealing the deep Indo-European heritage of the fleece vocabulary.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
οἰσπώτη [f.] ‘greasy dirt of unshorn sheep’s wool, especially on the buttocks’, also ‘sheep-droppings’ (Cratin., Ar., D.C., Poll.).
Beekes documents the Pre-Greek term for the lanolin-laden grime of unshorn fleece, situating wool within the visceral, bodily reality of the living animal rather than the idealized spun thread.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
The thread was itself personified and spoken of as spinning: Μοίρης μοι φθονερός τοῦτ’ ἐπέκλωσε μίτος
Onians cites the personification of the thread of Moira, showing how spun wool-fiber becomes the material metaphor through which fate is conceived as something woven and measurable.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
wool to knit 1.6
In Jung’s word-association table, ‘wool—to knit’ produces a short, neutral reaction time of 1.6 seconds, implicitly classifying wool as a psychologically unmarked, complex-free domestic stimulus.
, Experimental Researches, 1904aside
Then put on, as I bid you, a soft coat and a tunic… χλαῖνάν τε μαλακήν καὶ τερμόεντα χιτῶνα
Hesiod’s advice on winter dress implicitly invokes woolen garments as the protective material covering through which the body meets seasonal necessity.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700aside