The Tarkhan Dress Confirmed to Be the World’s Oldest Dress

The Tarkhan Dress Confirmed to Be the World’s Oldest Dress

This tattered V-neck linen shirt, currently on display in the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, is the world’s oldest woven garment.

The Tarkhan Dress likely was worn by a young or slim female member of the royal court, and then placed in the tomb as a funerary object. Although the bottom does not survive, it may once have been full-length.

A recent radiocarbon testing conducted by the University of Oxford has established with 95% accuracy that the dress was made between 3482-3102 BC.

While garments of similar age have survived to the present day, but those were simply wrapped or draped around the body.

The Tarkhan dress, on the other hand, is a tailored piece with long sleeves, V-neck and narrow pleats, that looks surprisingly modern.

The Tarkhan dress was excavated by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1913 from a First Dynasty tomb at Tarkhan, an Egyptian cemetery located 50 km south of Cairo.

Petrie had found a quanтιтy of linen cloth under the sand alongside other artifacts. Instead of discarding away the linen as worthless, as most archaeologists at that time did, Petrie decided to preserve everything he found as evidence that would someday help throw light on the daily life of the ancient Egyptians.

The bundle of filthy rags Petrie recovered was stored away and forgotten for sixty-five years. It was not until 1977 when conservation experts at the Petrie Museum were sorting through the bundle did they stumble across the garment.

As textile conservator Sheila Landi carefully removed the caked mud from the dress, she was excited to see creases in the sleeves at the elbow and under the arms indicating that the dress had been worn in life.

The garment was also found inside-out, as it would be if one were to pull it out over the head.

The Tarkhan dress is made from three pieces of sturdy hand-woven linen with a natural pale grey stripe, which complements the neatly knife-pleated sleeves and bodice.

The lower part of the dress is missing so it’s difficult to say how the long the dress originally was or whether it was for a man or a woman, but its dimensions indicates that it fitted a young teenager or a slim woman.

At the time of its rediscovery in the late seventies, radiocarbon dating was not carried out as it would have required the destruction of a large piece of the dress fabric.

Instead of dating the fabric itself, the ᴀssociated artifacts from the Tarkhan site was dated. Results indicated that the dress belonged to the First Dynasty which began in 3100 BC, making it the world’s earliest example of a woven garment.

Advancement in radiocarbon dating has now allowed researchers to date the textile directly by taking a tiny 2.24mg sample of the dress.

The new results not only confirm the dress’s antiquity but also suggest that it may be older than previously thought, pre-dating the First Dynasty.

Related Posts

Roman Bath and Magnificent Mosaics Used as Stables by the Villagers For Many Years

Roman Bath and Magnificent Mosaics Used as Stables by the Villagers For Many Years Archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Herakleia in Muğla’s Milas district in western Türkiye unearthed a striking discovery from the Roman period. Mosaics with detailed depictions of animals such as crocodiles, dolphins, flamingos, and eels were found on the floor of the …

Scientists identified a unique engraving that could be the oldest three-dimensional (3D) map in the world

Scientists identified a unique engraving that could be the oldest three-dimensional (3D) map in the world Scientists working in the Ségognole 3 cave, located in the famous sandstone mᴀssif south of Paris have identified a unique engraving that could be the oldest three-dimensional (3D) map in the world. A recent study published in the Oxford …

Golden Tongues and Nails discovered on mummies from the Ptolemaic Period in Egypt

Golden Tongues and Nails discovered on mummies from the Ptolemaic Period in Egypt Archaeologists have uncovered tombs decorated with colorful inscriptions and ritual scenes, as well as unusual mummies and unique funerary objects, including 13 striking golden tongues and nails, at the Al-Bahnasa archaeological site in Egypt’s Minya governorate. The Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, led by …

Sixth-Century Sword Unearthed in Anglo-Saxon Cemetery near Canterbury, England

Sixth-Century Sword Unearthed in Anglo-Saxon Cemetery near Canterbury, England A spectacular sixth-century sword has been unearthed in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in southeast England, and archaeologists say it is in an exceptional state of preservation and is similar to the sword found at Sutton Hoo, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Suffolk. The find was made in a …

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb Chinese researchers have recently found fish-scaled armor in the tomb of Liu He, Marquis of Haihun from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), in Nanchang, the capital of eastern China’s Jiangxi province. According to the Provincial Insтιтute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, this is …

Discovery Shedding Light on Ancient Maritime Trade: 1,500-Year-Old Trade Shipwreck Found off Türkiye’s Ayvalık

Discovery Shedding Light on Ancient Maritime Trade: 1,500-Year-Old Trade Shipwreck Found off Türkiye’s Ayvalık ‘Turkish Sunken-Ships Project: Blue Heritage’, a 1500-year-old trade shipwreck was found off the coast of  Ayvalık district of Balıkesir. Under the direction of ᴀssociate professor Harun Özdaş, director of the Underwater Research Center (SUDEMER) at Dokuz Eylül University, the mapping of the underwater cultural …