Weaving in Ancient Egypt: Textiles, Linen, Looms, Garment Making | Middle East And North Africa

Home | Category: Life (Homes, Food and Sex)

WEAVING IN ANCIENT EGYPT

woman weaving from Beni Hassan tomb

The Egyptians were skilled weavers. Many inscriptions extol the garments of the gods and the bandages for the dead. The preparation of clothes was considered as a rule to be woman's work, for truly the great goddesses Isis and Ncphthys had spun, woven, and bleached clothes for their brother and husband Osiris. During the Old Kingdom this work fell to the household slaves, in later times to the wives of the peasant serfs belonging to the great departments. In both cases it was the house of silver to which the finished work had to be delivered, and a picture of the time of the Old Kingdom shows us the treasury officials packing the linen in low wooden boxes, which are long enough for the pieces not to be folded. Each box contains but one sort of woven material, and is provided below with poles on which it is carried by two masters of the treasury into the house of silver. In other cases we find, as Herodotus wonderingly describes, men working at the loom; and indeed on the funerary stelae of the 20th dynasty at Abydos, we twice meet with men who call themselves weavers and follow this calling as their profession. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

The operation of weaving was a very simple one during the Middle Kingdom. The warp of the texture was stretched horizontally between the two beams, which were fastened to pegs on the floor, so that the weaver had to squat on the ground. Two bars pushed in between the threads of the warp served to keep them apart; the woof-thread was passed through and pressed down firmly by means of a bent piece of wood. " A picture of the time of the New Kingdom however gives an upright loom with a perpendicular frame. The lower beam appears to be fastened, but the upper one hangs only by a loop, in order to facilitate the stretching of the warp. We also see little rods which are used to separate the threads of the warp; one of these [ certainly serves for a shuttle. A larger rod that runs through loops along the side beams of the frame appears to serve to fix the woof-thread, like the reed of our looms.

This fondness for colored patterns was found in the weaving of coarser materials; color and pattern were almost excluded from the finer stuffs manufactured for clothing. In the latter materials they lavished all their skill in the one endeavor to prepare the finest and whitest linen that was possible, and they certainly brought their linen to great perfection; I need only remind my readers of the white garments worn by men of rank, which were so fine that their limbs could be seen gleaming through them. Some of this vcry fine linen that we possess is almost comparable to our silken materials for smoothness and softness;" the manufacture at all periods of the stronger and coarser linens was also often most excellent.

Linen, Silk and Other Fabrics Used in Ancient Egypt

Most clothes in ancient Egypt were made of wool or linen woven using a two-barred loom. The Pharaohs and upper classes favored clothes made from linen and embroidered with colored cloth. Archaeologists have collected well preserved samples of ancient Egyptian fabric and complete human-hair wigs. Stones carvings from 3000 B.C. show leatherworkers. A 3,300-year-old leather sandal and 3,100 gazelle hide tent have been found.

The Egyptians and Mesopotamians made cloth from linen. Clothmakers made linen with a fine texture for pharaohs and noblemen. Workers wore garments made from coarser cloth. Linen is not very stretchy. Cloth was adorned with paintings made by hand. Popular designs included scarabs, lotus flowers and zigzag patterns. Mummies were wrapped in linen. The Egyptians mass produce linen for sails.

Scientists examining the hair of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy found a strand of silk. This astonishing discover provides evidence not only of the existence of silk in ancient Egypt but also of trade between ancient China and the Mediterranean 1,800 years before Marco Polo traveled the famed Silk Road.

Linen has was used as a fabric by the ancient Egyptian. It was strong and used for making ropes as well as clothes. Mummies were wrapped in it. It was also widely used in the Middle Ages. Linen comes from flax, a plant with a woody stem that contains long, strong but soft fibers that can be used to make heavy, course materials and ropes as well as fine fabrics, namely linen. Flax seeds contain linseed oils which is used in industry and a number of consumer goods, mainly as a drying agent for paints and varnishes. Flax is also used in making cigarette paper. Fiber flax grows tall and has few branches, narrow leaves and purple flowers. It grows best in places with constant rain and a short, cool, growing season.

Linen was an essential product in ancient Egypt, with a network of meanings and signification attached to it. Rachel Frisk of Minnesota State University, Mankato wrote: “Most Egyptians wore garments made from linen. This type of fabric is light, airy, and allows freedom of movement, which are important characteristics because of the hot and sometimes humid climate of Egypt. The second choice of fabric is wool or cotton. Wool can be warm but it has natural oils that repel moisture. Ancient Egyptians also considered wool to be impure. Cotton is airy, but not as light as linen. [Source: Rachel Frisk, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com]

André J. Veldmeijer of the Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo wrote: “The spinning of flax thread for the production of textiles is well known and described in detail by various authors. Vogelsang-Eastwood suggests that first the flax fibers were loosely twisted and then spun into the final thread in a second stage. Usually, flax fibers were wetted before being spun, after which the thread could be plied, used in the manufacture of textiles.” [Source: André J. Veldmeijer, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2009, escholarship.org ]

Colors and the Rarity of Blue and Purple in Ancient Textiles

Thutmose I, a copy of a relief at Deir el-Bahar

In Egypt wide robes with many folds of white transparent linen were worn, without any adornment, the merit of this clothing consisting in the absolute purity and the finest texture. It was really not thus originally in ancient Egypt. The dress of the Old Kingdom appears sometimes to have been made of thick material; in the oldest period the dress of women is more often colored than white, and under the Middle Kingdom it is sometimes green and sometimes of various colors. Color disappeared disproportionately early from the dress of the men, and though, according to the inscriptions, red, green, or blue material is still said to be required by the divinities or by the deceased,'' this had long been replaced amongst the living by fine white linen. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

Shades of blue and purple were uncommon in the clothing, jewelry, and art of the ancient world. “Blue is incredibly rare,” Baruch Sterman, a physicist and cofounder of Ptil Tekhelet (“A Blue Thread”), an Israeli organization that studies and produces murex dye for modern Jewish religious garments, told Archaeology magazine. He said that, in order to appear blue to the human eye, an object must absorb red light, something few naturally occurring materials do. [Source: Sara Toth Stub, Archaeology magazine, November-December 2020]

Among the handful of blue materials available in antiquity were stones, including lapis lazuli from what is now Afghanistan, and plants such as indigo, which grows in warm climates like India and Africa, and woad, which grows around the Mediterranean. Ground-up lapis lazuli can be used to make paint, but not to dye textiles. And, while indigo and woad can color fabric, they eventually fade. Blue India dye is derived from a blue powder extracted from the “ indigofera” plant. The dye was known to the Greeks and Romans and used by Egyptians to dye mummy cases.

Sara Toth Stub wrote in Archaeology magazine: “In the ancient world, textiles colored with purple dye made from murex shells were worth their weight in gold and were often listed along with precious metals in trade and tax records. These textiles bestowed prestige, royal status, and even sacredness on those who wore or were buried in them. The dye is referenced in the Hebrew Bible, in which its purple and blue colors are called argaman and tekhelet, respectively, and instructions are given to hang strings dyed in the tekhelet shade from the corners of garments. Part of what made murex dye so valuable was that its colors remain brilliant. For example, 2,000-year-old pieces of murex-dyed wool found in caves near the Dead Sea are still vibrant today. [Source: Sara Toth Stub, Archaeology magazine, November-December 2020]

Preparing Linen in Ancient Egypt

As this industry in Egypt consisted entirely in the weaving of linen, the culture and preparation of flax were of considerable importance. It is again from pictures of the time of the Middle Kingdom that we learn the mode of its preparation. '' The flax stalks were first boiled in a large curiously-shaped vessel — a process which evidently, like our roasting, was intended to loosen their outer covering; they were then beaten (as at the present day) with hammers, until the outside was loosed and destroyed. The flax thus obtained was still mixed with bits of the outside and with other impurities, and had to be separated from this rubbish before it could be used. In later times it was cleaned with a comb much after the modern method; we do not find this process represented however in the old pictures; according to them the flax seems to have been cleaned by hand — the good fibres were carefully picked out and laid together to form a loose thread.

This thread was then moistened, and twisted together more firmly by means of the spindle. Close by on the ground stood the pot in which lay the rough threads; and the person spinning allowed the thread to run over his raised hand or over a fork. In the tombs of the Middle Kingdom we find wonderful feats performed in the way of spinning — we see women managing two spindles at the same time and even twisting each of the two threads from two different sorts of flax. To do this they are obliged to balance themselves on a stool, and to take off every unnecessary article of clothing for fear the two spindles and the threads should get entangled.

The working up of the threads into rope is shown by two pictures, which, though belonging to different epochs, yet represent essentially the same procedure. A workman seated on the floor keeps the threads in the right position with his hand, while the rope-maker walks backwards, twisting them together. For this purpose he apparently uses a reed, through which he lets the threads run, and to which he gives a rotating movement; a weight hanging on the reed, and swinging with it, increases its power of rotation. ' We see by a picture of the time of the Middle Kingdom that, in making nets also, balls are tied on to the ends of the threads; these would naturally give them a quicker and more vigorous twist.

Garment Making in Ancient Egypt

Rachel Frisk of Minnesota State University, Mankato wrote: “From its start in prehistoric Egypt, women were predominately in charge of textile manufacturing and garment making. Garment making was a household chore, but woman also worked for aristocrats in spinning and weaving shops. Every garment from the decorative dresses of queens and the elaborate, pleated kilts of the pharaohs to the simpler kilts and aprons of the common people were handmade by woman. The process of making garments is extensive even for the simplest of garment.[Source: Rachel Frisk, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]

“Linen is a fabric made from plant fibers. The plant fiber comes from flax plants that grow abundantly along the banks of the Nile. The flax plants are dried, combed, soaked, beaten, and dressed. The resulting fibers are then spun into thread. The thread is woven into linen fabric from which the garments are made. +\

“The tools involved in garment making include knives (or scissors) and needles, both of these needed to be molded, shaped or craved. In predynastic times, knives were made out of stone and the needles were made from bones. However, during the Old Kingdom, they were both made out of copper. Then, in the Middle Kingdom, bronze replaced the copper. Knives and needles were molded. Surprisingly, the eyes of needles were not bored. They were "scratched out with a hard, pointed instrument, probably a stone." With these tools and linen, garments were fashioned to suit the needs of the people based on climate and the social status.” +\

Egyptian-era loom

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated August 2024