[472] This circumstance is adapted to illustrate the mention of “transparent garments” in Isaiah iii. 23. Lowth’s Translation.
Evidence equally decisive is presented in the innumerable mummies, the fabrication of successive ages through a period of more than two thousand years, which are found in the catacombs of Egypt. It is indeed disputed, whether the cloth in which they are enveloped is linen or cotton.
It was believed to be linen by all writers previous to Rouelle. More especially, this opinion was advanced by the learned traveller and antiquary, Professor John Greaves, in his Pyramidographia, published A. D. 1646. He speaks of the “linen shroud” of a mummy, which he opened, and he says, “The ribbands” (or fillets) “by what I observed, were of linen, which was the habit also of the Egyptian priests.” He adds, “of these ribbands I have seen some so strong and perfect as if they had been made but yesterday.”
Rouelle’s dissertation on Mummies is published in the Mémoires de l’Académie R. des Sciences for the year 1750. He there asserts (p. 150), that the cloth of every mummy which he had an opportunity of examining, even that of embalmed birds, was cotton.
Dr. Hadley, however, who wrote a few years after Rouelle (Phil. Transactions for 1764, vol. 54.), seems to adhere to the old opinion. He calls the cloth of the mummy, which he examined, “linen.” He says, it was in fillets of different breadths, but the greater part 1½ inches broad. “They were torn longitudinally; those few that had a selvage, having it on one side only.”
But the opinion of Rouelle received a strong support from Dr. John Reinhold Forster, to whom it appeared at first almost incredible, although he afterwards supported it in the most decided manner. He determined to take the first opportunity of settling the question by the inspection of mummies, and examined those in the British Museum, accompanied by Dr. Solander. Both of these learned and acute inquirers were convinced, that the cloth was cotton, deriving this opinion from the inspection of all those specimens, which were sufficiently free from gum, paint, and resins, to enable them to judge[473]. Larcher informs us, that he remarked the same thing in these mummies in 1752, when he was accompanied by Dr. Maty[474]. It is to be observed, however, that neither Larcher, Rouelle, nor Forster mentions the criterion which he employed to distinguish linen from cotton. They probably formed their opinion only from its apparent softness, its want of lustre, or some other quality, which might belong to linen no less than to cotton, and which therefore could be no certain mark of distinction.
[473] Forster, De Bysso Antiquorum, London 1776, p. 70, 71.
[474] Herodote, par Larcher. Ed. 2nde, Par. 1802, livre ii. p. 357.
The opinion of Larcher, Rouelle, and Forster appears to have been generally adopted. In particular we find it embraced by Blumenbach, who in the Philosophical Transactions for 1794 speaks of the “cotton bandages” of two of the small mummies, which he opened in London[475]. In his Beiträge (i. e. Contributions to Natural History, 2nd part, p. 73, Göttingen, 1811) he says, he is more firmly convinced than ever, that the cloth is universally cotton. He assigns also his reasons in the following terms. “I ground this my conviction far less on my own views than on the assurance of such persons as I have questioned on the subject, and whose judgment in this matter I deem incomparably superior to my own or to that of any other scholar, namely, of ladies, dealers in cotton and linen cloth, weavers and the like.” He also refers to the cultivation of cotton in Egypt, which he assumes probably on the authority of Forster; and to the fable of Isis enveloping in “cotton” cloth the collected limbs of her husband Osiris, who had been torn in pieces by Typhon. The latter arguments are founded on the supposition, that the ancient term Byssus meant cotton, and not linen. But the question as to its meaning must in part be decided, as we shall see hereafter, by previously settling the present question as to the materials of the mummy cloth. The opinion of ladies, tradesmen, and manufacturers, though it may be better than that of the most learned man, if derived from mere touch and inspection, is quite insufficient to decide the question. If those whom Blumenbach consulted thought that the cloth was always cotton, many others of equal experience and discernment have given an opposite judgment; and the fact is, that linen cloth, which has been long worn and often washed, as is the case with a great proportion of the mummy cloth, and which is either ragged or loose in its texture, cannot be distinguished from cotton by the unassisted use of the external senses.
[475] On the authority of this paper the mummy-cloth is supposed to be cotton by Heeren, Ideen, i. 1. p. 128.