EXHIBIT OF BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES. 1005 



sary amount of straw or stubble by treading- it down in a shallow pit. 

 The prepared clay was carried in hods upon the shoulders and shaped 

 into bricks of various sizes. ^ 



Modern Egyptian brick from Thebes. — Of the same general 

 make and character as the ancient S])ecimeii. 



Egyptian C(jtton. — Cotton of a very fine grade is now grown in 

 Egypt. The question as to whether it was known or extensively used 

 in that country, or in other lands bordering on the Mediterranean, is 

 one that has given rise to much discussion. Authorities on the cotton 

 plant have dednitely asserted that it was well known in Egypt from 

 early times; thus M. Jardin^ states that it is certain that the cotton 

 j)lant existed in Upper Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia in the wild state; 

 that it was known to the ancient Egyptians, and that the proof of its 

 existence is the finding of some seeds of Gossypium Arhorctim, by 

 Rosellini, in the coftin of a mummy. He further holds the opinion that 

 linen and cotton were simultaneously employed in Egypt, but that the 

 former was more costly than the latter and was reserved for purposes 

 relating to the cult. In the valuable work on the Cotton Plant issued 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture, ' Mr. R. B. Handy, 

 the author of a chapter on the Ancient History of Cotton, holds })rac- 

 tically the same view.^ On the other hand, it has been claimed by 

 some authors that cotton was quite unknown in Egypt, a fact largely 

 based upon the conclusions arrived at by James Thomson in an article 

 on the ''Mummy Cloths of Egypt." ^ Mr. Tiiomson, after twelve years' 

 study of the subject, reached the opinion that the bandages of the 

 mummy were universally made of linen. It would api)ear that cotton 

 was not well known to the ancient Israelites, for we find it mentioned 

 but once in the Bible, in the Book of Esther,'^ which, of course, has a 

 Persian background and contains a descri]3tiou of a Persian palace. 

 The passage reads: " In the court of the garden of the King's Palace 

 there were hangings of white and violet-colored cotton cloths fastened 

 with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of mar- 

 ble." The Hebrew word translated "cotton" is " karpas," derived 

 from the Sanskrit "■ karpasa." 



Between the extremes of opinion, the truth seems to be that cotton 

 was indigenous in India and that its products made their way gradually, 

 through commerce, to the Mediterranean countries and that the plant 

 itself followed gradually either through commerce or by way of Persia. 

 It is plain that the cotton plant existed in Egypt in the time of Pliny 



' Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 417. 



-Le Cotton, pp. 10, 11. 



^Bulletin 33, Office of Experiment Station. 



^See also the Descriptive Catalogue of Useful Fiber Plants of the World, by 

 Charles Richards Dodge, issued by the Department of Agriculture, 1897 



"'London and Edinburg Philosophical Magazine, 3d ser., V, p. 355, cited by Budge 

 in The Mummy, p. 190. 



*> Chapter I, verses 5, 6. 



