Tarkhan Dress: world’s oldest woven garment

The Tarkhan dress discovered by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1913, was found within the Tarkhan Necropolis (Mastaba 2050). Certified radiocarbon dating conducted by the University of Oxford, places the creation of this garment to Egypt’s 1st Dynasty, ca. 3482-3102 BC. Further testing by the British Museum certified its dating.

The Tarkhan Dress is one of multiple pieces of textile, linen and clothing found in the Tarkhan Necropolis, but it was in 1977, that the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Conservation Workshop working to clean these items of linen, discovered that this piece was a purposely designed item of clothing, with clear signs of pleated fabric that are still visible today.

As of 2025, The Tarkhan Dress remains the oldest purposely designed and woven garment in the world.

“The garment had clearly been worn in life, because it was found inside-out, as it very well might have been after having been pulled over the head with distinct signs of creasing at the elbows and under the armpits.” – Rosalind Hall (Lecturer in Egyptology at the Institute of Archaeology)

The “dress” is similar or some may even say identical to the Egyptian Galabyia جلابية still worn in Egypt today. In a piece written for the University College London, Janet Johnstone suggests that according to the sizing and missing hem, it is possible that the item could have been made for a female.

Originally excavated by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1913 from a 1st Dynasty tomb at Tarkhan, an Egyptian cemetery located 50km south of Cairo, the dress lay undiscovered with various other textiles until 1977 when the bundle was sent to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for conservation work.

The dress itself is made from three pieces of sturdy hand-woven linen with a natural pale grey stripe with knife-pleated sleeves and bodice. The hem is missing so it’s not possible to know the precise length of the dress, but the dimensions indicate that it fitted a young teenager or a slim woman. Although the exact context of its use remain unclear, there are visible signs of wear indicating that it was worn in life.

Predyanstic Period, 1st Dynasty, ca. 3482-3102 BC. Now in the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. UC 28614B