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them and to stuffs used as floor and seat coverings. From a very early
period classical writers make mention of them. In ancient Egypt, for
instance, floor and seat coverings were used in temples for religious
ceremonies by the priests of Amen Ra; later on they were used to
garnish the palaces of the Pharaohs. If one may judge from rare remains
of decorative textiles, in the museum at Cairo especially, dating from
at least 1480 B.C., such Egyptian fabrics were of linen inwoven with
coloured wools in a tapestry-weaving manner, and were not tufted or
piled textures. Taken from the palace at Nineveh is a large marble slab
carved in low relief with a geometrical pattern surrounded by a border
of lotus flowers and buds, evidently a copy of an Assyrian floor cover
or rug about 705 B.C., such as was also woven probably in the
tapestry-weaving manner. On the other hand, its design equally well
suggests patchwork--a method of needlework in vogue with Egyptians, at
least 900 years B.C., for ornamental purposes, as indicated by the
elaborately patterned canopy which covered the bier of an Egyptian
queen--the mother-in-law of Shishak who took Jerusalem some three or
four years after the death of Solomon--and is preserved in the museum at
Cairo. In the _Odyssey, tapetia_ are frequently mentioned, but these
again, whether floor coverings or hangings, are more likely to have been
flat-textured and not piled fabrics. On the tomb of Cyrus was spread a
"covering of Babylonian tapestry, the carpets underneath of the finest
wrought purple" (Arrian vi. 29). Athenaeus (bk. v. ch. 27) gives from
Callixenus the Rhodian (c. 280 B.C.) an account of a banquet given by
Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria, and describes "the purple carpets of
finest wool, with the pattern on both sides," as well as "handsomely
embroidered rugs very beautifully elaborated with figures"; these again
were probably not piled fabrics but kindred to the hangings in the
palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus decorated with portraits, which were
likely to have been of tapestry-weaving, and would be nearly the same in
appearance on both sides of the fabric. Of corresponding tapestry woven
work are Egypto-Roman specimens dating from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.,
a considerable collection of which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum
at South Kensington. From about the same period date bits of hangings or
coverings woven in linen, over-wrought in a method of needlework with
ornament o