2025
A Coat of Many Colours: Depictions of Joseph on Late Roman Textile Fragments by Cameron Heagney (January 2025)
The importance of clothing and fashion in the visual culture of Late Antiquity (c. AD 250 - 750) ought not to be underestimated. Access to new colours, wearing technologies, and textile materials increased the range of clothing combinations available to those who could afford them, developing into a visual way to communicate a wearer’s wealth, social status, and elected identity in the presence of others. In Constantinople, elaborate robes in many colours and sizes were worn to increase the size of their wearers, signalling their power and importance in public places (Procopius of Caesarea, Secret History 7.11-7.13). Elites are also reported to have worn garments that depicted humans or animals (Ammianus Marcellinus, History 14.6.9) to visually suggest certain values or qualities about themselves to others.
Naturally, the emperor(s) had access to the finest clothing in the land, and the appearance of their dress was likened to an instrument of imperial power: in a panegyric speech, Constantine I’s august and sole dominion as emperor of the Romans was supposedly made clear “by the remarkable robes of his vesture” (Eusebius of Caesarea, Oration in Praise of Constantine 5.4). Clothing could visually illustrate the status someone held, and different combinations of patterned and expensive textiles had an inclusive and exclusive power: wearing elaborate vesture enacted and visually affirmed the wearer’s membership of an elite socio-economic group, whilst also visually separating them from groups and individuals who could not afford or access them. Social status and identity were, in part, constructed and communicated within this rubric, in a visual culture that has been termed a “hierarchy through clothing” (Lopez (1945) 21).

Fig. 1: Example of a tunic in the late Roman style produced in early Islamic Egypt, c. AD 670 - 870 (Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. 291-1891).
Examples of these ancient textiles, made out of organic materials such as linen, wool, and silk, have scarcely survived from the late Roman world. The dry climate of Egypt, however, has preserved many hundreds of fragments and several intact tunics from this period. The cities of Middle and Upper Egypt, most notably Panopolis (modern day Akhmim), were famous in the ancient world for the production of textiles (Strabo, Geography 17.1.41) and tunics such as that pictured in Figure 1. This textile, produced from dyed wool and undyed linen, bears many of the hallmarks of the late antique tunic: it features clavi, two strips of fabric sewn into the garment that fall from the shoulders and neckline to the stomach, often decorated with ornate patterns; segmenta, decorated fabric roundels or squares typically sewn into the lower garment around the knee as well as onto the shoulder; it also features bands and hems around vulnerable parts of the fabric, particularly at the neckline, wrist, and bottom of the garment. Polychromatic floral patterns and haloed figures feature prominently in the design of this tunic, set against a deep crimson to draw onlookers’ attention to the intricate detail of the textile art.

Fig. 2: Textile roundel depicting the Passion of Joseph, c. AD 600-700 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 63.178.2).
As Egyptian devotional tastes incorporated Christianity during the fourth century, so too did their tastes in clothing. Many textile fragments and tunics depict symbols associated with Christianity, such as the cross and the vine, as well as figural scenes from the Old Testament and canonical Gospels. A particularly popular motif found on textiles unearthed from Christian tombs in Egypt was the early life of the biblical patriarch Joseph, whose betrayal and enslavement are told across several scenes in a cyclical arrangement. The roundel segmentum in Figure 2 narrates (in an anti-clockwise manner, from the top-left) the story of Jacob sending Joseph to his brothers (Genesis 37:12-14); upon meeting them, Joseph is betrayed and thrown into a cistern at Reuben’s suggestion (Genesis 37:18-24); Joseph’s coat is torn and coated with animal blood, to fake his death to his father Jacob (Genesis 37:31); an Ishmaelite caravan arrives, and Joseph is retrieved from the cistern and sold into slavery (Genesis 37:27-28); Reuben weeps for Joseph at the cistern (Genesis 37:29-30); Joseph is led as a slave to Egypt by the caravan and is sold to the Pharoah’s captain of the guard, Potiphar (Genesis 37:36). In the centre, Joseph’s prophetic dreams are collapsed into a single scene, as both wheat sheafs (Genesis 37:5-8) with his brothers’ faces and the stars (Genesis 37: 9-11) bow before his sleeping body – the sources of his brothers’ envious hatred for him.

Fig. 3: Textile roundel depicting the Passion of Joseph, c. AD 600-700 (Louvre Museum, inv. no. E 10135).
The Joseph-type roundel was produced in different workshops according to the different personal styles and tastes of weavers, it seems, upon comparison with other fragments depicting a similar narrative. The roundel in Figure 3 depicts the same select moments of Genesis 37 as in Figure 2, but the weaver has made the stylistic decision to use different dyes and follow the scriptural account in clockwise narrative instead. Likewise, the roundel in Figure 4 reduces the number of individual scenes and figures represented in the scriptural account altogether. Across all of the roundels, however, it is interesting that the same scenes are selected for representation. There is no depiction of Jacob’s mourning of Joseph (Genesis 37:32-35) at all, and both Reuben’s lamentation at the empty cistern (Genesis 37:29-30) and Joseph’s enslavement (Genesis 37:28) are consistently represented after the bloodying of Joseph’s coat (Genesis 37:31). The choice seems intentional. As argued by Vasileios Marinis (2007), it is clear that a personal element is involved in the selection and depiction of biblical scenes on clothing, and this purposeful selection of Joseph’s experience of his passion speaks to something particularly meaningful in displaying the scriptural account this way.

Fig. 4: Textile roundel depicting the Passion of Joseph, c. AD 600-700 (State Hermiatage Museum, inv. no. ДВ-11176).
In any case, the significant number of surviving textile fragments depicting Joseph suggests that he was a popular figure for self-representation among wearers of ornamental textiles in late Roman Egypt. Among other things, it may have been because of his ‘coat of many colours’ (Genesis 37:3), from which the modern West End musical derives its name: wearing such a tunic may have been intended to be an imitation of the holy figure in some way. In biblical scripture, Joseph was a capable administrator of Egypt who brough prosperity to the land and its people (Genesis 41:41-47). Joseph was also a figure praised by Jews and Christians in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt for his consistent noble conduct (Philo of Alexandria, On Joseph 270) and for his introduction of agricultural technologies that brought abundance to Egypt (Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel 9.23 (PG 21:725)). Joseph was a pious and God-fearing man who had successfully handled worldly power without sacrificing his faith: representations of the patriarch Joseph may have indeed been an especially attractive idiom for the Christian officials of late Roman Egypt, as well as for the land-owning and mercantile urban elite, who sought to express their moral accomplishment and social standing through this identity elected from scripture.
This does not sufficiently explain, however, why it is Joseph’s passion that is represented on the textile roundels worn on tunics. Ancient commentators recognised the great virtue of Joseph during these trials. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (r. AD 397 - 404), praised the self-restraint (σωϕροσύνην) and courage (ἀνδρείαν) of Joseph, and remarked in an Antiochene homily on Genesis that he was eager “to excite those listening to the imitation of this dutiful man” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 44.6 (PG 54:412)). Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (r. AD 412 - 444), authored a commentary on Genesis, observing that Joseph’s passion uniquely prefigures aspects and events in the life and passion of Jesus Christ. He observed that Joseph’s ‘multi-coloured cloak’ (χιτῶνα ποικίλον) given to him by his father provoked the envy of his brothers and resulted in his betrayal; likewise, the ‘multi-formed glory’ (ποικιλότροπόν… δόξαν) of the Father rendered to the incarnate Son provoked the envy of the Pharisees, who then persecuted Christ (Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on Genesis 6.4 (PG 69:301)).
The depiction of Joseph may have indeed communicated a specific Christian identity local to Egypt. But it is not unlikely that these roundels themselves were produced with a similar Christological reading of Joseph’s passion in mind: the wearer may have personally identified with the life of a biblical figure who could both be likened to Christ in their suffering as well as be called an Egyptian. The unique medium of textile, too, is important for understanding this meaning: enveloping the body and limbs, textile clothing exerts agency upon the bodies by putting wearers in full sensory contact with the textile material and the Christian values represented upon it. Considering the Pauline metaphor for ‘clothing’ oneself in Christ as embracing a Christian lifestyle (Romans 13:14, Galatians 3:27), the use of the material appears all the more loaded with symbolic meaning. Joseph roundels played a part in enabling ancient Christians to physically sense the Christian symbols, figures, and scriptural accounts they so often reflected upon. They are an example of specific engagement with scripture by laymen in late Roman Egypt, and grant us a view of the materiality of Christianity for ordinary folk in the later Roman Empire.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Ammianus Marcellinus, History, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Loeb Classical Library 300 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950).
Eusebius of Caesarea, Oration in Praise of Constantine, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 20 (Paris, 1857-1886).
Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 21 (Paris, 1857-1886).
Procopius of Caesarea, Secret History, trans. H. B. Dewing, Loeb Classical Library 290 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935).
Strabo, Geography, Book 17, trans. H. L. Jones, Loeb Classical Library 267 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932).
Philo of Alexandria, On Joseph, trans. F. H. Colson, Loeb Classical Library 289 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935).
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 54 (Paris, 1857-1886).
Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on Genesis, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 69 (Paris, 1857-1886).
The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011 ed.).
Secondary Sources:
Kristensen, T. M. (2015) ‘Dressed in Myth: Mythology, Eschatology, and Performance on Late Antique Egyptian Textiles’ in Antike Mythologie in christlichen Kontexten der Spätantike, ed. H. Leppin (Berlin: De Gruyter) 263-296.
Lopez, R. S. (1945) ‘Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire’, Speculum 20 (1): 1-42.
Marinis, V. (2007) ‘Wearing the Bible: An Early Christian Tunic with New Testament Scenes’, Journal of Coptic Studies 9: 95-109.
Migne, J.-P. (1857-1886) Patrologia Graeca, 161 vols. (Paris).
Morgan, D. (2021) The Thing about Religion: An Introduction to the Material Study of Religions (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press).

This post was written by Cameron Heagney, a recent graduate from the taught MA in the Visual and Material Culture of the Ancient World. Cameron’s interests lie in the identity, community, and material culture of Christians in the ancient and early medieval world, which led him to produce his MA dissertation, titled: ‘Christianity from a Tunic: Coptic Textiles and Material Christianity in Late Antiquity’. He has most recently been working on the materiality of Christian worship in late Roman Egypt, and is beginning projects on the archaeology of the Eastern Roman world between AD 300 and 650.