#peplos

Historical clothing project layers:

Peplos made from a wool blanket we had that has the right dimensions. I fussed with overtunics for a bit before remembering how much I love wearing a peplos. Simple, practical, elegant, warm, and if you need an extra blanket at night you just unpin it and add it to your bed. Brilliant.

Kilt pins for fibulae (not visible in photo but they're holding the peplos together at the shoulders). I was so surprised to learn that this style of pin has been in use for millennia!

Belt bag from some other project so it does have synthetic felt in between the linen layers. I can't function without some kind of pocket and my internet friends can fit in this one.

Blue cloak made from a moth-eaten wool blanket I thrifted a few years ago. You can see where I repaired the holes with white yarn.

Statues of the Nereid Monument

* 390-380 BCE

* Xanthos, Lycia

* British Museum

London, June 2022

I saw this amphora for the first time today when I was researching things about Helen of Sparta as a reference for drawing her. From what I saw, the woman is Helen and this art is dated 550 BC. I thought what she was wearing was really beautiful, so I looked up the name of this outfit so I could draw it better.

I got the impression that it's a peplos from the images I saw (in particular, these Kore statues are kind of similar because of the patterns: 1, 2, 3. And the shape reminds me of that) and because of the year of the amphora (I read that apparently peplos was popular around the same time), but I'm not sure. Also, is that veil that Helen wears a specific piece of clothing? The only similar thing I've seen referring to clothing in Greek visual arts is himation, but I also don't know if it's one because I haven't found a himation being used specifically in that way (the ones I saw seemed more involved around the body/head).

Do you (or anyone in the comments) know if it's a peplos? If it isn't a peplos, do you/anyone know what it is? And what is this veil, it's a himation?

Hi, I am pretty sure Helen’s outfit is indeed a peplos. You can also tell from how the fabric bulges on the torso.

As for the veil, yeah, I don’t think it’s a himation (it still might be though). It’s little known that occasionally Ancient Greek women did wear a veil, which was called καλύπτρα (kalyptra). A kalyptra was usually used by a matron, a dignified older married woman, likely an aristocrat, and in general the lady of the household. It was associated with propriety and the avoidance of unwanted advances.

Helen, as a married queen in the presence of several men as we see in this amphora, is totally eligible as a woman who would have a kalyptra on. It might also be the artist’s attempt to redeem Helen and in this way abdicate her of any responsibility when she was forced to leave Menelaus for Paris.

A kalyptra was a thing, though not as obligatory or paramount a garment as a veil was in Rome or in the Eastern cultures. The reason we probably don’t see it often in statuary is that Greek sculpture depicted mostly youth and the human body. Young unmarried girls wouldn’t wear such garments.

Here you can see the differences with himation. Himation was a thicker fabric, used for warmth. When cold, it could double as both a himation and a kalyptra. The thin fabric the woman with the chiton in the middle is holding could be a kalyptra.

My ask is: do you have any idea what kind of ancient Greek veil Homer was probably referring to?

Hello! It's very unlikely that the Iliad was written by one person, and it's more likely that many Greek artists throughout the centuries added their own parts or embellished some existing lyrics. There are many clear anachronisms in the text. Likely, the geometric era gals did not cover their hair (from the art I've seen) but a singer in the classical era considered it weird to sing a song about a queen with uncovered hair.

It might be that the old text remained next to the new one, that's why you see the braids and also the veil. But it could also be a narrative trick where the reader/listener can know about both the veil and the braids underneath the veil.

Our ancient, medieval, and traditional head coverings were not translucent. Only in the last decades that we gotten rid of them, we wear transparent ones at weddings. The ancient veils (himatia/pepla) I've seen in ancient Greek art are separate from the dress and worn over it, perhaps wrapped around the dress in various ways. Not having color doesn't help the eye much 😅

Like this figure here, the fabrics may appear to be continuous but it's likely there's two of them, seamlessly wrapped.

Ancient Greek Terracotta Veiled female figure. H. 21.5 cm. 4th Century BC.

Limestone statue of a veiled female votary. Cypriot 1st century BCE

Veiled women dancing to a double flute Clay, red-figure, 450-440 BCE

Some more possible styles: