Clothing in Antiquity

When we speak of antiquity, each of the peoples — the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Romans or the Chinese — had different customs for wearing underwear and for dressing. From the frescoes we have, we see that Roman women, unlike those of other civilizations, used what was called a 'strophion', a band that covered the breasts and was tied at the back. Most other peoples wore what we today would call a kind of 'peştemal'.

Men's clothing was very rudimentary, like that of the mummy found in the Alps, between Austria and Italy, in a place called Ötztal at an altitude of 3,200 metres. For this reason the mummy was called 'Ötzi', and under the snow it stayed just as seen in the photo. The clothing was: leather, fibre, cloth uncut and unsewn, held together by some kind of brooch, and a cap.

For thousands of years the clothing of the Egyptians was of linen (keten). As the climate of that country is always hot, light, cool linen was very suitable. In Greece they used the 'chiton', a tunic formed by two rectangles of cloth joined at the shoulders. In the Roman Empire they wore the 'toga', a tunic, and put on 'sandals' as footwear. Clothing was of linen and, according to rank, of silk.

One can say that clothing is more than 150,000 years old. Apart from cold or heat, man dressed also to announce his social rank.

Coming to what we wear under our clothes, it is hard to know since when we have used it, because it surely began with the need for protection and health. Later the restrictions of the religions were added. One of the reasons for having underwear was also the conditions of changing climate. Even today we can see tribes who live completely naked.

Today clothing depends on fashion, especially for women, who wear skirts now long, now short. At the beginning of the 20th century a woman went into the sea fully dressed. Today it is a shame if she doesn't have a bikini or a light swimsuit.

Clothing is as we read in Kohelet: 'Nothing new under the sun.'