Over 5,000 years ago, an Egyptian weaver, maker of the so-called Tarkhan Dress, created the world’s oldest woven and tailored garment. The linen dress was found in a tomb near Tarkhan, some 60 kilometres south of Cairo, and was made between 3482 and 3102 B.C., a time span that falls before Egypt’s First Dynasty. Originally found by archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie in 1913, the dress was buried in a mastaba tomb — likely as part of a funeral. Its rediscovery decades later revealed not only remarkable preservation but also an advanced level of textile craftsmanship for the time.

World’s Oldest Tailored Garment, the Tarkhan Dress, Reveals Elite Fashion in Ancient Egypt

As per a report from University College London‘s Petrie Museum, in 1977, the Victoria and Albert Museum found the almost complete Tarkhan Dress, made from linen with a V-neck, knife-pleated sleeves, and a calibrated waist. Experts don’t know if it was a tunic or full dress, but it was probably worn on the body of a slender, young woman before she was buried.

Experts suggest that the dress that was worn by elites was not made for the afterlife. It used to be an everyday piece of fashionable clothing. Radiocarbon dating dates it to the First Dynasty. This ancient clothing surviving thousands of years of decomposition is an anomaly.

Funerary art of the Early Dynastic Period of the Old Kingdom of Egypt had the appearance of the Tarkhan Dress, although the Tarkhan Dress itself is preserved only because of the arid burial conditions in Egypt, offering a rare opportunity for the close study of authentic materials and the identification of multistep processes involved in the production of textile in early civilisations.

The Tarkhan Dress – the world’s first fitting clothing – had a big influence on early Egyptian culture. It now resides at the Petrie Museum, inspiring historians and textile experts worldwide.