The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 13
and linen yarn ; the king's nieixliants reccivea the linen yarn
at a price." (1 Kings, x. 28.) And the Unen of Egypt was
highly valued in Palestine, for the seducer, in Proverbs, says,
" I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carv-
ed works, with fine Unen of Egypt." (Prov. vii. 16.) Tlie
prophet Ezekiel also declares that the export of the textile
fabrics was an important branch of Phoenician commerce
for in his enumeration of the articles of traffic in Tyre, he
says :
" Fine Unen with broidered work from Egypt was that
which thou sprcadest forth to be thy sail ; blue and purple
from the isles of EUsha was that which covered thee."
(Ezek. xxvn. 7.)
It deserves to be remarked that the prophet here joins
Egypt with the isles of EUsha or EUs, that is, the districts of
western Greece, and thus confirms the ancient tradition re-
corded by Herodotus of some Egyptian colonists having set-
tled in that country, which the sceptics of the German school
of history have thought proper to deny.* Spinning was
wholly a female employment ; it is rather singular that we
find this work frequently performed by a large number col-
lected together, as if the factory system had been established
3000 years ago.
We have, however, many specimens of spinning as a domestic
employment. Indeed, attention to the spindle and
distaff forms a leading feature in king Lemuel's description
of a virtuous woman. " Who can find a virtuous woman 1
for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband
doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
* The sceptical school of history, founded by Nicbuhr, in Germany, and ex-
tended by his disciples to a sweeping incredulity, far beyond what was contem-
plated by the founder, has labored hard to prove, that the Greek system of civili-
zation was indigenous, and that the candid confession of Herodotus, attributing
to Egj'ptian colonies the first introduction of the arts of life into Hellas, was au
idle tale, or a groundless tradition. But the examination of the monuments has
proved that Greek art originated in Egypt ; and that the elements of the archi-
tectural, sculptural, and pictorial wonders which have rendered Greece and Italy
illustrious, were derived from the valley of the Nile.
;