04-16-2009, 02:43 PM
There is a 7th c. tunic in the vatican museum collections I had the pleasure of seeing once, the sleeves are sewn on. Also, theres a few others out there I know, im sure its not farby to have sewn on sleeves, especially on a simple long sleeved work tunic or for under one's armour.
It is possible that there were bolts of cloth one could buy in the ancient world quite frequently from textile centers (Akhmim etc.) to make basic clothing, and then many of the better dressier tunicae were purpose woven. This is pure supposition based on a couple of orders for fabric I have seen found recorded, but seems possibly plausible. Its all quite hard to decipher exactly what the situation was, from a mosaic or manuscript it is nearly impossible to tell what construction techniques are used, and our surviving examples of clothing are nearly all from graves (mostly upper class) or other similar conditional situations.
It is possible that there were bolts of cloth one could buy in the ancient world quite frequently from textile centers (Akhmim etc.) to make basic clothing, and then many of the better dressier tunicae were purpose woven. This is pure supposition based on a couple of orders for fabric I have seen found recorded, but seems possibly plausible. Its all quite hard to decipher exactly what the situation was, from a mosaic or manuscript it is nearly impossible to tell what construction techniques are used, and our surviving examples of clothing are nearly all from graves (mostly upper class) or other similar conditional situations.
aka., John Shook
