Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/403

 l'Egypte: Antiquités; Planches, tome i. pl. 68. ''and the Plates to Hamilton's Ægyptiaca'', xxiii.)

In Plate VI. is inserted so much of the painting as relates to our present subject. Five persons are employed in plucking up the flax by the roots, viz., four men and one woman. The woman wears a shift reaching to her ancles, but transparent. The four men wear shirts which reach to their knees, and are not transparent. Another man binds the flax into sheaves: a sixth carries it to a distance: and a seventh separates the seed from the stem by means of a four-toothed ripple. The back of the ripple rests on the ground; its teeth being raised to the proper elevation by a prop, as shown in the drawing. The man sets his foot upon the back to keep the instrument firm, and, taking hold of a bunch of flax near the root, draws it through the comb. This method is now employed in Europe. At the left-hand corner of the Plate lies a bundle of flax stript of its capsules, and underneath the ripple is the heap of seed which has been separated from the stem.

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