EGYPT 



HISTORICAL. 



Formerly it was thought that the cultivation, the spinning, and 

 weaving of cotton were known to the people which built the Pyramids 

 and the Egyptian temples, because the opinion was held that many 

 of the mummies were wrapped in cotton cloth. It has now been 

 proved from a minute chemical and microscopical investigation that 

 the garments of the mummies seem to consist exclusively of 

 linen. Nevertheless, one may suppose that cotton was cultivated 

 and utilised in Egypt a thousand years before the birth of Christ. 

 The Bible reports that Pharaoh presented Joseph with a cotton gar- 

 ment as a mark of distinction at those times they were worn only 

 by the nobility and priests. It is certain that cotton garments were, 

 and remained for a long time, a rarity, and were not worn by the 

 masses of the people. The Greek writer Herodotus, who lived about 

 five centuries B.C., had an intimate knowledge of Egypt and of the 

 cotton plant, but, strange to say, he does not mention its existence in 

 Egypt, and we might conclude, therefore, that cotton did not grow 

 in Egypt at his time. It is worthy of notice that the Egyptian 

 pictures and sculptures show frequently the cultivation and the uses 

 of flax, but nowhere is there any reference to cotton. The Govern- 

 ment Department of Egyptian Antiquities has requested students of 

 Egyptology to search for traces which might have reference to cotton, 

 but so far their efforts have been in vain. 



If Upper Egypt, Abyssinia, or the Sudan were not the home of 

 the Egyptian cotton and considerable doubt seems to exist on this 

 point there remains another explanation for the source of Egyptian 

 cotton, viz., India. As the Egyptians were in early times keen 

 sailors and able traders, it is practically certain that among the goods 

 which they imported from the maritime countries along the Indian 

 Ocean were raw cotton and cotton products; indeed, existing litera- 

 ture proves that Indian cotton came into Egypt before the birth of 

 Christ. After the death of Alexander the Great, Egypt cultivated a 

 brisk trade with India during the reign of the Ptolemies, and from 

 this time forth there began a regular importation of cotton goods 

 into Egypt from India, and Egypt then made attempts to grow 

 cotton. The celebrated stone of Rosetta, which bears the key to the 

 hieroglyphs, written in three languages, in one part refers to cotton. 



The elder Pliny (A.D. 23 to 79) describes plainly how in ancient 

 times cotton grew in Upper Egypt, towards Arabia, the products of 

 which afforded very valued vestments, and in the year 150 A.D. Julius 

 Pollux described the cotton plants grown in Egypt with great exact- 

 ness, and related that the spun thread was made into weft yarn, for 

 the warp linen was used. One has, however, come to the conclusion 

 that these statements, supposed to have been made by Pliny and 



