The arts of spinning and weaving, which rank next in importance to agriculture, having been found among almost all the nations of the old and new continents, even among those little removed from barbarism, are reasonably supposed to have been invented at a very remote period of the world’s history[16]. They evidently existed in Egypt in the time of Joseph (1700 years before the Christian era), as it is recorded that Pharaoh “arrayed him in vestures of fine linen.” (Genesis xli. 42.) Two centuries later, the Hebrews carried with them on their departure from that ancient seat of civilization, the arts of _spinning_, _dyeing_, _weaving_, and _embroidery_; for when Moses constructed the tabernacle in the wilderness, “the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen.” (Exod. xxxv. 25.) They also “spun goats’ hair;” and Bezaleel and Aholiab “worked all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of _the embroiderer, in blue, and of purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver_.” These passages contain the earliest mention of woven clothing, which was linen, the national manufacture of Egypt. The prolific borders of the Nile furnished from the remotest periods, as at the present time, abundance of the finest flax[17]; and it appears, from the testimony both of sacred and profane history, that linen continued to be almost the only kind of clothing used in Egypt till after the Christian era[18]. The Egyptians exported their “linen yarn,” and “fine linen,” to the kingdom of Israel, in the days of Solomon, (2 Chron. i. 16; Prov. vii. 16;) their “fine linen with broidered work,” to Tyre, (Ezek. xxvii. 7.) [16] According to Pliny, Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, was believed to have been the inventress of the art of weaving. Minerva is in some of the ancient statutes represented with a distaff, to intimate that she taught men the art of spinning; and this honor is given by the Egyptians to Isis, by the Mohammedans to a son of Japhet, by the Chinese to the consort of their emperor Yao, and by the Peruvians to Mamaoella, wife to Manco-Capac, their first sovereign. These traditions serve only to carry the invaluable arts of spinning and weaving up to an extremely remote period, long prior to that of authentic history. [17] Paintings representing the gathering and preparation of flax have been found on the walls of the ancient sepulchres at Eleithias and Beni Hassan, in Upper Egypt, and are described and copied by Hamilton.--“Remarks on several parts of Turkey, and on ancient and modern Egypt,” pp. 97 and 287, plate 23. [18] Herodotus, book ii. c. 37, 81. (See Plate VI.)