Dear colleagues
May I ask your help in the following question which reached me from the
Museum der Kulturen in Basel?
Thank you for any suggestion. Best wishes, Andreas Kaplony
Having two rare objects from an early islamic burial in Egypt, i.e. a
dress and two plaits of hair of a woman, we seek information from literary
sources on the life of women, particularely pertaining to hairstyle
(plaits or tresses, curls) and clothing, ca. 7th - 13th centuries.
The Museum der Kulturen (Museum of Cultures) Basel containes, in its
Egyptian collection, a linen dress with a (much damaged) embroidered
arabic inscription, and two long plaits of hair of a woman, found in a
womanÕs burial in the byzantino-islamic cemetery of Drunka, near Assiut,
in 1898/99. We cannot date it closer than 8th - 12th century. There is no
documentation of the excavation, except a short description by the
excavator, Gayet:
Albert Gayet, Le costume en Egypte du IIIe au XIIIe siecle dÕapres les
fouilles de M. A. Gayet, exposition universelle de 1900, palais du
costume, Paris 1900, no. 467.
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PD Dr. Andreas Kaplony. Orientalisches Seminar, Universitaet Zuerich,
Wiesenstrasse 9, CH-8008 Zuerich. 0(041)1 634 07 36, 0(041)1 634 36 92
(Fax). [log in to unmask]
Projekt "Handel in Zentralasien": www.ori.unizh.ch/kaplony/zentralasien
Konferenz: "Maps and Images: How They Have Transmitted Visual Knowledge
Along the Silk Road": www.ori.unizh.ch/maps
Projekt "Arabic Papyrology School": www.ori.unizh.ch/aps
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