d dress with
volants, well known in the Aegean area, had its parallel in
Babylonia.[5] Egypt furnishes admirable painted and sculptured
representations of the forms taken by the Semitic spiral dress in the
XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties; the highly-coloured and gay apparel of
Palestine and Syria standing in the strongest contrast to the plain,
simple and often scanty garments of the Egyptians (fig. 5). While the
common Semite wore a short skirt, often with tassels and sometimes with
an upper tunic, the more important had an elaborate scarf (extending
from waist to knee) wound over the long tunic, or a longer and
close-fitting variety coloured blue and red and generally adorned with
rich embroidery. A significant feature is the kind of cape which covers
the shoulders, it would not and no doubt was not intended to leave play
for the arms; it was the dress of the leisured classes, and a typical
scene depicts the chiefs of Lebanon thus arrayed submissively felling
cedars for Seti I. (about 1300 B.C.).

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--An Egyptian Officer.]

Not until the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties does a change come over
Egyptian costume. The Asiatic conquests made Egypt politically supreme,
the centre of life and intercourse, and the tendency arose to pay some
attention to outward appearance. From the highest to the lowest--with
the important exception of the priests--the new age of luxury wiped out
the earlier simplicity. The upper part of the body was covered with a
tunic fastened over the girdle. Often the left arm had a short sleeve
while the right was bare, but flowing sleeves came into use and various
pleated skirts became customary. Garments were multiplied, and the cape
and long mantle, which had previously been uncommon, were now usual.
Fashions changed in quick succession; upper classes were successively
copied by those beneath them and were forced to ensure their dignity by
assuming new styles. Whether for ordinary or for special occasions a
great variety of costume prevailed, and several types can be
distinguished among both sexes (Erman, pp. 207 seq., 213 sqq.; see fig.
6). The fashionable material was linen, and although, according to
Herodotus (ii. 81), a woollen mantle was worn over the fringed linen
skirt, wool was forbidden to the priests in the temple. The preference
for fine white linen, quite in keeping with the exaggerated Egyptian
ideas of cleanliness, brought the art of spinning and weaving to a
singularly h