A Brief History of Basket-Weaving
by Shahinda Abdalla
Basket from the New Kingdom, Ramesside ca. 1295-1070 B.C. (Image Source: The Met Museum)
The oldest known baskets were discovered in the Governorate of Fayoum just a 100 kilometers southwest of Cairo. Carbon-dated to the Neolithic era between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, these baskets date back even before any pottery vessel which were too heavy and too fragile to be useful to far-traveling hunter-gatherers. Though baskets might’ve been tremendously practical for the societies they were used in, for the historians and archeologists who have been trying to discover their history, they are in fact rather difficult. Because baskets were always made of natural fibers that unless were intentionally preserved, they decayed and perished with the passing of time. This means that much of the history of baskets has been lost and is largely based on speculation.
This 6,000 year old fragment was found only a few centimeters under the surface. Photograph UCLA/RUG Fayum Project. (Image Source)
The oldest and most commonly used techniques of basketry in ancient Egypt were coiling, twining and mat weaving. Coiling, in particular, was used to make sturdy baskets. These baskets were used for all sorts of functions, from storing food to clothes, even coffins and sandals were made using the coiling technique. One main reason for this was that wood was scarce in ancient Egypt so baskets were used instead. They were used very similarly to how we use wooden containers like cupboards today. The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered containing over 120 baskets.
Coiling with separate bundle and winder materials. A bundle of grass is held into place by palm leaf winders. (Image Source)
From the fourth century BCE onwards, the plaiting technique became more popular and began to replace the coiling technique. Sandals that were used to be made of parallel rows of coiling began to be made instead with plaited palm leaf. In fact, the equivalent of our modern-day flip-flop was made with exactly eight strips of doam palm leaf, each about 4 cm wide. Even fans were made using extremely fine plaited matting, using strand of palm leaf only 2mm wide. For both mats and baskets, a new completely new technique was introduced to Egypt at that time that consisted of plaited strips sewn together to form a seemingly ongoing plaited fabric. It wasn’t only the technique that began to change, but the materials used as well. In the prehistoric and predynastic periods, papyrus and the stems of wheat and barley straws were mainly used. In the Pharaonic period, tall tough grasses were used alongside doam palm. Date palm leaf that was very rare before became increasingly common and widely used toward the Late and Greco-Roman periods taking over both papyrus and doam palm leaf. It is speculated that this change in the use of materials was probably for environmental reasons. A slight change in climate had caused the doam palm to retreat south. Currently this species of palm occurs only sparsely south of Luxor and is common only in Sudan now. Papyrus plants as well moved south and currently do not occur in Egypt in a natural habitat.
Though much of the history of basket-weaving remains a mystery, in Egypt there is much we know about baskets that comes not only from archeological evidence found of baskets themselves but also from the depictions found on tomb paintings and reliefs from all periods of Egyptian history. This second source of evidence is an important confirmation to the other archeological evidence found on baskets. We see through these visual depictions baskets being used for all sorts of functions, from offerings being carried in baskets to farmers sowing and loading their harvests in baskets to paying wages with baskets full of grain. Today, baskets remain in Egypt not only as an important ancient craft that represents our heritage but are in fact still widely used in daily life. Almost every Egyptian household will still have some form of basket made from a natural fiber, whether it is a laundry or bread basket or even a place mat, baskets are everywhere. They can even be sighted here on the streets of our beloved Maadi stacked and displayed by one of the many street vendors you can find across our neighborhood.
