Silks from Gebel Adda – an insight to royal wardrobe in 14th century Nubia?

Gebel Adda was a town located in Lower Nubia, on the eastern bank of the Nile, ca. 300 km south of Aswan. In the mid. 14th c., it became for a century the second and last capital city of the Christian kingdom of Makuria. It was mainly excavated during the Nubian Campaign, revealing a fortified town and a series of five cemeteries dated from different epochs. Church IV revealed a series of crypt burials richly furnished with silk textiles. Unfortunately, the excavations were never extensively published. An important part of the archives and most of the textiles are housed today in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Some important pieces are also presented in the galleries of the Nubia Museum, Aswan. The Gebel Adda silks are exceptional evidence of the imported luxury textiles and dress in use at the Nubian court in the 14th c. The paper offers a detailed presentation of the silks kept in Aswan recently documented by the author.