Super easy facings for tunics

Super easy facings for tunics
March 10, 2019

Start with a grid-marked quilting template, 12 inches by 18 inches.

Find your favorite neck-hole; if you've been making garb for a while, you might have one of these in your sewing kit. If you don't you can just copy mine based on the measurements. This is a good size for my partner with an 18 1/2 inch collar size; and for me wearing a women's size 22 plus.

The hole is your STITCHING LINE, not your cutting line. If you have a favorite neck hole, trace it and add seam allowance. Note that the hole is located 4.5 inches down from the top edge, and the shoulder line is offset by about an inch front-to-back.

NOTE: If you're confused about why the neck isn't centered, lay out a t-shirt. You'll see more of the hole is in front of the shoulder seam, instead of being equal front-to-back.

I've cut narrow slits in my template where I mark out shoulder seams, plus center front and center back. You can spot the slit right below the label "shoulder line". Trace the marks with chalk or slivers of soap (I like soap because it washes out, but doesn't brush off as fast during sewing).

I cut my facings at 12" x 18".  If you want a keyhole facing instead, you can add 2.5 inches from the edge of the circle and down the slit.


On the garment, sew your shoulder seam together, but don't sew the rest of the body together yet. It's much easier to do this when it's flat. Iron and finish your shoulder seam. (Practice making these facings with a few scrap pieces of fabric first. Sew two pieces together to make an imaginary shoulder seam, and then sew a practice facing to it.)

Carefully line up the shoulder seams to your chalk marks, and make sure to center the facing left to right. If you put it on the right side of your fabric, it will not be seen when you're finished.

Pay extra attention that the center slit is straight on the grain of the body-side of the garment. Sometimes I pin right down the line to see if it looks straight when I flip it over, then go back and pin across.

USE YOUR PINS.

Stitch on the circle. At the center front slit, stitch an eighth of an inch away from the line. Turn and make two right angles at the bottom, not a V.

Does your circle look wonky?  Does your neck slit look straight on the other side of your sewing? You can fix it now, before you cut your fabric. That's what makes this super easy, because you're not sewing two curved and cut edges to each other. You're sewing two flat pieces of fabric together.

Cut the neck out, leaving a seam allowance. You can see that my edges along the rectangle are already turned on my facing. Sewing the facing and garment right-sides-together puts your facing on the inside of the garment (hidden).

Cut the center slit. In the corners at the bottom, cut into each corner, but don't cut through the thread.

Cut notches across the corners. Clip into the seam allowance around the circle, but don't cut the thread.

Start turning the facing towards the middle

Tuck all the parts through, turning out the corners carefully. In this example, the camel-colored wool is the right side of the fabric, and the facing won't be seen. If you want to know why the body panel is so narrow, check out my pattern for general 11th century tunics across Europe and the Middle East.
It's linked from the front page at idlelion.net.

Flipped through so the seams are all on the inside.

Ironed to within an inch of its life. I'm an advocate that pressing your seams while you sew is what makes your clothes looks neat and well-made. Turn off the steam while you're doing this. You can still blast the steam with the button when you want it, but you're less likely to burn your fingers doing the futsy stuff if your steam is off.

This facing will be stitched around the edges by hand so it's not visible when it's done. In this case I'm adding a linen facing to a wool tunic.

Painted tent flange in a Middle Eastern style: Material Culture 29: A&S50 Challenge

Painted tent flange in a Middle Eastern style: Material Culture 29: A&S50 Challenge
Julia May

Several years ago, my husband and I made a canvas tent for camping. This year I took the opportunity of some extra free time to paint the flange of it.

Photo by Cynthia Bergman

I was inspired by images of camp from the manuscripts of the Maqamat al-Hariri. This is a secular collection of tales about rouge as he move through life. Many of the manuscripts are heavily illuminated. Several come to us from the thirteenth century[1].

St Petersburg Inst of Oriental Manuscripts Ms C-23 fol.43b. An old man and a young man in front of the tents of the rich pilgrims, from 'The Maqamat'. Dated to c. 1200-1250.

Seeing the two tents which are white with blue adornment (our tent is made of white Sunforger canvas, which should generally be left white to maintain the great properties), I decided to paint a "negative" image of white lettering on a blue background like the tent on the left.

A Qur’anic verse carved using the Kufic script, from the Mosque of Sultan Hasan, Cairo, Egypt. From https://starsinsymmetry.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/history-the-kufic-script/

I am not a skilled calligrapher. My husband and I found a font that was similar to the Fatimid Kufic script on this Mamluk-era mosque. We scaled it to fill an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, and added a grid behind it at the height we needed for the height of the fabric. I used a plastic sheet made for quilting templates to create a frame for scaling the image. I then altered the font we found with elements I could discern from the hand used to decorate the mosque.

Instead of the traditional Fatimid prayer inscription, "Health, Blessings, and Prosperity", we used the prayer, "Health, Blessings, and Safe Weather." A friend provided the translation for me.

[1]Bolshakov, O.G. "The St. Petersburg Manuscript of the Maqamat by al-Hariri and its Place in the History of Arab Painting". Manuscript Orientalia: International Journal for Oriental Manuscript Research, Vol. 3 No. 4 (December 1997): 59-66

a Recreation of an Ayyubid Women's Face Veil Cairo: 1171-1250: Materal Culture 27: A&S50 Challenge

a Recreation of a possible Ayyubid Women's Face Veil Cairo:A Recreation: 1171-1250
Recreation by Julia May
Photos by Chris Schumann
Revised September 2018


The paper describes the possible recreation of Middle Eastern headgear from the Middle Ages which is suitable for a wealthy woman to wear while attending ceremony in an urban public venue.

Figure 1 Ms C 23, Maqāmāt al-Hariri, detail. St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies. Dated 1225-1235. Note: woman in buraq, upper left.

More than half of a Cairene Jewish woman’s trousseau consisted of head gear in the eleventh century [1]. The Scholar Yedida Stillman suggest that similar experiences has would be had by Islamic and Christian women of the same time period and location. [1.1]

Despite many extant images of women; and many extant written accounts of garments, researchers today cannot discuss with certainty the connection between the named garments and the depicted garments. Even pioneering work such as Stillman’s analysis of scores of trousseaux does not provide the details that a re-enactor looks for [2].  For the purposes of communication, I have used the speculative names for garments that other researchers have agreed upon.

The most prominent feature of this headgear set is a full face veil, likely in the style of the medieval burqa. Today’s garment bearing the same name is very different from its medieval counterparts. It does, however, serve the same purpose: concealing an adult woman’s face.

I chose to make several pieces for this face veil ensemble, include a kerchief and a head veil. The attempted recreations are matched intentionally, as headgear garments in trousseau lists are commonly listed as matched and coordinated. Overall, garment ensembles could consist of up to 15 matched pieces [3].


Full face veil— burqa, to conceal the face

Figure 2 Extant face veil, Eastwood.

My re-creation goal was concealing the identity of the model so she could attend a public ceremony (SCA court) but without heat-stroking during the summer. The probable-burqa style was chosen over other faceveils because its narrow shape permits breezes to get by.

Recreated burqa

   
During the Middle Ages, it is believed that the burqa was as wide as the face. [3.1] Based on extant finds and extant images, it is made in two pieces, upper and lower, connected in three places: at the bridge of the nose, and outside each of the eyes. Along the nose there is a ridge seam created to shape the garment to the face. In the two extant garments, the upper and lower pieces of fabric are touching each other; however, period images do not always portraying this same proximity [4].

The extant garments are unfinished, both in the same way as each other [5]. Despite this, I chose to finish the whole length of the veil and make it shorter for a few reasons. First, both of the veils were coarsely made overall; they may have belonged to poor women who did not have time or inclination to complete the garments.

Second, my garment will typically be worn so that the hem is visible, whereas the existing garments are believed to always be concealed beneath a large overwrap [6]. These two garments (the burqa and the overwrap) went hand-in-hand during the Middle Ages. In the modern context of the SCA, women generally do not wear the body-concealing overwraps while out-of-doors. Women in the SCA spend more time out-of-doors than wealthy women are described as having done in the Middle Ages.

Third, Vogelsang-Eastwood describes this garment as sometimes being decorated with beads, coins, chains, shells and so forth [7]. Having worn other face veils of my own construction, I believe that this sort of adornment would help to keep the veil under control while walking or standing in a breezy area, functioning like the weighted hems on draperies. I believe the added weight is an alternative to the additional length, which would provide the same function.

Kerchief—mandīl, foundation headwear


According to trousseaux records, most women had several head-kerchiefs, called manadīl (singular mandīl), in their head-gear collections [8]. It is described as one of the foundation garments available for head-gear, and often served as the foundation for men’s turbans as well. This kerchief type of mandīl protected the other head-gear from the oils of the hair and skin. Another option for a base-garment would be a skullcap. I selected the mandīl for the flexibility of passing it along to another person to wear in the SCA. In the Middle Ages, the word “mandīl” is also used for a number of napkin- and towel-like objects; some are garments, others are household linens [9].

To wear the re-creation of it, this is folded into a triangle and tied around the hair-line with a double knot at the base of the neck.

I make little braids (antenna braids, located about where a Martian's antenna are) to have a stronger foundation for pining veils into place. The mandil is about the size of a modern kerchief.

Veil—Bukhnuq, to conceal the hair

The description of this veil occurs in a woman’s trousseau as a garment “whose primary purpose is the cover the neck.” In my speculation, this garment was triangular because a triangular shape would allow the garment to “covers the head, [go] down along the cheeks under the chin, and falls over the shoulders” as is described in Stillman’s research. It would remain a comfortable, tug-free neck covering when “the two ends might be brought again over the head and there attached [10].” This could be achieved with little waste by cutting a rectangle crosswise and sewing the two short ends together.

Figure 3 Suggested design of the bukhnuq.

My re-creation of wearing the ensemble:Two small standard braids (not French-style) are made at the crown of the head. The hair is gathered into a pony tail, braid, or bun and secured. The re-creation mandīl is tied around the head. The burqa is tied around the head so that the eyes are exposed. Finally the re-creation bukhnuq is draped over all, with pins securing it to the little braids at the crown of the head.

The bukhnuq pinned to the antenna braids, and wrapped with the two ends over the head.

Fabric Choice for Headwear

Many trousseaux survive from this period and give us a snapshot of women’s wardrobes at the time of their marriages. Several of the garments listed have the fabric described as “jari al-qalam” (literally, "the flowing of the pen") which is defined by Stillman as a fine pinstripe [11]. Another trousseau indicates that an entire ensemble of garments is made from one striped fabric [12]. In the Islamic Middle Ages, many matched garments were a sign of prosperity, this being a period where textiles were liquid assets and sale of second-hand garments was a thriving trade [13].  Therefore I selected a fine fabric with narrow pinstripe.

The trousseaux also tell us that people in this period had a “tremendous range of highly refined dyes [14].” Blues (and whites) were the most common of these colors [15]. Extant textiles, excavated at Quseir al-Qadim (a port city used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), also show a preference for blue and blue-and-white textiles [16].

Linen was chosen because it was the most produced fiber of Islamic Egypt. Most of the textiles excavated at Naqlun (eleventh and twelfth centuries in Egypt) were linen [17]. Further, trade records indicate that “flax was produced in greater amounts than all other fibers combined[18]” during this period.

For the anchors and ties on the burqa, I did not copy the methods used in the extant garment above (several strings stitched over cross-wise, see Figure 2). Instead, I used lengths of corded silk. This choice not only maintains consistency across the piece, it also served as another step to raise the quality of the garment above the coarseness of the original. The silk fibers chosen have a “sticky” feel to them—with the goal of clinging better to the hair of a weekends-only (and therefore less experienced) veil-wearer.



The Ensemble

Overall, this ensemble of headwear meets the needs of the modern re-creationist while staying true to the original designs and goals of the Middle Ages. I believe the departures I make (in size and closures) do not significantly alter the feeling of the garments.


[1]  Stillman, Yedida K. “Female Attire of Medieval Egypt: According to the Trousseau Lists and Cognate Material from the Cairo Geniza”. Unpublished doctoral dissertation: University of Chicago, 1977.
[1.1] Stillman, Yedida K. “Importance of the Cairo Geniza Manuscripts for the History of Medieval Attire.” International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol 7, Num 4 (October 1976): 582. "Jewish and Muslim women dressed alike during the Fatimid and Ayyubid period. This is not too surprising since the sectarian Fatimids showed a comparatively tolerant attitude toward their dhimmi subjects.... The Geniza trousseaux give every indication that the Islamic sumptuary laws for dhimmis were also not enforced. The same garments are mentioned in the Muslim sources."
[2]  Stillman, Yedida K. “Importance of the Cairo Geniza Manuscripts for the History of Medieval Attire.” International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol 7, Num 4 (October 1976): 579-589. Note: For a modern comparison, saying, “there are 4 neckties in x colors,” does not indicate how a necktie was worn, when it was worn, how it was cut on the bias, how it was tied, or which specific garments it was worn with.
[3] Cortese, Delia and Simonetta Calderini. Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam. Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
[3.1] Collated from a number of sources. Baker, Patricia L. "A History of Islamic Court Dress in the Middle East." Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy (Faculty of Arts), School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, 1986. Page 179.Mayer, L. A. Mamluk Costume: A Survey. Geneve: Albert Kundig, 1952. Page 73, and describing the burqu' as covering the face below the eyes.Stillman, Yedida K. Arab Dress from the Dawn of Islam to Modern Times: A Short History. Edited by Norman A. Stillman. Boston: Brill, 2003. Page 142.
[4] Eastwood, Gillian. “A Medieval Face-Veil from Egypt.” Costume/London Costume Society 17 (1983): 33-38.
Stillman, Yedida K. Arab Dress from the Dawn of Islam to Modern Times: A Short History. Edited by Norman A. Stillman. Boston: Brill, 2003. Page 82, referencing: Scene in a mosque; illustration from the 7th maqama of al-Hariri Maqamat, manuscript copied and illustrated by al-Wasiti, executed in Baghdad 1237. MS. ar. 5847 f. 18v., the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

[5] Eastwood.
[6] Vogelsang-Eastwood, Gillian and Willem Vogelsang. Covering the Moon: An Introduction to Middle Eastern Face Veils. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2008.
[7]  Vogelsang-Eastwood.
[8] Stillman, “Female Attire".
[9] Rosenthal, Franz. “A Note on the Mandil” Four Essays on Art and Literature in Islam. Leiden, 1971.
[10] Stillman, “Female Attire".
[11] Stillman, Yedida K., Norman A. Stillman, ed. Arab Dress: a Short History. Brill 2003, p 59.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Goitein vol 1, p 222-3, 245.
[14] Stillman, Yedida K. “New Data on Islamic Textiles from the Geniza.” In Patterns of Everyday Life. Edited by David Waines. The Formation of the Classical Islamic World: 10th ed. Ashgate Variorum, 2002, p. 204.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Earl, Graeme. “The Textiles: Quseir al-Qadim Project.” University of Southampton, School of Humanities. 2000. http://wac.soton.ac.uk/Projects/projects.asp?Division=1&SubDivision=2&Page=17&ProjectID=20 (accessed 4 April 2011; now inactive).
 Helmecke, Gisela. “Textiles with Arabic Inscriptions excavated in Naqlun 1999-2003.” Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean/Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, Warsaw, POLOGNE 16 (April 19, 2004): pp195-202. http://www.pcma.uw.edu.pl/fileadmin/pam/PAM_2004_XVI/218.pdf (Accessed 19 April 2001).
[18] Goitein, S.D. A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, Vol. 1. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967.

Goat stew with verjuice, Hummadiyya Ibrahimiyya: Food Item Ninteen: A&S50 Challenge

Hummadiyya (stew soured with citron pulp) Ibrahimiyya
Goat stew with verjuice
10th century, Baghdad

Take 4 ratls (4 pounds) of fatty meat from [slaughtered] kid, cut it into chunks [and set it aside].

 Take about 1 ratl (1 pound) of boneless mean meat from its thighs, or use its kishtamazija (tenderloin) and a small amount of its tallow or fat tail, or whatever you wish. Pound the meat [in a stone mortar] and cook it in a pot on burning coals until it is done. Sprinkle the meat with a sour liquid such as lemon juice, wine vinegar, sumac juice, or citron pulp. Continue cooking the meat until all moisture evaporates. Take the pot away from the fire. Make sanbusaj (filled pastries) using this meat [for filling] and stiff dough, which you have kneaded very well. Set the filled pastries aside.

Alternatively, you can fry the pounded meat in oil and mix it with masl (dried yogurt whey), cilantro, and coriander seed. Make sanbusaj using this meat mixture and the prepared stiff dough. Set them aside.

Now wash the [set aside] chunks of meat and put them in a pot along with a handful of soaked and split chickpeas (mufallaq), 2 pieces of cassia –about 2 dirhams by weight (6 grams), and one piece of galangal—about 1 dirham by weight (3 grams). Add as well, chopped cilantro, a suitable amount of white part of fresh onion (bayad basal), 1/3 ratl (2/3 cup) sweet and mellow olive oil (zayt ‘adhb), and a little salt. Add juice of citron to the pot, enough to cover the meat, and cook the pot until the meat is done. Add some dry spices such as coriander seeds, black pepper, and a little bit of ground ginger.

Gently add the prepared pastries (sanbusaj) to the cooking pot and wait for a short while until they are done then add 1 dirham (3 grams) chopped fresh rue leaves. Leave the pot on the remaining heat of the coals until it stops simmering, and ladle it.

 [Instead of using citron juice only] you may mix it with juice of sour unripe grapes or juice of sour apples. The dish has also been made with [sour] Levantine mulberries (tut Shami), small sour plums [ijjas], and rhubarb (ribas).

In fact, if you mix mulberry juice with black murri Razi, then cook the dish the way you do with rakhbina, and add spinach to it and serve it, the eater will easily mistake it for a delicious true rakhbina and spare himself its harmful and putrefying effects.

Source: Nasrallah, Nawal. Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook. Islamic History and Civilization ed. vol. 70. Brill, 2007.

Sheikah al-Kaslaania’s Redaction
Hummadiyya (stew soured with citron pulp) Ibrahimiyya
Goat stew with verjuice
10th century, Baghdad


1 lb kid meat, ground (or lamb)
Sumac, 2 T.
Pastry (wonton wrappers, 1 package)
Optional:
               Dried yogurt whey
                Cilantro
                Coriander seed
4 lb kid meat, cubed
chickpeas, peeled (two cans)
Cassia cinnamon sticks, 2
Galangal, 3 grams
Cilantro, ¼ cup packed
White onion, peeled and chopped, 1 medium
Olive oil
Salt
Citron juice (or verjuice, or rhubarb juice), 10 ounces
Coriander seed, 1 Tbl
Black pepper, 1Tbl
Ground ginger, 1 Tbl
Fresh rue, several sprigs

Add the ground sumac to 1 cup of water. Simmer for 20 minutes to reduce the water and extract the sumac flavor.

Fry the ground meat in olive oil. When meat begins to brown, add ½ cup sumac cooking water, but allow the sumac itself to settle to the bottom first. Cook until the sumac water has evaporated. Let meat cool. Follow package directions for using wonton wrappers. Seal the edges in the shape of a tiny samosa (tetrahedron).  Cover and refrigerate.

Brown the cubed meat in olive oil. Place the browned meat in a pot and add chickpeas, onion and spices. Cover with half strength verjuice or the extracted juice of rhubarb. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for two hours. This simmer time is needed to break down the connective tissue in the stew meat.

At this point, the stew and the samosas can be cooled and stored separately overnight.

Bring the stew to a boil. Add samosas and cook for 15-20 minutes. The meat in the samosas is cooked so this is simply to bring them to temperature. Do not overcook or the samosas will begin to disintegrate. Add fresh rue and serve.

Notes:

Preparing meat in the Middle Ages
The medieval mindset in the Middle East believed that all meat inherently smelled bad before it was cooked. Washing the meat was a tool for removing the fragrant “scum” from the outside of the meat, as skimming the cooking water removes the scum from the inside of the meat.  However, modern safety standards do not recommend washing raw meat, as the practice typically only serves to splash germs around the kitchen.

Furthermore, although the recipe doesn’t call for browning the goat meat, “the preliminary technique in preparing meat for stews, called ta'riq, which al-Baghdadi religiously followed in all his meat recipes, gave us the impression that that was the only way to do it.”

“Literally, ta'riq means 'sweating.' Before adding liquid to the stew pot, meat was first briefly fried in rendered sheep's tail fat. In the process, meat first releases its juices (i.e. sweats), which then evaporate, leaving behind the meat swimming in its fat. This was believed to eliminate undesirable meat odor zafar.” Caliphs’ Kitchens, p 23.

This recipe, having been collected by al-Warraq, does not indicate ta’riq is required. I elected to include it because our modern mindset enjoys the savory umami flavor browning creates.

Recipe alterations
The kid meat I picked up came as bone-in chunks. I decided to roast it at 325 for 25 minutes to cook the meat away from the bone. I then stripped the meat into the cooking pot and discarded the bone.

I elected to use ground lamb, rather than kid, in the samosas simply because I can purchase it already ground. Likewise, I already have verjuice on hand.

Sour-savory flavors
Sourness, or tartness, as a flavor is considered savory in the Middle East. A distressing experience can be had by a US-raised person tasting a Middle Eastern sour cherry fruit leather and finding it salted instead of sweetened with sugar. Whereas sweet items, such as prepared dates, are almost cloying sweetened but have zero tart flavor.

When we think of the climates of Baghdad and Cairo, it isn’t really surprising that sour, vinegary, and tart flavors are incorporated into many of the staple meals of the region. Sour foods, such as pickles, oranges, and sekanjabin, help us rebalance our electrolytes when we’ve spent part of the day sweating.

Using the bias of woven fabrics: Advanced T-tunics

Using the bias of woven fabrics
Advanced T-tunics
Sayyeda al-Kaslaania
February 2013

Clothing is amazing when we stop to think about it. In the middle ages, someone spent hours weaving threads back and forth to carefully craft yards of fabric. Plus there was all the time taken to spin the fiber—and even to harvest it. People then decided they had enough extra time to make curtains, blankets, napkins, mattress covers, and rugs! Textiles were considered liquid assets in the middle ages, as good as money. They were passed on in wills, recorded as taxes, and gifted in dowries.

Woven fabric is composed of warp and weft threads. Warp threads run the length of the loom and are strong enough to be worked under tension. Weft threads are passed up and down through the warp (or through a warp shed) to bind the fabric together.

The grain line always follows the warp of the fabric. Conveniently, this can be identified by the selvedge edges, which also follow the warp of the fabric. Selvedges typically don’t unravel. Measuring from selvedge to selvedge yields the width of the fabric (modern fabric is typically 44/45”, 54”, and 58/60”).

The crosswise-grain follows the weft of the fabric. On modern cotton broadcloth, warp and weft threads are generally identical. On other fabrics, the crosswise grain is considered weaker than the grain.

The true bias is 45° from the grain. This cuts across both the grain and crosswise grain equally. When cut, this edge will distort quickly when handled. Caution should be used to keep a bias edge from stretching while one sews.

The garment bias is anything other than a 45° angle. An isosceles triangle is an example of a typical bias used in garment construction. Caution should still be used to guard against stretching the bias.

A gore is a triangle with two edges sewn into place, and one edge left free as part of a hem. As a triangle, at least one of the sides will be cut on the bias. A garment will tend to fall in folds and “flow” towards the bias edge of the gore. You can use this to your advantage to accent or diminish aspects of your body shape.

“Side flow” is applying a gore so the straight edge is stitched to the body panel. This keeps straight lines down the center of the body and visually creates more fullness toward the outside of the body. This can balance a natural fullness in the center.

“Center flow” is applying a gore so the bias edge is stitched to the body panel. This will smooth the fabric over the hips and draw the weight of the fabric toward the center

A Curious Thirteenth Century Blue Folding Stool

A Curious Thirteenth Century Blue Folding Stool
Muqima al-Kaslaania with work from Sayyeda Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya
January 2013

While helping a friend look for an image source, I spotted this stool (the lower figure sits on it).

Folio from an Arabic translation of the Materia medica by Dioscorides. This Arabic translation is dated to 1224 in Baghdad. The original is housed at the Freer Gallery of Art, of the Smithsonian Institutes in Washington, D.C.
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/zoomObject.cfm?ObjectId=46284

From this image alone another researcher, Sayyed "Uncle" Rashid, believed it could be a common ceramic drum stool. Similar items are known from the period.

This stool is housed at the Freer Gallery as well. Painted stone. Eleventh century; Raqqa, Syria.
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=F1911.1


However, my friend Sayyeda Urtatim discovered another image from the same manuscript, this time housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

"Preparation of Medicine from Honey: Leaf from an Arabic translation of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides [Iraq, Baghdad School]" (13.152.6) In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/13.152.6. (December 2011) 


And I discovered a third.

Folio from an Arabic translation of the Materia medica by Dioscorides. This Arabic translation is dated to 1224 in Baghdad. The original is housed at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institutes in Washington, D.C.  Item number S 1986.97.
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=S1986.97


Finally, Sayyeda Urtatim discovered this fourth image from the same manuscript.

"Leaf from an Arabic translation of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides ("The Pharmacy") [Iraq]" (57.51.21) In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/57.51.21. (October 2006)



At first, I identified that each of these is situated near a cookpot, but it's actually a pharmacy or pharmacist in each image. All are blue, but because all are displayed in the same manuscript that could be a convention of the artist. Could it be a depiction of metal?

It looks to the modern eye like a folding stool, with the balls acting as hinge points. Other thoughts?

Wow!! Thank you, Rachel. Researcher Rachel Shaw saw this post and did the simplest search imaginable: "Islamic folding chair". She found this:

Image 32 a, b. Folding chair, Persian, 12th century, and detail. Private Collection, Teheran. As it appears in: Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1972; p. 301.
 http://books.google.com/books?id=d-4slWpMYV8C&lpg=PA299&ots=q78JGVKPk3&dq=islamic%20folding%20stool&pg=PA301#v=onepage&q=islamic%20folding%20stool&f=false

Ayyubid Urban Woman’s Garb, an Interpretation: Material Culture 24: A&S50 Challenge

Ayyubid Urban Woman’s Garb, an Interpretation (Cairo, twelfth century)
Material Culture 24: A&50 Challenge
Sponsored by Baroness Ellen de Wynter
Artist: Sayyeda al-Kaslaania

My model is a wealthy patroness of the Kingdom, Sayyeda Hannah. She employed me, under the sponsorship of Baroness Ellen de Wynter, to create a Middle Eastern outfit suitable for her rank that she could wear to a ceremony in a public venue.

Her outfit features a full face veil, the burqa. The garment bearing the same name in modern context is very different for our medieval counterparts. It does, however, serve the same purpose: concealing the face by swathing it in fabric serves to protect the honor of the family.

More than half of a woman’s trousseau consisted of head gear in the Middle Ages[1]. Researchers today can do little more than speculate about the connection between the named garments and the depicted garments. Even pioneering work such as Yedida Stillman’s analysis of women’s trousseaux does not provide the details that a re-enactor looks for[2]. For modern comparison, saying, “there are 4 neckties in x colors,” does not indicate how a necktie was worn, when it was worn, how it was cut on the bias, how it was tied, or specific garments it was worn with.

Figure 1 St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies. Ms C 23, detail.

Other headgear elements include a kerchief and a head veil. They are matched intentionally, as headgear garments in trousseau lists are commonly listed as matched and coordinated. Overall, garment ensembles could consist of up to 15 pieces[3].

The headgear is augmented by an undertunic, a tunic, and an overwrap.


Full face veil— burqa, to conceal the face

My goal was concealing the identity of the model so she could attend a ceremony in public without

Figure 2 Extant face veil, Eastwood.

heat-stroking her in July. The burqa style was chosen over other faceveils because it allows for easier use of modern eyeglasses, and permits breezes to get by.



During the Middle Ages, the burqa is as wide as the face. It is made in two pieces, upper and lower, connected in three places: above the nose and outside each of the eyes. Along the nose there is a ridge seam sewn in to shape the garment to the face. In the extant garment, the upper and lower pieces of fabric are touching each other; however, extant images do not always portraying this same proximity[4]. The distance I included allows for the eyeglasses of the model to be worn comfortably.

While the existing garments are unfinished in the same way as each other[5], I chose to finish the whole length of the veil and make it shorter—despise two extant pieces to the contrary—for a few reasons. First, both of the veils were coarsely made overall; they may have belonged to poor women who did not have time or inclination to complete the garments. Second, my garment will typically be worn so that the hem is visible, whereas the existing garments are believed to always be concealed beneath a large overwrap[6]. In the context of the SCA we do not wear the large concealing overwraps while out-of-doors that women did in period. These two garments (the burqa and the overwrap) went hand in hand during the Middle Ages.

Third, Vogelsang-Eastwood describes this garment as occasionally being decorated with beads, coins, chains, shells and so forth[7]. Having worn face veils of my own construction, I can say that this sort of adornment would be beneficial to keep the veil under control while walking or in a breezy area, functioning like the weighted hems on draperies. I believe this added weight is an alternative to the length, which would provide the same function.

Figure 3 Child's Tunic as it appears in Scarce, Jennifer.  

Women's Costume of the Near and Middle East. 

London: Unwin-Hyman Ltd, 1987, p. 118.

Kerchief—mandīl, foundation headwear

Most women had several head-kerchief mandīls in their collections[8]. It is described as one of the foundation garments available for men’s turbans as well. This type of mandīl protected the other head-gear from the oils of the hair and skin. Other options would include skullcaps. The mandīl was selected for the flexibility of passing it along to another person to wear in the SCA. In this period, the word “mandīl” is also used for a number of kerchief- and hand towel-like objects; some are garments, others are household linens[9].

Veil—Bukhnuq, to conceal the hair

In my speculation, this garment was triangular[10]. This shape would allow the garment “whose primary purpose is the cover the neck” the ability to do so as it “covers the head, goes down along the cheeks under the chin, and falls over the shoulders” and remain a comfortable, tug-free neck covering when “the two ends might be brought again over the head and there attached[11].”

Figure 4 Child's tunic from the Mamluk period. 

Jameel Center at the Ashmolean Museum, 

Univ of Oxford. No. EA1984.353.

Fabric Choice for Headwear

Many trousseaux survive from this period and give us a snapshot of women’s wardrobes at the time
of their marriage. Several of them list the fabric jari al-qalam (literally, "the flowing of the pen") which is described by clothing expert Yedida Stillman as a fine pinstripe[12]. Another indicates that an entire ensemble of garments is made from a common striped fabric[13]. In the Islamic Middle Ages, matchy-matchy garments were a sign of prosperity, this being a period where textiles were liquid assets and sale of second-hand garments was a thriving trade[14].

These trousseaux also teach us that people in this period had a “tremendous range of highly refined dyes[15].” Blues (and whites) were the most common of these colors.

Instead of copying the method of creating the anchors and ties, I used lengths of corded silk. This maintained consistency across the piece, and served as another step to raise the quality of the garment above the coarseness of the original. Not only was this a faster option, the specific fibers used have a “sticky” feel to them—with the goal of clinging better to the hair of a weekends-only (and therefore less experienced) hijab-wearer.

Tunic—Thawb

Garments from the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages were generally loosely fitted tunics for both men and women, augmented by unseamed rectangular lengths of fabric. Yedida Stillman refers to this as a Pan-Islamic style of dress because the basic elements were the same across Islamic communities, excepting Persia.

The shape of this tunic garment is drawn from extant sources[16]. I find it allows for greater movement because it fits a round body instead of a flat one. This works because the sleeve and side body intersect in an unusual way (see Appendix A). The pattern I chose to use is copied from several extant sources[17].  Tailored clothing such as this was a mark of an urban-dweller in the Medieval period, and fitted garments are listed among items in period trousseaux[18]. This pattern is strikingly similar to contemporary European clothing, and was intentionally selected for that reason (as the model also wears Saxon garb). One could speculate this is either from a confluence of ideas, or the active Mediterranean-European trade system.

Figure 5 Woman with sleeveless dress, 

head veil wrapped around her shoulders. 

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 

MS. Arabe 5847 , fol. 138v. Detail.

Sleeveless undertunic –Badan

The badan is a short, sleeveless tunic often mentioned in women’s trousseaux[19]. Descriptions include white garments with a single-colored border decoration. I believe an illustration from a twelfth century Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī[20] depicts this garment (fig 5). In this image, the woman’s scarf is wrapped around her hair and drapes across her shoulders, visually connected by the decorative band.

Wrap--Izār

The overwrap is a required garment for any woman leaving the house in an urban setting[21]. Of the several options available, the izār is a large rectangle of fabric geared toward being enveloping. Often they are plain garments, usually of wool, and can double as a blanket. This izār is purchased from a used clothing merchant, a common practice in the Middle Ages[22].

[1] Stillman, Yedida K. “Female Attire of Medieval Egypt: According to the Trousseau Lists and Cognate Material from the Cairo Geniza”. Unpublished doctoral dissertation: University of Chicago, 1977.

[2] Stillman, Yedida K. “Importance of the Cairo Geniza Manuscripts for the History of Medieval Attire.” International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol 7, Num 4 (October 1976): 579-589.

[3] Cortese, Delia and Simonetta Calderini. Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam. Edinburgh University Press, 2006.

[4] Eastwood, Gillian. “A Medieval Face-Veil from Egypt.” Costume/London Costume Society 17 (1983): 33-38.

[5] Eastwood.

[6] Vogelsang-Eastwood, Gillian and Willem Vogelsang. Covering the Moon: An Introduction to Middle Eastern Face Veils. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2008.

[7] Vogelsang-Eastwood.

[8] Stillman dissertation.

[9] Rosenthal, Franz. “A Note on the Mandil” Four Essays on Art and Literature in Islam. Leiden, 1971.

[10] This could be achieved with little waste by cutting rectangle crosswise and sewing the two short ends together.

[11] Stillman dissertation  p 124

[12] Stillman, Yedida K., Norman A. Stillman, ed. Arab Dress: a Short History. Brill 2003, p 59.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Goitein vol 1, p 222-3, 245.

[15] Stillman, Yedida K. “New Data on Islamic Textiles from the Geniza.” In Patterns of Everyday Life. Edited by David Waines. The Formation of the Classical Islamic World: 10th ed. Ashgate Variorum, 2002, p. 204.

[16] Godlewski, Wlodzimierz. “Naqlun: Excavations, 2000.” Polish archaeology in the Mediterranean/Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, Warsaw, POLOGNE Vol. 12 (April 19, 2000): p. 149-161. http://www.centrumarcheologii.uw.edu.pl/fileadmin/pam/pam_2000_XII/53.pdf (accessed 19 April 2011). ; Ellis, Marianne. Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt. Ashmolean Museum: University of Oxford, 2001.; Syria, Materia Medica of Dioscurides, 1229, Two students; frontispiece. Iraq or Syria; Alphonso X's Book of Games (In Spanish: Libro de los Juegos" or "Libros del Axedrez, Dados et Tablas) commissioned between 1251 and 1282 A.D. by Alphonso X, King of Leon and Castile.

[17] Ellis, Marianne. Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt. Ashmolean Museum: University of Oxford, 2001. ; Syria, Materia Medica of Dioscurides, 1229, Two students; frontispiece. Iraq or Syria; Alphonso X's Book of Games (In Spanish: Libro de los Juegos" or "Libros del Axedrez, Dados et Tablas) commissioned between 1251 and 1282 A.D. by Alphonso X, King of Leon and Castile.; Baghdad, Maqamat al-Hariri, Late Eleventh to early Twelfth Centuries.

[18] Stillman dissertation.

[19] Stillman, Yedida K., Norman A. Stillman, ed. Arab Dress: a Short History. Brill 2003.

[20] Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Ms. Arabe 5847, fol. 138.

[21] Stillman dissertation.

[22] Goitein, Vol. 1.