Again, in the song of Deborah, the mother of Sisera says, "Have they not divided the prey?... to Sisera a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides."—Judges v. 30.
Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace-making. A. S. Cole (London, 1881).
At Athens the maidens who took part in the procession of the Panathenaea embroidered the veil or peplos upon which the deeds of the goddess were embroidered. The sacred peplos borne on the mast of a ship rolled on wheels in the Panathenaic festival "was destined for the sacred wooden idol, Athene Polias, which stood on the Erechtheus. This peplos was a woven mantle renewed every five years. On the ground, which is described as dark violet, and also as saffron-coloured, was inwoven the battle of the gods and the giants." (See page 47, British Museum Catalogue to the Sculptures of the Parthenon.)
Pliny, Hist. Nat., viii. 74. "Colores diversos picturae intexere Babylon maxime celebravit et nomen imposuit."
Maspero, The Dawn of Civilisation in Egypt and Chaldaea (ed. Prof. Sayce).