One of the most enduring cultural myths about assiut cloth is that it originated in ancient Egypt. What is assiut?  It’s single-stitch embroidery technique that uses factory-made cotton tulle and plate metal. Assiut cloth developed during the industrial revolution. The earliest examples dating to the third quarter of the 19th century.

However, the link with ancient Egypt dates back to the moment when assiut made the leap from cultural handicraft to tourist art.  Early dealers of assiut used the myth of “antiquity”  to sell the shawls to the throngs of European and North American tourists visiting Egypt. Shawl sellers, standing on the banks of the Nile would weave together stories about their shawl motifs.

Modern Assiut motif from the book The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut. Photo by Alisha Westerfeld.

Travelers could pick out identifiable motifs which would support this mythic link between the modern 19th-century craft and the arts of the ancients. To emphasize the connection, assiut shawls made for tourists included motifs inspired by objects and art found in the tombs of the pharaohs.

Photo: National Harness Review, January 1914, Page 32.

Comb Spotting

One of the most identifiable and popular motifs pulled from ancient art is the comb. Even today, modern assiut embroidery artists are still using the ancient Egyptian comb shape.  The classic New Kingdom era double-sided combs are now located in museums around the world including this example on the righ

This beautiful comb was excavated from the Memphis region of Saqqara. It dates to the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom, c. 1550-1295 BCE. The simple geometry of the comb shape with it’s solid embellished center and double rows of teeth make it easy to identify when it appears in assiut cloth.  During the 1920’s, at the height of the Egyptomania craze, the flood of tourists preferred assiut shawls with easily identifiable pharaonic motifs.

New Kingdom Comb at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. View Source

Laylat Al-Hinna Celebration

Combs that appear in assiut shawls reference the shape and style of Ancient Egypt.  But though the shape is ancient, that is not the way an Egyptian of the day would “read” the motif. In both Islamic and Coptic traditions, the combs are symbolic of wedding traditions. Comb motifs represent the pre-wedding preparation of the bride at the traditional henna night party.  This traditional celebration, laylat al-hinna, (ليلة الحنا) or Henna Party.

The comb becomes a symbol of the henna party festivities. The motif integrated into the narrative structure of a figurative assiut shawl. Other motifs represent different parts of the wedding celebration.  Brides or dancing girls represent both the bride herself, but also the zeffa, or ceremonial wedding procession.  The camel represents the groom and early assiut shawls depict a man astride a camel.  Through the passage of time and stylistic evolutions, the groom motif has become more stylized.  Sometimes the groom is completed removed from the camel.  In other variations on the groom motif, he’s transformed into a floral or geometric form sitting on the camel’s back. 

Right: Vintage Assiut Shawl c. 1910’s.  Photo by Alisha Westerfeld

The Language of Wedding Shawls

Often the embroideress eliminates the groom motif completely. As a right of passage, the groom is less important than the celebration of the bride in her transition from girlhood to wife. In this shawl, a stylized bed motif represents the “state of marriage.”  This bed motif appears in a row directly beneath a field of stars. Stars are iconic of both beauty and eternity. When paired with the bed motif, they hint of the union of the man and woman and all of those unspoken of things that happen in the night.

Left: Rows of combs on a vintage assiut shawl from of book The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut. Photo by Alisha Westerfeld

Every vintage wedding shawl is slightly different, and each one tells it’s own story.  100 years ago, at the height of assiut production, a young girl would craft a shawl for herself that expressed her own desires.  In addition, assiut shawl offers a display her taste in design and talent for needlework.  Once a young girl’s wedding celebrations were over, she would save her wedding shawl to pull and wear to the weddings of her friends and families in her village.

If you would like to learn more about the iconography of the assiut shawl, there’s more information in my book, “The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut.”  It’s available on Amazon.com or you can pick up a signed copy from my Etsy store.

Now I’m off to make a tribal-style assiut bra!
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
March 21, 2018