Background

Most extant tunics that document eastern Mediterranean historical dress come from Egypt. Throughout history, the climate and the burial process of the Egyptians have contributed to the preservation of the garb of the Egyptian population across the millennia and thus were lucrative to the study of the Egyptian dress and its development.

Tunics worn by the inhabitants of the Mediterranean from the beginning of the 1st century CE followed the modes of the Mediterranean hegemons, the Romans. The principal element of the fashion introduced in Egypt with the arrival of the Romans was a tunic made of two rectangular pieces of fabric sewn together. Such a tunic either would leave the arms naked or cover the arms to the elbow.

The Fayyum mummy portraits dating to 30 BCE – 3 CE depict Greco-Roman Egyptians clad in Roman chitons, draped mantles, and elaborate gold ornaments. This fashion changed with the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The Egyptians would wear their tunics with “true sleeves” sewn to the body of the tunic.¹ This type of garment was constructed by weaving the entire garment (including the sleeves) in a cross or a T-shape on the loom, and the selvages were joined to form horizontal or vertical seams.

In the 6th-7th century AD, in Egypt, one could see a certain influence of the style, probably coming from Sassanian Persia. Amongst other things, this tendency was expressed in tunics with long sleeves, sewn in several pieces. Egypt was conquered by the Arabs in 641 and became an indispensable province of the Islamic world. It was also a center of culture, religion, education, and commerce.

The majority of surviving tunics in the Medieval Arab world comes from Egypt. Even after the Islamic conquest of the Mediterranean, for a period around the late 7th century, the construction of these tunics following the Roman style of woven-to-shape method was slowly beginning to fade out. Archeological excavations of tunics worn in the Arabized lands in the Islamic Middle Ages are scanty.

However, an enormous treasury of textile fragments has survived from the Medieval Islamic period, mainly from Egypt, due to the aforementioned textile-preserving climate conditions. These fragments, although indispensable in establishing contemporary decorative motifs, weave types, colors, and methods of embellishment, are still incomplete and give no clue as to what kind of garment they comprised or their function. Given the vast array of textile fragments dispersed throughout world museums and private collections, one would have the liberty of re-imagining these fragments in a tunic form.

The scanty number of surviving whole tunics from the Abbasid, Fatimid, and Mamluk periods demonstrates that in the Islamic Middle Ages, Muslims followed the construction methods coming from Sassanid Persia, namely, panel pieces attached to the tunic’s main body. Examples of real “Islamic” style tunics began to appear around the 9th century.

The Coptic tunics worn in the Egyptian-Roman period were characterized by the ornamented tapestry-woven clavi bands on the hems, shoulders, necklines, cuffs, and also square elements known as tabulae and discs called orbiculi (roundels on the lower part of the tunic).

In contrast, the distinctive feature of Islamic tunics and textiles in general was ornamented bands on the upper arm called Tiraz, and the aversion from human and mythological representation, a distinctive characteristic of pre-Islamic Coptic art and textile work. These bands had decorative motifs of flora, scrolling, vegetal elements, roundels, geometric designs, or sometimes animal depictions. Egyptian tunics produced during the Islamic period demonstrated a skillful blend between Indigenous Coptic textile art and Arabo-islamic sensibilities.

Tiraz could also be embroidered, woven, or printed lines of written pseudo-kufic inscriptions on the width of the fabric, retaining Quranic verses, maxims, the name of the concurrent caliph, and or the tiraz workshop supervisor. Tunics would be decorated with embroidered indigenous motifs with religious and cultural symbolism, expressed with various stitches made from colorful silk or linen threads, that are situated around the neck, shoulder, and hem area.

Ornamented tapestry-woven bands (silk or wool) could also be applied to the tunic around the necklines and cuffs. However, most ornamented bands, similar to their Christian Coptic precursors, were usually woven in with the fabric itself. Gold appliqué work was quite popular in accordance with the affluent and refined tastes of the Fatimid Caliphs in Egypt. The necklines usually came in a close-fitting round hole with a drawstring or a loop-button fastener, or a keyhole neckline.

The sartorial tradition of these tunics has been consistently carried over to the modern age. The construction of tunics or traditional dresses or robes from various Arab countries in Arabia (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar), Egypt (Siwa, desert oasis, Sinai), and the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Palestine) still retains the same sewing techniques and general silhouette.

A Romano-Coptic tunic from 2 rectangular pieces

Cross woven-to-shape tunic 2 AD – 7 AD (true sleeve)

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Egyptian Tunics constructed from panel pieces – influence from Persia

Examples of extant tunics worn in the Arabo-Islamic world

This blue-black wool dress is a child’s tunic, made of an assembly of thirteen pieces woven separately and firmly assembled by seams. On the shoulders are placed two ornamental strips having a different decoration. On both sides of the bands of both sleeves, the tunic is adorned with a Kufic inscription of blessing, the letters ending in beveled chess, repeated over the entire line. The inscription, language of origin: pious inscription in angular kufic, very altered and unreadable, embroidered in silk: “barakatun d’a’imatun …al mulk lillah” بركة دائمة …الملك لله”…“

A Mamluk wool tunic fragment, Egypt or North Africa, 14th century, on a blue linen ground, probably the decorative front panel of a tunic, the wool embroidery is in counted thread embroidery of red, light blue and green threads forming geometric and floral motifs arranged horizontally in rows alternating with couched metallic thread embroidery forming roundels and flower-heads, the decoration is further enriched by larger motifs of floral spray to the top, and bold geometric shapes such as the prominent red zigzag shape surmounting the regular rows executed in a combination of both techniques, the couched motifs to the center may indicate an opening to the tunic, 18.7 cm. long x 22.8 cm wide.

This tunic has an open, rounded collar from the frontal section of a tailored garment, which would have been constructed of two large rectangular segments in the front and the back with triangular sections set into the right and left sides, and cylindrical sleeves attached to the shoulders. It is embroidered in red, yellow, and black silks on a natural ground, with a design of stylized motifs including stars, lamps, and zig-zags.

This tunic is plain woven linen embroidered in double running stitch in black and red silk, made in Egypt. Unfortunately, there are no dimensions available. There is no round section visible for the neck itself; the textile seems neatly cut across the top. I am unsure of how the decorations would go around the neck since it is a square design. It is currently in the Cooper Hewitt.

There is also a complete outfit belonging to a child that the Victoria and Albert Museum approximated to be ca 1100–1300 CE, excavated from a tomb at El A’zam, near Asyut, in Upper Egypt. It comprised a partial jacket, complete pants (with the drawstring channel still intact), and a cap. The ensemble is made from the same silken fabric and has a vertical red and white stripes pattern.

There is another ensemble consisting of a part of a trouser and a part of a tunic found at the tomb, similar in design to the one discovered in the tomb at El A’zam. This one is Tabby woven silk with lozenged stripes.

Within the same collection, there was another child’s jacket found around a similar period, which is made from linen and silk woven stripes, blue and white.

Medieval Extant tunics from Syria-Palestine

The garments you see were excavated from mummies that are called “the Maronite mummies”. They were found in Lebanon in 1990. The scientists dated them back to around 1283 A.D. The bodies of these people were dressed in lovely embroidered dresses when buried. Some even had glass-beaded jewelry. One of the mummies is an infant, 4 months old.

She was named Yasmine by the archaeologists, and her attire was probably the most interesting. Under her burial shroud, she had 3 dresses on – a blue one closest to the body, a beige dress over it, and a dark beige dress with silk embroidery on top of the other two garments. Yasmine even had a headpiece and a silk headband under it. She also had one earring and a necklace made from glass beads and coins. This might mean that the infant’s parents were rich and of high status.

The construction and style of these tunics preserved their character and design across the folk costumes of the Levant. Modern-day traditional dresses in the Levant in Syria-Palestine still retain a considerable resemblance to their Medieval counterparts. The fabric, tailoring, embroidery placement, and even motifs are very consistent; however, a thorough examination of the Medieval motifs and comparing them to the modern equivalents needs further study. The order of layers of the folk clothing of Syria-Palestina vis-à-vis their Medieval versions is quite similar. Short vests or boxy overcoats (similar to the one in the image above) over a long-sleeved tunic with an embroidered yoke (tawq) is the traditional outfit of modern Levantine countries.

1. Tunics Worn in Egypt in Roman and Byzantine Times: The Greek Vocabulary ↩︎