As colourful garments were something of a rarity the Egyptians developed the art of elaborate folding and pleating to decorate their cloth. This pleating grew finer and even more intricate as the standard of cloth production improved, and was accompanied by a parallel change in fashion from tight-fitting to more free-flowing dresses, designed to show off the expensive material to its best advantage. By the middle of the New Kingdom the style of the pleating was changing so rapidly that statues may now be dated with a considerable degree of accuracy by a consideration of the form of the pleats in the garments. We still have no idea how the ancient clothmakers managed to fix their pleats so firmly into the material that some still survive today, but it has been suggested that the long ribbed and grooved boards which have been recovered from several tombs may have played a part in the process. Some form of starch may have been applied to stiffen the material and hold the pleats in place.
Enough complete female outer garments have survived to confirm that throughout the Dynastic age the majority of women dressed in rather plain and crudely made variants of the long nightshirt-like djellaba which is still worn by the modern Egyptian peasant.7 These simple clothes lack the style and elegance of the more extreme fashions included in the formal tomb scenes but they would have been easy to make and both practical and comfortable to wear while working. Several of the surviving dresses have sleeves, a refinement which is rarely depicted in paintings before the New Kingdom but which would have provided a welcome protection against the ever-present dust and mosquitoes. Detachable sleeves, designed to be removed in warm weather, were a clever way of making one dress comfortable all year round.
Sandals – soles of woven reeds or leather bound on to the foot by a thong – were worn throughout the Dynastic period with more elaborate leather slippers becoming fashionable in the 19th Dynasty. The basic sandals often formed a part of the workman’s standard wage, even though artistic representations of daily life suggest that most activities were carried out barefoot as they are in many parts of the world today. Shoes were automatically discarded as a mark of courtesy on entering a house, and were removed in the presence of a socially superior person as a sign of respect. The honorary title of ‘Sandal-bearer to the Pharaoh’ was one of the highest regard, and it is highly unlikely that the holder of such a prestigious position actually had to do much ignominious shoe-carrying.
Simple shawls, again similar to those in modern use, were thrown over the dresses during the cool Egyptian nights. The 18th Dynasty tomb provisions of the Architect Kha and his wife Merit included not only shawls but also Merit’s elaborately fringed dressing gown, neatly folded in its storage basket which also held her comb and a wig curler. Several ostraca give comparative prices for these garments, and we know that during the New Kingdom the value of one simple djellaba-like shift dress made of plain cloth was, at five deben, relatively expensive; it is difficult to translate this value into exact modern monetary terms, but the fact that a goat was valued at two deben at this time gives an indication of the value attached to cloth. It is clear that clothing was priced according to the quality and quantity of the material used, as a shawl made of good quality cloth was a luxury item valued as high as fifteen deben.
Not surprisingly, thefts of basic clothing were relatively common. Theoretically these petty crimes could be brought before the court, but it was more usual for the victim to consult the local oracle who could be relied upon to solve the mystery and name the culprit with the minimum of official fuss. The oracle, in the form of a statue of the local god, was placed on a litter which was in turn supported on the shoulders of qualified lay-priests. He or she was able to indicate the answers to direct yes or no questions by forcing the litter-bearers to move either forwards or backwards at the appropriate moment. In more complicated cases, where there was a range of suspects, the plaintiff recited a list of names and the god again moved to indicate the guilty party. Although many local deities provided an efficient oracle service, the deified Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina was widely recognized to be one of the best.8 One ostracon from this site tells how the draughtsman Kaha decided to consult the oracle when some of his clothing was stolen. Kaha read out a list of the suspect households, and the god twice gave a sign when the household of Scribe Imenhet was mentioned. Eventually the field of suspects was narrowed down even further, and the unnamed daughter of Imenhet was identified as the thief. There is no record of any subsequent punishment being meted out, but it would appear that adverse public opinion combined with a very real fear of divine retribution would force the guilty party to return the stolen goods promptly to their rightful owner.