A Lasting Mend
- Patched sleeve
- Wool
- Roman, 2nd–4th centuries CE
- Karanis, Egypt
- UM excavations, KM 13995
Around two thousand years ago in the small farming village of Karanis in Egypt, careful hands patched a hole on the shirtsleeve of a child's tunic with a piece of striped cloth. This sleeve fragment from a finely woven wool tunic was excavated by the University of Michigan Karanis Expedition of the early 20th century, which was led by Francis Kelsey. Both the tunic and the child who wore it are long gone, but the patch remains.