History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun.

  • Baines, Edward, Sir, 1800-1890.
Date:
[1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    587/606 (page 533)
    APPENDIX. A. Byssus—Egyptian Manufactures. Page 16. There is a passage in Herodotus which has been understood as shewing that the Egyptians manufactured cotton, and used cotton cloth as wrappings for their mummies. In his description of the mode of embalming (book ii. c. 86.), that author says, the body was closely wrapped in bandages of cloth, the quality of which he indi- cates by the words <nvSovog fivarrivijg. These words are rendered by the translators (Larcher and Beloe) “cotton:” several other writers have given the same meaning to fivcrcrog, or byssus ; yet the meaning of this word is, at best, very doubtful. Isidore (Orig. 1. xix. c. 27.) says distinctly that it was an exceedingly white and soft kind of fax. Julius Pollux (lib. vii. 12.) says that it denotes the finest fax, cotton, and the silky beard of the pinna marina. Pausanias states (In Eliacis 1. 1.) that byssus grew in Egypt, Judea, India, and Elis; which is true of flax, but cotton certainly did not at that time grow in any part of Greece. There has been much controversy on this word, and it has even been doubted whether byssus belonged to the vegetable, animal, or mineral kingdom. In all probability Herodotus, by aivdovog fivaatvrig, meant linen made of a fine and peculiar kind of flax, or a cloth of delicate texture, without reference to the material of which it was made. That fivcrcrog meant cotton is rendered highly improbable by the fact, that no mummy-coverings have yet been found which are made of this material, but all of linen. I had intended to discuss this question more at length, but am spared that labour by the successful investigations of Mr. Thomson, of Clitheroe, who has lately set at rest this vexata questio, by a disco- very which reduces a great deal of the learning that has been expended upon it to the character of old lumber. The difficulty of ascertaining whether the mummy-cloths (of which the specimens are exceedingly numerous) were made of linen or cotton, has at length been overcome j and though no chemical test could be found out to settle