[162], comparing them with those made in Gaul; and
those woven by the Parthians.[163]

We have already said that the wool of Miletus was a proverbial
favourite with the Greeks. Eustathius speaks of the excellence of the
Milesian carpets and hangings. Virgil represents the virgins of Cyrene
spinning Milesian wool dyed of a deep sea-green.[164]

In the British Museum is a fragment of Egyptian woollen or worsted
embroidery on white linen, discoloured by its use as mummy wrapping;
but the stitches of worsted remain a perfectly clear bright crimson
and indigo blue. This shows how wool absorbs the colour and retains
it. Even when the surface is faded, it can be made to emit it again by
chemical processes.

In tombs in the Crimea have been found variously woven and adorned
woollen fabrics. There are fragments resembling in their texture a
fine rep--a sort of corded stuff; another material resembling a
woollen crepe, or fine "nun's gauze." This veiled a golden wreath.
Then there is a stuff like what is now called "atlas"--a kind of
woollen satin. Some woollens are woven simply like linen; some are
wide, some very narrow, sewn together in strips, woven in meandering
designs. One, like a piece of Gobelin tapestry, has a border of ducks
with yellow wings and dark green heads and throats,[165] and then
another with a pattern of stags' heads. This description recalls the
specimens on plate 16 and plate 39.

From these tombs are collected stuffs of wool, woven and embroidered
in gold with combinations of many colours; and, in fact, through this
collection, now placed in the Museum at St. Petersburg, we become
aware that 300 B.C. the Greeks had learned all the secrets of the art
of weaving wool. They, however, lost it, and it is only in India that
its continuity was never broken. Indian looms still weave, of the
finest fleeces, such shawls of Babylonian design as repeat the texture
of the ancient Greek garments. But were they Greek? or did those
beautiful woven fabrics come from Persia or India?[166]

The first we know of Scandinavian wool for dress, is a fragment from a
Celtic barrow in Yorkshire--a woollen plaited shroud. This fabric was
an advance upon the original northern savage costume--a sheep-skin
fashioned and sewn with a fish-bone for a needle, sinews for thread,
and a thorn for a pin. But we must imagine that some use was made,
besides plaiting, of the spun wool, of which the early northern women
have left us evidence