Ancient Egyptian clothing encompasses the garments, jewelry, footwear, and wigs worn in Egypt from the end of the Neolithic period (prior to 3100 BC) to the collapse of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 30 BC. Fashions in ancient Egypt changed slowly over time and were influenced by foreign styles.
Textiles have been an integral part of our lives for millennia and serve as objects of both function and beauty. For most of human history, producing textiles was done manually, and often partly at home. Modern industry has largely removed this task from our daily lives, and it is now more common for clothing and domestic textiles to be purchased and replaced rather than made or mended.
The Importance of Linen
In ancient Egypt, linen was by far the most common textile, helping people to be comfortable in the subtropical heat. Linen is made from the flax plant by spinning the fibers from the stem of the plant.
Flax is one of the oldest fibers to be used for cloth. The use of it in Egypt dates back to the fifteenth century BCE. That’s more than 3,500 years! The harvest of flax happened before the wheat harvest and was a very important commodity in Ancient Egypt. The flax was woven into linen which is one of the strongest fibers in the world, getting stronger when wet.
The flax’s high pectin content (like the stuff in jellies and pies) creates glue when mixed with water. This also helps linen to decay at a much slower rate than other fibers. It also protected the body against moisture that causes decomposition.
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Spinning, weaving and sewing were very important techniques for all Egyptian societies. Plant dyes could be applied to clothing but the clothing was usually left in its natural color. Peasants, workers and other people of modest condition often wore nothing, but the shenti (made of flax) was worn by all people.
Linen was of immense importance in ancient Egyptian society. The ancient Egyptians left inscriptions and drawings on their tombs explaining how they cultivated and harvested linseed and grain, says Dr Mansour al-Nubi, former dean of the Faculty of Antiquities in Luxor. Flax, the origin of linen, is one of the oldest fibres used to make cloth and dates back to the fifteenth century BC in Egypt - more than 3,500 years ago!
The flax harvest preceded the wheat harvest and was an important commodity. Due to its strength, durability and resistance to moisture, linen was the perfect choice for mummification, an important aspect of ancient Egyptian religious belief.
Linen and Mummification
According to the religion of the ancient Egyptians, in order to make it to the afterlife the body had to look as close to life as possible. While after death the soul was believed to initially leave the body, if everything went well and it didn't get eaten by Ammit the Devourer, the soul would return to the body. Of course, in order to find the correct body they had to be able to recognize it and find it in usable condition when it returned, and that meant it had to be preserved in some way.
Once the embalming process was finished, the body was dried out the body with salt. After that, the mummies needed and extra layer of protection. This is where linen came in. Each mummy took a lot of linen, and we're not talking about a few yards; each mummy required about 150 meters!
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For the lower classes, it was very common to recycle this linen from old clothes and household objects. After masking the body and putting it in its coffin, the person was ready for the afterlife.
The Nile advanced the civilization of ancient Egypt. The river's annual floods left soil rich enough to feed a large and complex society - and to grow a plant whose fiber was used for all kinds of household, fishing, farming, fashion and funerary necessities.
Linen can be starch-stiffened and pleated, and the Egyptians used these pleats to make garments very form-fitting, seen as worn in images of Egyptian queens. We know a lot about ancient Egyptian linen because of examples found in tombs.
The very wrappings of mummies themselves were linen strips, soaked in resins and preservatives. Mummy wrappings were not specifically woven for that purpose, but made from recycled sheets and clothing.
Linen was everywhere in ancient Egypt: bedding, furnishings and sailcloth were made from it, and a wide variety of sacks and bags. Linen cord was knotted into nets that carried ceramic jars, or caught fish or birds. Egyptians made linen slings for hunting birds and small animals.
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Linen fibers made cords as fine as fishing line and as stout as rope, which was made up of hundreds of threads, each twisted individually. Linen was even used in dentistry - a mummy from the Ptolemaic period of the last few centuries B.C. was found to have suffered a severe case of tooth decay.
Evolution of Clothing Styles
From about 2130 BC during the Old Kingdom, garments were simply constructed. Men wore wrap around skirts belted at the waist. While women's clothing stayed mostly the same during the Middle Kingdom, men's clothing changed in some regards (as evidenced by available art). The two most notable changes were the pleating of the skirts and the adoption of the triangular apron by upper-class men.
Artistic relics from the New Kingdom show the largest evolution in men's clothing.
Women's Fashion
During the Old, Middle and New Kingdom, ancient Egyptian women mostly wore a simple sheath dress called a kalasiris, which is shown to cover the breasts in statues, but in paintings and relief the single breast depicted in profile is exposed. Women's clothing in ancient Egypt was more conservative than men's clothing.
The dresses were held up by one or two straps and were worn down to the ankle, while the upper edge could be worn above or below the breasts. The length of the dress denoted the social class of the wearer. Beading or feathers were also used as an embellishment on the dress.
Over the dress, women had a choice of wearing shawls, capes, or robes. The shawl was a piece of fine linen cloth around 4 feet wide by 13 or 14 feet long, which was mostly worn pleated.
Surviving dresses consist of a body made from a tube of material sewn up one side, supported not by straps but by a bodice with sleeves. In contrast to dresses shown in art, such linen garments tend to be baggy, and would conceal rather than reveal the body.
Until the Eighteenth Dynasty (New Kingdom), most Egyptian women wore the kalasiris, a simple linen sheath that usually fell from below the breasts to just above the ankles. It could be held up by shoulder straps or sleeves.
The kalasiris is traditionally depicted in paintings as a very tight, form fitting garment, but some dispute has been raised about how accurate those depictions are. According to some archaeologists, in reality, the kalasiris was probably more loose and flowing. This not only would have allowed for greater ease of movement but would have kept Egyptian women cooler in the hot climate.
Others say that there is no reason to assume the paintings are inaccurate and that the kalasiris was probably as tight fitting and quite possibly as sheer as the tomb paintings illustrate. Surviving pieces show the kalasiris was essentially a length of linen sewn down one side to create a tube.
A shawl could be worn to protect the skin from the sun or on cooler winter nights for warmth. During the Eighteenth Dynasty, the wives of the nobility and the pharaoh, such as Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaton, are depicted in new, more elaborate fashions. The new garments were long, flowing robes of linen so fine that it was almost transparent and covered in dainty accordion pleats.
Men's Fashion
Royal clothing is particularly well documented, as well as the khat, nemes, and crowns of the pharaohs. The basic staple of men’s clothing was a linen kilt called a schenti. Much like the women’s kalasiris, the schenti kept the same basic shape for 3,000 years.
The schenti was a rectangle of knee length linen cloth that wrapped around the waist and fastened in the front by overlapping and tucking the ends. Like women’s garments, paintings depict more elaborate men’s dress during the New Kingdom. This new costume consisted of a pleated schenti and a long, sheer, pleated robe. Another option was made up of the schenti, a transparent overskirt and a collarless shirt with wide, pleated sleeves.
Most Egyptians wore white linen clothing for functional as well as symbolic reasons. For the Egyptians, white symbolized happiness, so they were content to wear clothing of this color. Though the Egyptians did develop methods of dying linen different colors, it was a difficult process because linen did not readily absorb the natural dyes.
Children's Fashion
Children wore no clothing until 6 years old. Once they turned six they were allowed to wear clothing to protect them from the dry heat. A popular hairstyle among children was the side-lock, an unshaved length of hair on the right side of the head.
Jewelry and Cosmetics
Wigs were worn by the wealthy of both sexes. Jewelry was very popular in ancient Egypt, no matter the social class. It was heavy and rather voluminous. The main reason for wearing jewelry is because of its aesthetic function. The Egyptians were quite soberly dressed in white linen fabrics, and jewelry offered a possibility for contrast.
The Egyptian preference was towards the use of bright colors, lustrous stones and precious metals. On the other hand, silver was rare and was imported from Asia. Therefore, it was silver that was often considered more precious than gold. The eastern desert was also an important source for colorful semi-precious stones such as carnelian, amethyst and jasper. In the Sinai were turquoise mines, the deep blue lapis lazuli had to come from far away Afghanistan.
The Egyptians became very skilled when making jewelry from turquoise, metals like gold and silver, and small beads. Both men and women adorned themselves with earrings, bracelets, rings, necklaces and neck collars that were brightly colored.
Embalming allowed the development of cosmetics and perfumes. The perfumes of Egypt were the most numerous, but also the most sought and the costliest of antiquity, which used them extensively. The Egyptians used makeup most of all the ancient people.
Black kohl, which was used to mark eyes, was obtained from galena. Eye shadow was made from crushed malachite. Red, which was applied to lips, came from ochre. These products were mixed with animal fat to make them compact and to preserve them.
Findings were published by American Chemical Society in the journal Analytic Chemistry suggest that the use of lead in makeup was intentional. Findings suggest that the lead in combination with salts produced naturally by the body produce nitric oxide which boosts the immune system. It is believed that the production and result were intentional.
Footwear was the same for both sexes. It consisted of coiled sewn sandals of leatherwork, or for the priestly class, papyrus. Women's fashions of this period were more elaborate than in any previous era.
Both men and women in Egypt often shaved their heads to prevent lice and to reduce the time it took to maintain a full head of hair.
The Tarkhan Dress
The Tarkhan dress is no ordinary piece of clothing; it is considered to be the oldest surviving linen garment in the world. The dress has intricate folds and is made of fine linen fabric. Experts believe that the Tarkhan dress was probably worn by a young or slender female member of the royal court before it was placed in a tomb as a burial offering.
The use of linen emphasises the enduring popularity of this fabric, which has been known for thousands of years for its lightness, durability and breathability. From ancient Egypt to contemporary fashion, linen has remained a staple, a testament to its versatility and timeless appeal.
In 1913, Sir Flinders Petrie, a pioneer of Egyptology, discovered a bundle of dirty rags in the necropolis of Tarkhan, an ancient burial site near Cairo. It wasn’t until 1977 that researchers at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London came across the remarkable find while sorting through Petrie’s excavated textiles.
New radiocarbon dating techniques revealed an astonishing truth - the dress was dated to 3482-3102 BC, before the first Egyptian dynasty. “The survival of highly perishable textiles in the archaeological record is exceptional,” explains Stevenson. Skilled ancient Egyptian weavers made the dress from delicate linen fibres, with intricate folds and pleats.
The use of linen in the construction of the Tarkhan dress emphasises the importance of the fabric in ancient Egyptian society. “Linen is a robust plant fiber composed of the carbon-rich biopolymer cellulose,” says Dr Michael Dee, an expert in radiocarbon dating.
While textiles older than 2,000 years are rare archaeological finds, the Tarkhan Dress is a real anomaly, having survived for over five millennia in an Egyptian tomb. “We’d always suspected it was old, and even if it wasn’t near the 1st Dynasty, even a 5th Dynasty dress is still pretty old by archaeological standards for this type of object,” Stevenson said.
More than an ancient artefact, the Tarkhan Dress is a masterpiece of craftsmanship that defies the ravages of time. “With its pleated sleeves and bodice, together with the V-neck detail, it’s a very fine piece of clothing,” marvels Dr Stevenson. “There’s nothing quite like it anywhere of that quality and of that date. Indeed, with its tailored sleeves, V-neck, and narrow pleats, the dress would look perfectly in a modern department store.
Rare Ancient Egyptian Artefacts (5000-Years-Old)
The Enduring Appeal of Linen
Today, linen is still very popular not only because of its timeless style, but also because of its sustainability. Linen is one of the most biodegradable and stylish fabrics in the history of fashion, robust, quick-drying, naturally moth-resistant and completely biodegradable when untreated.
“Linen is one of the least environmentally damaging textiles,” explains Sewport. From its humble beginnings as a funerary object more than 5,000 years ago to its modern-day resurgence as an eco-friendly and stylish choice, linen has withstood the test of time.
Ahhh, linen. It is beautiful, versatile, durable and luxurious. It is no wonder that the Ancient Egyptians, rich and poor alike, prized it above all other fabrics. The hot climate of Egypt made lightweight clothing mandatory and linen offered the perfect solution. The flax could be woven into a fine weave that kept the wearer cool, a must in the hot Saharan desert. Egyptian weavers were skilled at their craft.
In stark contrast to the elaborate Egyptian costumes worn by Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, Egyptian fashion was actually amazingly simple. It changed very little through 3,000 years of rule. The few new styles that were introduced were simply worn alongside existing dress.
When you start choosing items to add to your summer wardrobe, consider adding a few more linen pieces.
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