Towards the end of the second century, a Greek Christian philosopher, theologian, and thinker named Titus Flavius Clemens (later known as Clement of Alexandria, the prominent church father) moved to Alexandria, at the time a venerable seat of learning and one of the most prosperous cities of the ancient world. Clement’s aim was to contribute to laying the foundations of Christian thought and conduct. Unintentionally, he provided us with a vivid picture of the passion the people of his day had for colourful, luxurious dress and self-adornment. He said:

‘He [God] takes away anxious care for clothes, food, and all luxuries as being unnecessary. What are we to imagine, then, should be said about love of embellishments, the dyeing of wool, and the variety of colours? What should be said about the love of gems, exquisite working of gold, and still more, of artificial hair and wreathed curls?’

Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor (Paedagogus), 3.2

Despite the rhetoric nature of the text, Clement’s description was far from being an exaggeration. Dress fragments, unearthed from rubbish heaps and underground tombs, together with the images of upper-class well-attired men and women on mural paintings, textiles, and mummy portraits, emphasize the spread and popularity of luxury dress and sumptuous jewellery, particularly in urban areas during the Roman and early Byzantine periods. Dress is often deemed a reflection of the world around it, so what did this world look like?

Age of transition

The Roman and early Byzantine era has been viewed as a distinct historical epoch, where major changes took place between the first and seventh centuries CE. This chapter of Egypt’s history began when Egypt was annexed to the Roman Empire by Augustus in 30 BCE and ended with the Arab conquest in 642 CE. Before the Roman conquest, Egypt was firmly a part of the Hellenistic world. Greeks had come and settled in large numbers, mainly in cities such as Alexandria, Naukratis (a city on the canopic branch of the Nile in the present-day Delta), and Ptolemais Hermiou (al-Minshah in Sohag today), to which in 130 CE Antinopolis (close to Mallawi in Minya) was added. Over time, the Greek language became more common in many aspects of people’s lives, with Coptic and Greek gradually replacing Demotic and eventually becoming the major languages among Egypt’s residents.

Under Roman rule, urban settlements were mostly nome (province) capitals known as metropoleis or metropolises in addition to the few cities built by the Greeks. The city of Oxyrhynchus (the capital of the province of Arcadia close to present-day Minya), for example, teemed with the characteristic features of Hellenistic culture such as the agorae, colonnaded streets, gymnasia, theatres, hippodromes, public baths, horse races, and poetry competitions. In contrast, life in villages like Aphrodite (in Sohag) and Karanis (Kom Oshim in Fayyum today) was mostly centred on agriculture and pastoral activities with little Greek influence. This contrast between urban and rural life was the most significant cultural divide in Roman and Early Byzantine Egypt. As time went by, the contours of Greek/Egyptian dichotomy became blurred, and the social structure was defined increasingly in terms of birth, function, and wealth, rather than ethnicity.

As implied by Clement’s words, it was a world where various ideologies coexisted and competed with each other; a world that was full of life, in which the gradual transition from antiquity to Christianity was both creative and productive. The lifestyle of an individual who lived in this world was greatly influenced by classical cultures. The two old cohabiting strains, Egyptian and Greek, which had variously interacted since the Ptolemaic Period evolved into equilibrium, before they gradually disappeared as Christianity became dominant. The new faith had a profound impact on the cultural identity of Egypt at the time. As Christianity progressed from being a tiny, persecuted cult to a well-established religion, so too did the depth of its cultural impact. By the beginning of the fifth century, Christianity permeated every aspect of society with churches prominent in the physical landscape throughout the country, from the provincial capitals and big cities to the villages and the monasteries. Powerful ties were forged between the church and the inhabitants through both charity work and pastoral guidance. Christian beliefs were incorporated in even the smallest details in people’s daily lives, ranging from the engraving of a simple cross on a ladle to the establishment of household oratories for private devotion. This interaction between the shrinking classical cultures and the growing Christian one gave rise to original visual arts and industries including dressmaking. In this atmosphere, what people wore was more than just material sewn together for protection. Their clothes were a signifier of what they thought and believed, a manifestation of identity.

Traditional shapes, new decoration

Tunics – For both men and women, the tunic or chiton was the standard garb. It was commonly made of linen and wool, forming a T shape with sleeves or half sleeves. A typical tunic was richly decorated with two vertical tapestry bands (clavi from the Latin for ‘stripe’) running over the shoulders front and back from both sides of the neck slit down to the hem. In richer garments, there are orbiculae or roundels (sing.: orbiculus) or square insets on the shoulder and at the level of the hips both front and back. These are sometimes accompanied by angular bands ending in a gammulae or leaf and by two bands on the short sleeves.

Unlike fashion designers today, dressmakers in the past did not take big risks in developing dress shapes. The notable changes were mainly limited to variations in decoration. In the first centuries CE, you might have preferred to decorate your tunic with images of classical mythological heroes or deities such as Herakles, Dionysos, Pan, Meleager, Tritons, Nerieds, and Erotes. Even if you were a Christian, you could still enjoy such pagan decoration. From the third century CE, many of these themes were modified to convey Christian messages. For example, an image of Dionysos could have been used to represent the doctrine of salvation. The myths of these Greek gods were partly interpreted in a cosmological way equating Christ with Dionysos or Nilos. Besides this Christian reading, some mythological themes were secularized and lost their pagan connotations. They were merely used as symbols of fertility, fortune, protection from the evil eye, paradise, and cyclical renewals. From the fifth century CE onwards, Christian themes and symbols gradually replaced classical ones. Tunics, like other dress components, evolved to be badges of faith. Believers preferred Christian symbols such as crosses, dolphins, fish, tendrils, vines with their grapes and branches, saints mounted on horseback, vases of flowers, and birds. Some biblical scenes were also common, most prominently the Old Testament stories of Joseph and Abraham's sacrifice of his son. Occasionally, people decorated their tunics with scenes from daily life, like a representation of a woman feeding chicken or gathering grapes or of shepherds tending to their herds in the field. Interestingly, such vividly ornamented tunics were worn underneath outer garments.

Outer garments – The basic daily outfits consisted of a shawl or a cloak covering a tunic or sometimes two tunics of different lengths. Shawls were the most common outer garment. Different types of shawls seem to have been used. One type that is frequently represented is a development of the ancient Greek himation and the Roman toga. It consists of a large rectangular piece of fabric draped around the shoulders and the waist, leaving one arm free. It seems that the cloak was not as common as the shawl but is nevertheless frequently depicted on mummy portraits. Sometimes, the cloak had the same colour as the tunic underneath, which suggests that the set of clothing was made at the same time. Other examples show the cloak in a contrasting colour, either darker or lighter than the tunic: a purple cloak with a white tunic, a white one with a dark blue tunic, or an orange one with a green tunic. Scarves were also used as outerwear. They were most often thrown over the shoulders or around the neck. Sometimes they were draped in a fairly complex manner like shawls. Most scarves were decorated along the edges, usually with simple polychrome stripes, squares, medallions, stars, or flowers.

Footwear – Leather open sandals are among the most frequent archaeological finds. Like their ancient prototypes, they were always provided with a strap separating the big toe from the others. Shoes have also survived in large numbers and appear frequently in murals and museum collections. Shoe decoration generally played on the contrast between the background colour—red, black, or more rarely white—and that of the bands sewn on the side of the shoe. Boots were less common. Few examples with pointed toe curved upward have been excavated from Baouit and Antinopolis.

The mark of a good woman

While both sexes wore almost the same dress components, there were some differences between their attire such as size, the fineness of the weave, the intricacy of the decoration and embroidery, and perhaps most obviously, the colour. Men are usually shown wearing white or unbleached garments, whereas women favoured more varied colours, often bright shades of pink, mauve, blue and red. Men often wore knee-length tunics, while women’s tunics reached above the ankle. Men wore shawls that partly covered their shoulders and bodies, while women’s shawls covered their heads and bodies. Women also wore smaller shawls that were simply placed on the head, with the two sides crossed over in front and thrown back behind the shoulders or folded diagonally and knotted at the breast. As for footwear, women preferred to wear shoes that completely covered their feet, while men wore sandals on their naked feet or over socks. Typically, women were expected to cover their head, body, and feet completely, but to what extent was this a reflection of respectability?

In this world, choice of dress was a moral minefield, where men held primary power and moral authority. When they defined women’s modest appearance, they focussed on two main features: the covering of women’s heads and bodies and the rejection of self-adornment. Covering the female body originated in the Roman world, where the veil was ritually associated with the faithful wife of the priest of Jupiter. Thus, it was seen as a symbol of constancy and lifelong fidelity. The veil was also perceived as the sign of a married woman as indicated by Plutarch. Therefore, Roman society regarded the removal of the veil not only as a sign of immodesty but also a sign of withdrawal from marriage. Similarly, ankle-length dress was the development of a Roman garment called pudicitia or modesty. While these requirements of modesty predate Christianity, they were later adopted by Christians, and church leaders in Egypt advocated for the same measures of modest dress. One of the accounts that underlines this concept is a sixth-century exhortation of Saint Pisentius, the bishop of Qift. In it, he says, ‘…I command emphatically in a great instruction in order that no woman at all go outside the door of her house with her head uncovered…’. It seems that throughout the Roman and Early Byzantine periods, women’s visibility was regarded as a potential danger to social mores. Self-adornment was also viewed as a corrupter of women’s modesty. Polemics against it can be traced back to the writings of Roman philosophers like the first-century Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger. Likewise, Christian authors denounced self-adornment as being a wicked art. Clement even went so far as to describe ornaments as ‘nothing but the badge of adultery’.

You were what you wore

The Roman government tried to keep the social order from changing by prohibiting certain people from dressing like wealthier or more powerful members of society. A series of laws were enacted over time to limit the ways people could dress, using dress codes as a marker of status. These restrictions addressed clothing design, style of decoration, and fabric. For example, starting in the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE), the senate passed a law forbidding men from wearing silk as it was considered a fabric made by divine hands and not woven by mere men. There was even a special imperial office charged with the keeping of the silks. By 424 CE, not only was it forbidden to weave cloaks and tunics of pure silk dyed purple, but all owners of such pieces were directed to surrender them to the treasury without reimbursement. Failure to comply with this law was a crime on a par with high treason. Interestingly, findings from Egypt, specifically from Panopolis (Akhmim), show that this law was largely ignored in practice, as traders imported silk from China through Persia.

Perhaps, the most visible way by which dress acted as marker of social status, however, was simply through the variation of material quality, skill, and artistry of dress. Well-to-do men and women wore fine linen clothes of high quality. They also obtained expensive silk and purple-dyed fabric. Elaborate decoration implied that they had the ability to afford costly tapestry pieces. This technique was mastered by a specially trained professional, who was recognized in papyri from between the fourth and eighth centuries as an artisan trained in the flying shuttle weaving technique used specifically for tapestry.

Mimicking imperial fashion was another way to display wealth and status. Affluent women in Egypt boasted their distinguished class through empress-like layering of dress, elaborate decoration, sumptuous jewellery, and delicate hairstyles. Evidence of visual representations of imperial women from Egypt is very scarce. However, we may get an idea from the surviving representations in other provinces that exhibit a broader tendency for official imperial art throughout the empire. Representations of empresses most prominently appeared in stone statuary, often erected in highly visible spaces. Their likenesses were also depicted on coinage, mosaics, and small lead-filled figurines, providing guidelines for the common people to emulate.

An amulet a day…

Spiritual images were incorporated into dress decoration to ward off evil spirits and invoke good ones. During this era, fear of the ‘evil eye’ was pervasive, with people believing that good fortune was vulnerable to the assaults of envious supernatural forces. To protect themselves, they decorated their garments with spiritual images that were believed to have the power to conquer evil. Some were of mythological origins, like the figure of Bellerophon killing the Chimeara, the fire-spitting three-headed monster. Others were inspired by biblical stories believed to hold power over satanic forces, like the sacrifice of Isaac and the miracles of Christ. The holy rider was a common spiritual theme on dress and jewellery, identified variously with the Thracian rider-god Heron, the Egyptian god Horus, Solomon, Jesus Christ, Saint George, and Saint Sisinnios.

In the Roman and Early Byzantine worlds, dress was far more than a mere piece of cloth or a covering for the body. It acted as a mirror of morality, status, and faith, and became inextricably entwined with the Egyptian identity that emerged during this time of transition.