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XL VI 1 1. On the Mummy Cloth of Egypt; with Observations 

 on some Maniifactures of the Ancients. By James Thomson, 

 Esq., F.R.S* .^ ^ _^ (rr<(yvJ, y )Ul 



§ i. cu-d ^ f^i/ L yttox^ 



T^HE inquiries which form the subject of the following 

 •*- paper were undertaken many years ago : circumstances 

 which it is unnecessary here to explain have delayed their 

 publication; but the results were communicated to numerous 

 individuals. The revival lately of similar inquiries by others 

 apparently unacquainted with what is already known, induces 

 me to believe that this communication may not be wholly 

 without interest. 



My attention was attracted to the subject of Egyptian ma- 

 nufactures by the late Mr. Belzoni in the year 1822, during 

 the exhibition of a model of the ancient tomb discovered by 

 that enterprising traveller in Egypt. He had the goodness 

 to present to me various specimens of cloth, chiefly from the 

 mummies in his possession, one of which he had entirely de- 

 nuded. 



On my remarking that these fabrics scarcely deserved the 

 appellation of " fine linen," which from all antiquity had been 

 bestowed on the linen of Egypt, and that the observations of 

 Dr. Hadley, in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 

 1 764, had thrown some doubt on the supposed fineness of this 

 linen, he informed me that during his researches in Egypt, in 

 those tombs and mummy-pits which he had explored, he had 

 met with cloth of every degree of fineness from the coarsest 

 sacking to the finest and most transparent muslin, a fact 

 which I subsequently found in a great degree confirmed by 

 the acquisition of some interesting specimens of mummy cloth 

 sent to this country by the then Consul-general of Egypt, the 

 late Mr. Salt. The subject appearing to me sufficiently in- 

 teresting to deserve investigation, and having collected a variety 

 of specimens of cloth, my first care was to ascertain of what 

 material they were made. This question had already engaged 

 the attention of various inquirers and given birth to learned 

 dissertations. 



Rouelle, in the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sci- 

 ences for the year 1750 ; Larcher, the translator of Herodotus, 

 in the notes to that celebrated work ; and the learned John 

 Reinhold Forster, who wrote a tract De Bysso Antiquoncm, 

 had all endeavoured to prove from their own examination that 



* Communicated by the Author. 



2Z2 



