Clothing

Among the many textiles are 145 loincloths, 12 tunics, 28 gloves, about 24 shawls, 15 sashes, 25 head coverings and 4 socks, which had separate places for the big toe so that they could be worn with the 100 sandals, some worked in gold. There are also one golden and one beaded apron, real leopard skins and even one faux leopard skin woven of linen with appliqued spots. The tomb also contained a belt and tail of gold and lapis lazuli and sleeves with winglike flaps that Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood thinks were worn to imitate the wings of gods and goddesses. The catalogue is to be published next year. 

Though encouraged by the state of preservation of most of the clothes, she is also distressed by their worsening condition. Some had decayed considerably by the time Mr. Carter discovered them. The weight of the gold and beads on the clothing had torn some apart; other textiles were probably damaged by the messy repacking done by the ancient necropolis guards after the tomb was twice penetrated by robbers shortly after Tutankhamen's death. Primarily because of a lack of money and other priorities at the Cairo Museum, the textiles have not yet been properly conserved.

"I'm scared that if nothing happens soon they'll be gone in 15 years," said Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood, who is trying to raise money for a textile conservation laboratory at the museum.

Her main concern is to get the textiles into climate-controlled storage. Restoration is not possible because the fabrics are too delicate; moreover such restoration is now considered too aggressive. But, using ancient methods, expert weavers at the Hand-Weaving School in Boras, Sweden, are planning to make exact reproductions of about 20 garments, including some with gold. Since the originals can never be transported for display, Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood expects the reproductions to form part of an exhibit of the king's clothes planned for the year 2000.

But the first reproductions were made by Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood and her students, who found that only by trying the garments on and wearing them about could they understand how the Egyptians wore them. Mr. Carter had described one particular tubular garment with odd flaps as a hat, but Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood could not make it stay on her head. She eventually discovered that it fit onto her upper arm like a sleeve. Worn like that, the flaps looked like wings. Now she believes that Tutankhamen wore the sleeves to imitate certain winged Egyptian gods.

Egyptian clothing had no hooks; tucking, wrapping and tying were the sole means of keeping the clothes on the body.

"People were constantly adjusting their clothing," said Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood. "You learn to take small steps and walk in a more fluid manner."

In addition to providing insight into ancient Egyptian weaving technology and sartorial customs, the cataloguing work is illuminating aspects of this prosperous period of Egyptian history, like social and international relations.

From her study of the originals in Cairo, Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood determined that the general structure of clothes was identical for royalty and commoners. The most basic item of clothing at the time was the loincloth, a long piece of linen shaped like an isosceles triangle with strings coming off the long ends that was worn by both men and women. Mr. Carter found many of Tutankhamen's loincloths wrapped in bunches of a dozen. The garment was tied around the hips with the material hanging down the back. That was then pulled through the legs and tucked over the string from the outside in.

Tutankhamen's loincloths, which probably served much like modern underwear, had the same structure as those of his subjects, but the quality of the material and the tailoring differed greatly. The linen in the loincloth of an ordinary Egyptian had 37 to 50 

threads per inch, while the linen in Tutankhamen's loincloths had 200 threads per inch. The linen was hand-woven from threads of just three or four filaments of flax, a weave so fine it feels like silk, Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood said.

Whether the pharaoh had in fact worn the clothes entombed with him during his brief life was another question Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood had when she began the research. Analyzing the loincloths with a hand lens, she noticed stresses in the weave that indicated the garments had indeed been worn. Dr. W. D. Cooke, a textile technologist at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in England who was one of the project's many collaborators, examined a piece of one tunic with a scanning electron microscope and found frayed, fibrous threads. He concluded that the tunic had either been washed about 40 times in water or been washed less frequently in natron, a solution of sodium carbonate that whitens as it cleans. Unlike the clothing of the people, the king's clothes are not full of mends. Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood has found only one tear, in a section of a sash that would have been subject to pulling.

Over the loincloths Egyptians wore tunics, simply shaped garments made by folding a length of cloth in half, sewing up the sides, leaving room for armholes and cutting an opening at the seam for the head. In Tutankhamen's day, men wore either short ones that reached just below the buttocks or long ones that fell below the knee, while women wore only the longer ones.

Among the 12 tunics found in the tomb are two decorated with blue faience beads and gold disks and two with stripes.

"Some of the garments are just so heavy with beadwork and gold, I can't see the lad wearing them every day," Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood said. "Some are only decorated on the front so he could sit."

One particularly beautiful tunic, which has hung on display in the Cairo Museum for decades and was mistaken for a rug, was woven using a tapestry technique, in which threads of certain colors are added at just the point where they are desired for the design. To some early observers the design appeared to be printed or painted on because the weave, about 225 threads to the inch, is so fine. Dr. Vogelsang-Eastwood believes that weaving the tunic, whose chest section is decorated with a cartouche containing the name Tutankhamen as well as a line of previously unrecognized inscriptions, would have taken several months.