Early Jewish Dress and Adornment

Roman-Era Jewish Clothing and Personal Items

The fabrics and colors used for clothing during the Roman period differed by location, with women’s clothing being more colorful than men’s. Garments in Roman Palestine were mostly made of wool from goat or sheep; the Essenes, in imitation of the priests in the Temple, wore linen. Linen clothing was white, as it was nearly impossible to dye. 

Garments, being biodegradable, rarely survive in the archaeological record. Accordingly, most of our information about Jewish dress comes from the textiles left behind by refugees who hid their belongings in the Judean desert caves during the Bar Kokhba revolt (see Bar Kokhba Letters and Archaeology) and, to a lesser extent, from material found at Qumran and Masada. The extant clothing largely consists of tunics and mantles made of either wool or linen, never mixed, in accordance with Jewish law (Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11). The tunics comprised two sheets sewn together, with a gap left for the head. Two parallel bands decorated both sides from top to bottom.

Mantles were typically decorated with notched bands or notched patterns set at the four corners of the sheet. Some woolen garments were dyed in vivid colors. This type of clothing was typical of the Roman world; most Jews do not appear to have worn distinctive clothing in their daily lives. Figures in the wall paintings at Dura-Europos and the mosaic pavements in late Roman and early Byzantine synagogues are shown wearing similar attire. In addition to clothing, the archaeological record has also yielded a wide range of personal objects and clothing paraphernalia, including sandals, hairnets, buckles and fibulae (a type of pin clasp), jewelry, cosmetic utensils, mirrors, combs, phylacteries (tefilin), amulets, and more. These are constructed from textiles, leather, stone, animal bone and ivory, glass, and metal.