Border of a linen garment | Photographer: Oleg Kuchar | Rights management: Museum Ulm
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalThe border is knitted in dark red wool and the inner surface was originally decorated with an intricate zigzag pattern that was sewn on. The inner surface is bordered on the outside by decorative strips of interwoven light-coloured linen thread. The Coptic textiles preserved in the Ulm Museum were purchased from the collection of Franz Bock (1823 - 1899) by the former Ulm Trade Museum at the end of the 1880s. Dr Franz Johann Joseph Bock was a clergyman and art historian and travelled to Upper Egypt in 1885 and 1886, where he carried out excavations. He amassed a collection of Coptic textile fragments from tombs. In particular, these were pieces of blankets or tunics. Franz Bock gradually sold the collected objects to various museums. As Bock trimmed his finds, only sections of larger fabrics were usually included in the various collections. It is therefore likely that fragments of one and the same textile are scattered across several collections.