<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10>Best source I know of is Jennifer Scarce's book, <U>Women's Costume of the Near and Middle East</U>, which has some photos of extant clothing (both men and women's). As she is a curator of the Royal Museum of Scotland, with a specialty in Near and Middle Eastern culture, I rank her research as pretty good. I will admit most of her stuff is post period, but then, I've made an unofficial study and found that several 9th century Egyptian boy's tunics (pages 118 and 120) are almost identical to the early 20th century folk dresses from the Holy Lands. Best of all, she has quotes from period letters and travelogues that describe the costumes, which is helpful, too. I've done the 9th century tunic with minor modifications to the shapes of the arms to match the illustrations and minatures for several years, and find it a comfortable, relatively easy costume to make. I think it is pretty good, but then, my stuff is earlier period (12th century) and not Turkish, which is where most of the ME personas I've seen have drawn their inspiration from most.<BR>
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HL Saqra al-Kudsi</FONT></HTML>