This study identifies and analyzes the sartorial choices of Egyptians living in Late Period Egypt (ca. 747–332 BC). Even though the 8th to 4th centuries BC are the main focus of this book, the ability to understand the clothing of that era, especially determining what was innovative and what was archaistic, necessitated reaching back to almost the beginning of Egyptian civilization. This approach makes this study a useful compendium of ancient Egyptian clothing that extends far beyond the Late Period.
This book, with its very rich illustrative material, is addressed both to the specialist and non-specialist. It is intended to be useful for archaeologists and art historians for the dating of objects and to produce a coherent and consistent terminology for describing ancient Egyptian clothing. The interaction between material culture and self-presentation in Egyptian art is one of the main topics of the study. One of goals of this work is to reconcile excavated textiles with artistic representations of clothing. To some extent, this analysis is supplemented by the examination of parallel situations in other cultures. Issues of foreign influence, regional changes, and tradition versus novelty in Egyptian art are considered as well.
The work deals with visual sources including statuary, stelae, paintings, coffins, and reliefs commissioned by or for private individuals (i.e., non-royal persons). The study also uses other sources such as preserved textiles and ancient texts that refer to clothing. It focuses on the comparative analysis of specific garments represented in two versus three dimensions arguing that the same clothing was represented in both kinds of media. For example, it concludes that the wraparound dress represented with one, two, or sometimes without a shoulder strap in two dimensions is the same wraparound dress that is always shown with two straps in three dimensions.
The study assembles a wide corpus of sources that were analyzed primarily in museums and at archaeological sites, but the conclusions are based mostly on personal examination of monuments, some published, but many not yet made available for wider study. This actual examination proved to be necessary because photos and other published sources alone often do not record the detail required by this research. Much of the data was gathered during a study season of the reliefs and other decoration of Late Period Asasif tombs (western Thebes / Luxor) in fall 2010 / winter 2011, and later supplemented by following visits.1 Study of the God’s Wives of Amun in their chapels at Medinet Habu and in the Osirian sanctuaries at Karnak provided much new data. This was possible due to my participation from 2014 in the French Mission « Sanctuaires osiriens de Karnak » (IFAO, CFEETK, EPHE, PSL, INRAP, Orient et Méditerranée, AOROC) working in Karnak, and my work since 2017 with the Epigraphic Survey (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago) at Medinet Habu. This work in Upper Egypt was supplemented by a survey of private tombs at Saqqara, Giza, and Tuna el-Gebel. When access to a particular object or monument was impossible, photographic archives were consulted.
The starting point for the research was a survey of the Corpus of Late Egyptian Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum before its content was incorporated into the Karnak Cachette online database.2 Similar studies were done in the photographic collections of the Karnak Cachette database3 in the archives of the Institut français d’archéologie orientale in Cairo, and in the photo archive of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and at Chicago House, its field headquarters in Luxor. Research also was supplemented by surveying the online databases of several museums, augmented by requests for detailed photos of objects. Special attention was paid to museum catalogs because they tend to publish more detailed and informative photographs. Many other sources were compiled from scholarly literature on the topic.
The textiles, as an important supplement to the representation of clothing, were investigated when possible during various museum visits.4 The textiles excavated in Tomb II in Deir el-Bahari by the Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and Conservation Mission of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari in the 2012/2013 season were the only organic materials studied in situ. They were found as a secondary deposit in Tomb II, a Third Intermediate or Late Period tomb situated in the cliff bordering the temple of Tuthmose III. They appear to be a modern reburial, and they seem to date from the Third Intermediate Period into the Coptic-era occupation of the area of the temples of Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III, but some of them can securely be dated to the 25th Dynasty, thanks to the remains of Taharqo’s cartouche on one piece.5
As was recently stressed by two notable methodologists of dress studies “… the accurate identification of types of dress and their perceptually identifiable characteristics is an essential preliminary to analyses of dress in general and to our analysis of dress as a non-verbal means of communicating identity specifically.”6 In accordance with this statement, the first basic research was done on the collected material that formed a foundation for work on the typology of Late Period clothes. Thus, a corpus of objects displaying garments was gradually assembled, evaluated, and expanded as the work progressed. The material was entered into a relational database that totaled more than 2,000 records. Each record includes information about specific pieces of clothing, especially when worn along with other garments. This allowed for a separate analysis of each item and how it relates to other pieces of clothing and accessories. The database was used to prepare the catalogue of each type of clothing (see Appendix 1: Typology of Late Period Clothing) that was grouped into tables (see Chapter 6). Each table includes analyzed objects with the represented type of clothing and contains the following information: description of the object, its current location, estimated date and provenance, as well as the main bibliography that includes a photo of the object.
Drawing on the assembled corpus, a detailed typology of Late Period clothes was established. This typology consists of both individual garments and sets of clothing and accessories. It analyses the representation of Late Period clothing, the chronology of its occurrence, its diachronic development, its nomenclature in scholarly literature and in primary sources (ancient texts), if known. In general, the typology is divided into male and female apparel. Male garments gathered in Chapter 3 include various kinds of kilts, sashes, tunics, single-strap undergarments, cloaks, and shawls. Female clothing gathered in Chapter 4 was less varied, and consists of different kinds of dresses and tunics. In addition to establishing a typology of Late Period garments and identifying dating factors, this work also proposes new nomenclature.
The interpretative part of the book analyses Late Period clothing against the background of geographical, chronological, and socio-political frameworks, and considers to what extent the represented clothes can reveal the ethnicity of the wearer. The study examines whether Egyptian garments were influenced by foreign fashion and concludes that during the Late Period, Egyptians were depicted in clothing of Egyptian origin free from foreign influence, while individuals of foreign origin were represented in apparel that can be identified as foreign. The work also contextualizes the attire in relation to its owner and his or her function/role and also the purpose of the monument on which it is shown by tackling its symbolic and religious meaning.
I am beholden to Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and the then Secretary General Dr. Zahi Hawass, all the members of Permanent Committee, and the then Director of Foreign Missions Dr. Mohamed Ismail for granting the permission to pursue this work and conduct the study season in Asasif tombs in Luxor, Giza, Saqqara, and Tuna el-Gebel as well as in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Nubian Museum in Aswan. A full list of colleagues who made this study possible and the description of the project is in my Acknowledgments which also includes the full list of the directors of the missions who helped me with access to the material, as well as the museums and the curators to whom I am deeply obliged.
For a description of the Corpus of Late Egyptian Sculpture see Bothmer 1960; De Meulenaere 2009, 224, note 3.
The Karnak Cachette database is edited by Laurent Coulon in collaboration with Emmanuel Jambon:
The list of the museums and the curators that helped in the project is listed in my Acknowledgments.
Hallmann, 2015d, 247–256.
Roach-Higgins and Eicher 1992, 2.