Though leather hides, with the hair on, are found over bodies in the earliest graves, yet linen cloth was introduced early in the prehistoric times, and is frequently found wrapped around the bodies. On reaching the first dynasty the weaving is seen to be very fine and regular, though we only have some of the stuff used for mummy wrappings, from the tomb of King Zer. The threads are very uniform, and there are 160 to the inch in the warp and 120 in the woof. Modern fine cambric has 140 threads to the inch, so it was quite equalled by hand work at the beginning of Egyptian history. A group of a dozen different cloths on one mummy of the XVIIth dynasty show 138 x 40 and 128 x 56 as the finest, and 21 x 15 as the coarsest mesh. The greatest disproportion of the threads is 138 to 40, or 3½ to 1, and the least is 70 to 62, or 9 to 8; it is recognised as a principle of Egyptian weaving that the woof was not beaten up as closely as the lay of the warp. Unfortunately we have scarcely any cloth except mummy wrappings, and it is not to be expected that the finest work would be thus used. The size of the looms was considerable. The cloths on the mummy just named are up to five feet wide; and one edge has been torn off that amount, so it was originally more. The pieces are up to sixty feet long, and yet not complete. The looms were horizontal on the ground for coarse work, such as mats; but fine work was done on a vertical loom, and from the ease of displacing threads in tapestry the warp threads were separately weighted and not fastened to a beam. Loom weights of baked clay or of limestone are common. [Illustration: CLOTHING 139. Coloured tapestry (XVIIIth dynasty) 140. Cut leather net] A few pieces of woven tapestry have been found in the tomb of Tahutmes IV, and part of one is given here full size in fig. 139. The colours used are red, blue, green, yellow, brown and grey. The coloured threads pass to and fro over the space assigned to them, thus entirely parting the warp threads from the neighbouring ones, so that a slit is left along the vertical margins of the colours. This was remedied by stitching; but the same weakness is seen in the Roman and Coptic woven tapestries. These are known from the pagan period, as there are many mythological subjects; but the greater part belong to the Christian and Mohammedan ages.