Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1899 — Egyptian Legs. [ARTICLE]

Egyptian Legs.

It is asserted in many books that the ancients did not use stockings, and that the art of knitting was unknown before the beginning of the fifteenth century. But that both these statements aye wrong is proved by the existence of knitted stockings found in the grave of an ancient Egyptian mummy and now preserved in the Louvre in _ Paris. These stockings are short, resembling socks, and are knitted with great skill; the material is wool, which was probably white originally, but is now brown Ivith age. The knitting is loose and elastic, and seems to have been done with rather thick needles. The stockings are begun, as they would be at the present day, with a single thread; tbe heels are shaped as they would be now, and are very well done. The toe, however, is different from that of a modern stocking; it ends In two tube-like projections which resemble the fingers of a glove. The reason of thiß is that the stocking was made to fit the sandal, in which there was a strap from the toe to the Instep.