sses it was unusually broad and was
made to stand out in front in triangular form. In the Middle Kingdom an
outer fine light skirt was worn over the loin-cloth; ordinary people,
however, used thicker material. Egyptian women had a tight foldless
tunic which exposed the breasts; it was generally kept up by means of
braces over the shoulders. This plain diaphanous garment, without
distinction of colour (white, red or yellow), and with perhaps only an
embroidered hem at the top, was worn by the whole nation, princess and
peasant, from the IVth to the XVIIIth Dynasties (Erman, _Life in Ancient
Egypt_, p. 212). Variation, such as it was, consisted of a sleeveless
dress covering the shoulders, the neck being cut in the shape of a V.
Female servants and peasants when engaged at work, however, had a short
skirt which left the legs free and the upper part of the body bare; a
like simplicity was probably customary among female servants or captives
throughout (cf. Isa. xlvii. 2). Even at the present day the wardrobe of
the Sinaitic Bedouin is much more complicated than that of their female
folk.

[Illustration: From Hilprecht's _Explorations in Bible Lands_, by
permission of A. J. Holman & Co. and T. & T. Clark.

FIG. 3.--Old Babylonian Costume.]

The earliest dress of Babylonia also covered only the lower half of the
body. As worn by gods and men it was a long and rather loose kind of
skirt suspended from a girdle. It is sometimes smooth; but sometimes it
is a shaggy skin (or woollen) skirt with horizontal rows of vertically
furrowed stuff. It allowed a certain freedom to the legs, but often it
is not clear whether it was joined down the middle. An instructive
development shows the upper part of the skirt hanging over the girdle so
that an elementary mantle would be obtained by drawing the loose end up
over the shoulders (Meyer, p. 93, cf. pp. 55, 76). The characteristic
skirt is sometimes supplemented by a coarse cloth, perhaps a fleece,
thrown over the shoulders; and in later times it is seen fastened
outside a tunic by means of a girdle (see fig. 3).

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Naram-Sin on the Stele of Victory.]

The favourite attitude, one leg planted firmly before the other, shows
the right leg fully exposed. A tunic or skirt is found as early as the
time of Naram-Sin, son of the great Sargon; it reaches to his knees and
appears to be held up by ornamental shoulder-bands (Meyer, pp. 11, 115;
fig. 4). Egyptian monuments de