Читать книгу The Historical Child - Oscar Chrisman - Страница 42

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Swaddling clothes do not seem to have been used by the Egyptians as they were among the Jews and some other nations. If the child could not walk, he was carried by the nurse or mother before her or at her side, in a shawl thrown around her back over a shoulder. It was the custom, no matter whether the child had little or no clothing on, to have a string of beads about the neck, having occasionally a charm suspended in the center, a symbol of truth and justice. These were for the purpose of keeping ill luck from the child, and to make him wise and virtuous.

"The dresses of children of the lower classes were very simple; and, as Diodorus informs us, the expenses incurred in feeding and clothing them amounted to a mere trifle. 'They feed them,' he says, 'very lightly, and at an incredibly small cost; giving them a little meal of the coarsest and cheapest kind, the pith of the papyrus, baked under the ashes, with the roots and stalks of some marsh weeds, either raw, boiled, or roasted; and since most of them are brought up, on account of the mildness of the climate, without shoes, and indeed without any other clothing, the whole expense incurred by the parents does not exceed 20 drachmæ (about 13 shillings) each; and this frugality is the true reason of the populousness of Egypt.' But the children of the higher orders were often dressed like grown persons, with a loose robe reaching to the ankles, and sandals."37