Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/414

 Ptolemy Epiphanes remitted two parts of the fine linen cloths, which were manufactured in the temples for the king's palace; and (l. 29.) that he also remitted a tax on those, which were not made for the king's palace. Thus in an original and contemporary monument we read, that [Greek: Othonia byssina] were at a particular time manufactured in Egypt. But we have no reason to believe, that cotton was then manufactured in Egypt at all, whereas linen cloth was made in immense quantities.

VIII. Philo, who lived at Alexandria, and could not be ignorant upon the subject, plainly uses [Greek: Byssos] to mean flax. He says, the Jewish High-Priest wore a linen garment, made of the purest Byssus, which was a symbol of firmness, incorruption, and of the clearest splendor, since fine linen is most difficult to tear, is made of nothing mortal, and becomes brighter and more resembling light, the more it is cleansed by washing.

Here we may notice the tenacity of the cloth found in Egyptian mummies. A great part of it is quite rotten; and its tender and fragile state is to be accounted for, not only from its great antiquity and exposure to moisture, but from the circumstance, that much of it was old and worn, when first applied to the purpose of swathing dead bodies. Nevertheless pieces are found of great strength and durability.

Hans Jac. Amman, who visited the catacombs of Sakara in 1613, found the bandages so strong, that he was obliged to cut them with scissors. Professor Greaves and Lord Sandwich found them as firm as if they were just taken from the loom. Abdollatiph, who visited Egypt A. D. 1200, mentions that the Arabs employed the mummy cloth to make garments. Much more recently the same practice has been attested as coming under his observation by Seetzen. Caillaud discovered in the mummy, which he opened, several napkins in such a state of preservation, that he took a fancy to use one. He had it washed eight times without any perceptible injury. "With a sort