Tag: Blue

NOW: Purple tongued sock 1936-1897

Since the purple fragment went over so well last week, I thought that I would share this purple Roman Era Egyptian sock as this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week. It was excavated from the Christian burial grounds of Oxyrhynchus, present-day al-Bahnasa, by the Egypt Exploration Fund in the 1896-71 excavation season.

Accession number 1936-1897. The purple sock from Oxyrhynchus. Left side, showing the increases along the multi-toe. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Non-commercial online use, up to 768 pixels, and for up to 5 years

Object: Purple tongued sock

Description: A piece dyed2 purple (red and blue) split-toed sock for the left foot with a tongue and lacing loops closure, currently sewn through the tongue, and knit/purl ribbed patterning on the upper ankle cuff. Measurements on the online catalog record, length approximately 21.5cm, width approximately 8.4cm, and height approximately 10cm,3 reflect a sock that would fit a US Children’s size 3, Women’s 4.5.

Dated to: 50 AD – 220 AD4

Find location: The Christian burial grounds of Late Roman Era Oxyrhynchus.5 The present-day city of al-Bahnasa in Egypt.

Material: S2Z plied wool.6 Originally a light natural color, the sock was piece dyed red and blue, resulting in a purple sock.

Stitch(es) used: S-crossed Cross-knit Looping variant of nalbinding.7 Gauge is reported as 9 stitches per inch by 12 rows per inch8 or 3-4 stitches by 5 rows to the centimeter.9

Inventory number:  ACCESSION NUMBER 1936-1897

Current location: V&A Museum

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128867/textile-fragment-unknown/

Some sources in which more information can be found:

Burnham, Dorothy K. “Coptic Knitting: An Ancient Technique” in Textile History, Vol. 3 December 1972. edited by K. G. Ponting and Dr S. D. Chapman. The Pasold Research Fund LTD, England, 1972; pgs. 116-124. No ISBN/ISSN provided. DOI: 10.1179/004049672793692237

De Moor, Antoine, Cäcilia Fluck, M. Van Strydonck, and M. Boudin. “Radiocarbon dating of Late Roman woolen socks from Egypt,” In Textiles, tools and techniques of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries. Proceedings of the 8th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley,’ Antwerp, 4-6 October 2013, ed. Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid, p. 131-136. Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2015. ISBN 9789401432405.

Kendrick, A. F. Catalogue of Textiles From Burying-Grounds in Egypt: Vol. II. Period of Transition and of Christian Emblems. Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Textiles. London: Publ. under the Authority of His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1921. No ISBN.

Köstner, Barbara. “Roman and Late Roman nalbinding socks from Egypt: Bringing ‘Egyptian fashion’ to the North” in Excavating, analysing, reconstructing: Textiles of the first millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries. Proceedings of the 9th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley’, Antwerp, 27-29 November 2015. ed. by Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid. Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2017. ISBN 9789401443999.

Photographs:

There are a few additional photos in the museum’s online catalog entry.

Accession number 1936-1897. The purple sock from Oxyrhynchus. Right side. This gives a clearer view of the lacing loops. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Non-commercial online use, up to 768 pixels, and for up to 5 years

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  1. Kendrick, Catalogue of Textiles From Burying-Grounds in Egypt: Vol. II. Period of Transition and of Christian Emblems. 1921. pg. 88. ↩︎
  2. The sock appears to have been dyed after it was created instead of dying the wool and then nalbinding the sock. The interior of the yarn is still a light natural color and the red and blue appear to be on the surface only. ↩︎
  3. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128867/textile-fragment-unknown/Accessed 14 May 2024. ↩︎
  4. De Moor, et. al.”Radiocarbon dating of Late Roman woolen socks from Egypt,” 2013 and https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128867/textile-fragment-unknown/ Accessed 14 May 2024. ↩︎
  5. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128867/textile-fragment-unknown/ Accessed 14 May 2024. ↩︎
  6. Spin and Ply determined by personal examination on 15 October 2019. Material https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128867/textile-fragment-unknown/ Accessed 14 May 2024. ↩︎
  7. Stitch determined by personal examination on 15 October 2019. ↩︎
  8. Gauge https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128867/textile-fragment-unknown/ Accessed 14 May 2024. ↩︎
  9. Köstner, “Roman and Late Roman nalbinding socks from Egypt: Bringing ‘Egyptian fashion’ to the North” 2015. Pg. 190. ↩︎