with Observations on some Manufactures of the Ancients, 359 



All the annexed figures of fibres of flax represent each y^ 

 of an inch in length, and are magnified 400 times in diameter. 

 They vary in thickness from -^^ to 7 #W P art °* an hich. 



§ III. 



Of the productions of the loom amongst the nations of 

 antiquity, with the exception of those which form the sub- 

 ject of this paper, we know only what is to be gathered from 

 the few scattered notices in ancient writers. Even the great 

 work of Pliny, the encyclopaedia of that day, and with all its 

 defects an invaluable collection of facts, affords but scanty in- 

 formation. Of the manufactures of the Egyptians and of their 

 domestic arts our knowledge is more ample, but we are more 

 indebted to their monuments than to their historians'; and the 

 paintings which adorn their tombs, and which are fresh at the 

 present day as from the hand of the artist, have revealed to us 

 more than all the writers of antiquity. 



Of the products of the Egyptian loom, however, we know 

 scarcely more than the mummy-pits have disclosed to us ; and 

 it would be as unreasonable to look through modern sepul- 

 chres for specimens and proofs of the state of manufacturing 

 art amongst ourselves, as to deduce an opinion of the skill of 

 the Egyptians from those fragments of cloth which envelop 

 their dead, and have come down, almost unchanged, to our 

 own time. The curious or costly fabrics which adorned the 

 living, and were the pride of the industry and skill of Thebes, 

 have perished ages ago. There are, however, amongst these 

 remains some which are not unworthy of notice, which carry 

 us back into the workshops of former times, and exhibit to 

 us the actual labours of the weavers and dyers of Egypt more 

 than two thousand years ago. 



The great mass of the mummy cloth employed in bandages 

 and coverings, whether of birds, animals, or of the human 

 species, is of coarse texture, especially that more immediately 

 in contact with the body, and which is generally impregnated 

 with resinous or bituminous matter. The upper bandages, 

 nearer the surface, are finer. Sometimes the whole is en- 

 veloped in a covering coarse and thick, and very like the 

 sacking of the present day ; sometimes in cloth coarse and 

 open, like that used in our cheese-presses, for which it might 

 easily be mistaken. In the College of Surgeons are various 

 specimens of these cloths, some of which are very curious. 



The beauty of the texture and peculiarity in the structure 

 of a mummy cloth given to me by Mr. Belzoni was very 

 striking. It was free from gum, or resin, or impregnation of 

 any kind, and had evidently been originally white. It was 



