- Textile fragment
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Textile fragment
- Place of origin:
Egypt (made)
- Date:
200-499 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown
- Materials and Techniques:
Wool, single-needle knitting
- Credit Line:
Given by the Egypt Exploration Fund
- Museum number:
1939A-1897
- Gallery location:
In Storage
Before the technique of knitting with two needles evolved, textiles with a very similar structure and texture were created by a technique known as ‘single-needle knitting’. Socks in this technique from the late Roman period were usually worked with the big toe separate, so that they could be worn with sandals. This piece was intended to cover the remaining four toes and was possibly worked to mend a worn sock. It was excavated from Christian burial grounds of the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, found in the present-day city of al-Bahnasa in Egypt.
Single-needle knitting used yarn threaded through the eye of a sewing needle worked in the round through a series of loops. It was much more laborious and slower than knitting with two needles, as the yarn could only be worked in short lengths. Extra pieces of yarn had to be spliced on as the ‘knitting’ progressed.
