360 Mr. Thomson on the Mummy Cloth of Egypt; 



close and firm, yet very elastic. The yarn of both warp and 

 woof was remarkably even and well spun. The thread of the 

 warp was doable, consisting of two finer threads twisted toge- 

 ther. The woof was single. The warp contained 90 threads 

 in an inch ; the woof, or weft, only 44. The fineness of these 

 materials, estimated after the manner of cotton yarn, was about 

 30 hanks in the pound. 



The subsequent examination of a great variety of mummy 

 cloths showed that the disparity between the warp and woof 

 belonged to the system of manufacture, and that the warp 

 generally had twice or thrice, and not seldom four times, the 

 number of threads in an inch that the woof had : thus, a cloth 

 containing 80 threads of warp in the inch, of a fineness about 

 24 hanks in the pound, had 40 threads in the woof; another 

 with 120 threads of warp of 30 hanks had 40; and a third 

 specimen only 30 threads in the woof. These have each re- 

 spectively double, treble, and quadruple the number of threads 

 in the warp that they have in the woof. This structure, so 

 different from modern cloth, which has the proportions nearly 

 equal, originated, probably, in the difficulty and tediousness of 

 getting in the woof when the shuttle was thrown by hand, 

 which is the practice in India at the present day, and which 

 there are weavers still living, old enough to remember the 

 universal practice in this country. 



I have alluded to some specimens of mummy cloth sent to 

 this country by the late Mr. Salt. I am unacquainted with 

 their history or origin further than that they were brought 

 from Thebes, and were contained in the outer packing-case 

 of a mummy now in the British Museum. They were evi- 

 dently the spoils of some other mummy, but when and where 

 opened I have in vain endeavoured to learn. There were va- 

 rious fragments of different degrees of fineness ; some fringed 

 at the ends, and some striped at the edges. They merit a 

 more particular description. 



My first impression on seeing these cloths was that the 

 finest kinds were m?islin, and of Indian manufacture, since we 

 learn from the " Periplus of the Erythrean Sea," ascribed to 

 Arrian, but more probably the work of some Greek mer- 

 chant himself engaged in the trade, that muslins from the 

 Ganges were an article of export from India to the Arabian 

 Gulf; but this suspicion of their being cotton was soon removed 

 by the microscope of Mr. Bauer, which showed that they were 

 all without exception linen. Some were thin and transparent, 

 and of very delicate texture. The finest appeared to be made 

 of yarns of near 100 hanks in the pound, with 140 threads in 

 the inch in the warp, and about 64 in the woof. A specimen 



