I understood from a show on the origin of underwear that the ancient egyptian kilt, or loincloth, was a single cloth wrapped in an interesting way. Specifically, that it was wrapped in an "ingenious" way which eliminated chaffing in the hot and humid climate. Well, the show asserted that the garment is "ingenious" but they provided no supporting information.

So, this page is an example of what an off-hand comment in a one hour-long program will drive me to do. Sad isn't it?

I've managed to find several leads by looking in various search engines. One lead I found was in looking for ancient egyptian period costume links. I found several references to a book, or a section from a larger work, by Mary G. Houston and Florence S Hornblower. This book appears to be OOP in the US but I was able to order from amazon UK.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend the book. I did get it, but it ended up being a very small book, of around 41 pages. Especially after shipping from the UK, but even without that cost, it was far too expensive for what it is. Further, it did not provide very much in the way of useful informaion anyway.

I also found several costuming links. While not specifically useful, these are at least interesting.

There is one reference to the egyptian word "snto.t n|yw" on a page at the Oriental Institute of Chicago which appears to be the egyptian word for their kilt.

The word which I think is the right one for the article of clothing that I'm curious about is "shendjyt" and it appears in Altavista only twice. I've included these two links, for reference below, tho they are not more than simple mentions of the word.

From Tuthmosis III

From Women in Egypt: Menkaure and his Queen 2. Description

Searching on Excite, returns one addtitional reference, from a posting to AEgyptian-L. It's about half way down the page.

I have also found a site about an exhibit based on information from Tutankhamun's funerary items, specifically the clothing. This actually provides what so far is the only reference to the structure of this article of clothing which I've found so far.

This is the "Tutankamun's Wardrobe" Exhibit. The schedule shows there will be an appearance in January 2001-March 2002 at the Oriental Institute, Chicago.

From Tutankhamun's Wardrobe
(note: this web page is now gone. there is another mention of the exhibit here: Fit for a Pharaoh, however the ISBN for the book doesn't exist, according to Amazon.)

I have found two other words which may mean the egyptian kilt. From "The Historical Encyclopedia of Costumes" by Albert Racinet (facts on file, 1988 New York, NY)

There is corroboration for this meaning from Compton's Encyclopedia Online

Additionally there is another term in the Racinet book on pg14-15.

Previously in this book it is made clear that the klaft is worn on the head, so the kilt item here is the calasiris. Unfortunately, the word "calasiris" appears to misused in this sense. Other references for this word indicate, not a loincloth or kilt, but rather a body length tunic.

Additionally, although not really relevant, this appears to have been the given name of a priest in the manuscript "Heliodorus of Emesa"

Neither of these two words, then, provide much by way of new information.

The search continues ...

I managed to find a book that had a picture of the triangular cloth, with strings at each of two corners, with some description of the article. I will scan the picture and put that up when I get a chance.