Egyptian textiles

My friend and I have been continuing the work of analyzing the textile artifacts found under the mummy at the Albany Institute of History and Art, in anticipation of the new exhibit which opens on September 21. We've made several exciting discoveries. The visiting Egyptologist, Peter Lacavara, has tentatively dated the garment remnant to approximately 900 BC, and identified it as a kalasiris - a long sleeveless robe (this one is approximately 60 inches long, including the fringe). According to Dr. Lacavara, this is very rare; he has seen paintings of them, but never an actual textile. While it is woven as a simple tabby (as are all the textiles we examined), it has beautiful decorative stitching around the armhole.

The garment will be in the exhibit, so if you are in the Albany area this year, it is definitely worth a visit. While this textile has a thread count of 48/26 threads per inch, the finest textile we were able to examine has a count of 140/60 threads per inch! The only way we could count that was with the help of a microscope. While there will be several textiles in the show, here is a photo of a piece we examined which will not be on display:

I'm fascinated by the pattern of bundled threads. This artifact is too small to know what its original use was. This textile has a thread count of 40/50 threads per inch.