ARCE-NT: Egyptian and Minoan Costumes Fashioned of Patterned Fabrics: Before and After Tutankhamun by Nancy Arthur Hoskins

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Lecture Information:

Egyptian pharaohs and goddesses wear garments of extraordinary patterned fabrics in New Kingdom tomb paintings. Though the goddess gowns are traditionally considered ‘bead-net’ dresses, the ornate patterns could have been woven with the same method used by weavers to create the bands on the Tunic of Tutankhamun. To demonstrate that the patterns were neither nets of beads nor figments of the painter’s imagination, recreations of a hundred different patterns found on goddess gowns and kings’ kilts were woven in my ‘experimental archaeology’ project. The

quest began with research on the patterned fabrics on costumes in Minoan frescoes, and included those found in Egyptian wall paintings from New Kingdom tombs. The Tutankhamun woven, patterned textiles from his tomb were included in the study. A series of fifteen articles on the project have been published in an international textile journal, and fifty woven samples were exhibited in 2017 as Ephemeral Fabrics from Egypt and Aegean: Before and After Tutankhamun.

The fabulous patterned fabrics worn by Egyptian goddesses, pharaohs, Minoan maidens and men survive only in paintings, but the Tutankhamun textiles are testimony to the truth that the materials, methods, and skill to weave complex patterns was understood in the Mediterranean world during the Late Bronze Age when conquest and commerce flourished under powerful pharaohs.

Speaker Bio:

Nancy Arthur Hoskins, author, artist, and former college weaving teacher, has lectured, taught, exhibited, and researched nationally and internationally. She is the author of three books The Coptic Tapestry Albums and the Archaeologist of Antinoé, Albert Gayet, Weft-Faced Pattern Weaves: Tabby to Taqueté, Universal Stitches, and a video teaching tape Boundweaving, and over one hundred articles and chapters in several books. Nancy was the guest teacher on five Textile Tours of Egypt. Egyptian and Minoan Costumes of Patterned Fabrics: Before and After Tutankhamun will be published in 2026.