How old is both linen and herringbone weaving?
Pieces of herringbone cloth has
been found in the ancient Hallstatt salt mines near present-day Vienna
among the mummified remains of a Celtic people dating back about four
centuries before Christ. Other herringbone cloth, made from horsehair,
has been found in Ireland dating from possibly as early as the arrival
of Celtic people on the island around 600 B.C. Besides, herringbone,
other complicated twill patterns going back to at least 200 B.C. and
probably earlier have been found with mummies discovered in the Tarim
Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China.
The oldest known examples are from Northern Italy where a six foot long
piece of linen cloth was found with twilling and lozenge patterning that
almost certainly dates to the third millennium B.C. Linen, itself, has
been around for a very long time.
Bits of Egyptian linen at the British Museum in London and the Bolton
Museum in Lancashire are over 6,000 years old. The wrappings from the
mummy of Rameses II, the pharaoh of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, are
linen, and are still very well preserved. From the Old Testament, we
learn that curtains of the Tabernacle were of fine linen. Aaron, the
high priest, the scriptures tell us, wore a linen coat and linen miter.
In other words, linen and twill cloth, even herringbone twill, has been
around for a long time. We might reasonably suppose that herringbone
twill linen was produced in the weaving centers of Alexandria, Antioch,
Damascus and in other cities in Hellenistic and Roman antiquity.
Claims from some skeptics that a three-over-one
herringbone is too elaborate for Roman Palestine, or that a piece of
linen could have lasted 2000 years is historically unsustainable.
See: Why is the herringbone weave pattern of the cloth historically important?