A 5,000-year-old garment
The Tarkhan Dress is the oldest known woven garment in the world. Made of linen, a textile derived from flax fibers, its creation predates the construction of the Great Pyramid by centuries. The garment features a V-neck, fitted sleeves, and a bodice detailed with fine knife-pleats, showing an understanding of tailoring. Its dimensions suggest it was made for a slim young woman or teenager.
The dress is constructed from three pieces of hand-woven linen. The fabric has a natural pale grey stripe and a thread count of approximately 22-23 warps per centimeter and 13-14 wefts per centimeter. Unlike other ancient textiles that were simply draped or wrapped, this piece was cut and sewn to fit the body. Creases found at the elbows and armpits indicate that the dress was worn during life and was not a ceremonial burial item.
The definitive age of the dress was a long-standing question. In 2015, a tiny 2.24mg sample was sent to the University of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit for analysis. The results established with 95% accuracy that the flax was grown and woven between 3482 and 3102 BCE. This places the garment's origin at the cusp of Egypt's First Dynasty, or even within the late Predynastic period.
A rediscovery in London
The dress was originally found by the famous Egyptologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie during his 1912-1913 excavations at the Tarkhan necropolis, an ancient cemetery 50 km south of Cairo. It was discovered in a large, mud-brick First Dynasty tomb known as Mastaba 2050. Petrie unearthed a large pile of linen textiles, which he carefully preserved along with other artifacts.
The bundle of linen was shipped to University College London and stored. For 64 years, its contents remained unexamined. In 1977, conservators at the Victoria and Albert Museum were sorting through what they thought were "funerary rags" when they came across the garment. They realized it was not a rag but a tailored tunic, found inside-out as if it had been hastily pulled over someone's head.
Following its rediscovery, the dress was carefully conserved. It was stitched onto a fine silk material called Crepeline to stabilize the ancient linen, allowing it to be mounted for display. Today, the Tarkhan Dress is cataloged as UC28614B and is housed at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London.