6. Tarkhan dress
Where to see it: Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
The Tarkhan dress was found in 1913 at the Tarkhan necropolis, a massive ancient cemetery located 40 miles south of Cairo on the banks of the Nile. Initially considered a rag, the dress spent 60 years in an untouched box at University College London. When finally carbon-dated in 2015, the “rag” was revealed to be more than 5,000 years old—making it the oldest woven garment on the planet.
Despite its age, the well-constructed garment is in surprisingly good condition, notes Yale University Egyptologist and vintage fashionista Colleen Darnell: “The dress is made from three pieces of fabric with preserved delicate pleats of linen,” she says . Though its likely-floor-length bottom half has been lost, the dress’ top has a familiar V-neck and empire waist cut you could find at any modern-day H&M.
Compared to other remaining garments, like intricate wedding dresses worn once by someone important enough to preserve their ensemble, the size-2-ish Tarkham dress is significant in its ordinariness to regular Egyptians. And just like your old clothes, it’s got this relatable charm: “Stains at the armpits suggest this was a garment that was worn in life,” says Darnell.
Stains and all, the Tarkhan dress hangs in London’s Petrie Museum, named for British archaeologist Flinders Petrie, who in 1883 devised the “partage” system: From the French word to share, partage was essentially a deal to split artifacts 50/50 between foreign excavators and the excavated. Egyptian legislation finally ended the partage system in 1983.
