Author Description

Costumes of Egypt: The Lost Legacies sums up decades of Shahira Mehrez's research: it is a four-volume work recording and tracing the origin of hitherto undocumented ways of dressing and jewelry of Egyptian women, most of which have today become obsolete. The costumes surveyed in this first volume establish the fact that irrespective of distant geographic locations, beyond religious and ethnic diversity, and throughout thousands of years of history and successive civilizations, Nubians, Nile Valley peasants, Bedouins and oasis dwellers, both Christian and Muslim, were heirs to the same legacy. Old and new emblems were melted into one tradition, defining a multifaceted but harmonious Egyptian identity. This tradition provides undeniable and tangible proof of the unity of the country and bears witness to the fact that throughout history these various communities were the different parts of a multicultural and pluralistic nation.