When Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers
took souvenirs home with them from the late eighteenth-century Egyptian
campaign, modern interest in the archaeological remains of late antique
textiles was ignited. Serious collectors and early archaeologists turned
their attention to these artifacts around the turn of this century, unearthing
tens of thousands of examples that are now in museum and private collections
worldwide. Early exhibitions inspired artists like Matisse and designers
like Mario Fortuny. In fact, these artifacts have never really lost their
appeal: as recently as last year, Gianni Versace found inspiration for
his last line of designs in the "Glory of Byzantium" exhibition
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Another set of discoveries, of late
antique textile patterns painted on papyrus -- an ancient form of paper--
have been published only since 1990. These patterns permit a fresh approach
to studies that have been limited by the damaged and fragmentary nature
of many of the textiles themselves (see the case below). Moreover, a wealth
of late antique written documents (like the letter quoted below), as well
as current developments in studies of fashion, identity, gender, and culture,
allow us to read these artifacts as expressions of social identity, individual
personality, and taste.
"Aeschines had already been interred three days
when his niece came to visit his tomb for the first time. Custom, you know,
does not permit girls to attend funerals once they are engaged to be married.
However, even then she was dressed in purple, with a diaphanous veil over
her hair, and she had decked herself with gold and precious stones that
she might not be a sign of evil omen to her betrothed. Seated upon a chair
with double cushions and silver feet, so they say, she railed against the
untimeliness of the misfortune, on the grounds that Aeschines should have
died either before her wedding or after it, and she was angry with us because
we were in grief. ...Next week she is preparing to display herself crowned
with fillets, and with a towering head-dress like [the goddess] Cybele."
"We are in no way wronged by this, except in the
fact, patent to the whole world, that we have relations with very bad taste."
Letter of Bishop Synesius to his brother,
late 4th to early 5th c. CE
Museum collections of late antique
textiles are chiefly composed of discoveries made during the early part
of this century at cemeteries 
preserved
in the dry sands of Egypt. Those early excavations were often quite unscientific,
as whole cemeteries were uprooted, and few records were kept. Much of our
documentation for these early projects comes in the form of etchings made
for popular publications. Very rarely, entire assemblages -- comprised
of the corpse, its clothing, and other grave goods -- were kept together
for later study. More typically, textiles were simply cut off of the bodies,
and, quite often, only the most well preserved and elaborately decorated
portions were deemed good enough for collecting. In fact, many early excavators
were antiquities dealers who later sold the pieces to private collectors
and museums. A significant portion of the Kelsey Museum's collection was
acquired through such routes. The pieces displayed here illustrate the
range of strategies employed to create marketable goods out of whole garments
that had often deteriorated due to contact with rotting flesh and changing
humidity levels.
Decorated textiles were expensive, labor-intensive
productions. Not discarded until threadbare beyond utility, they were included
in tombs and graves among the range of the best things in life, treasured
as heirlooms, reused as hand-me-downs, and resold for cash.