Tuesday, 9 April 2013

A Short History of Underwear: Part 1 – The Ancients


A Short History of Underwear: Part 1 – The Ancients

UnderwearWe (almost!) all wear it in one form or another. Briefs or Boxers, Trunks or Jockstraps, Panties of various kinds – the choices are wide and varied and what we individually wear depends upon our own style, comfort and, in many cases, preferences ingrained during our childhoods.  It’s not, however – especially if you are a man – something to which we tend to give a lot of thought. A little research, though, shows a history of the evolution of the humble undies that is quite fascinating and, at times, surprising.

In primitive times, when our ancestors usually roamed their world naked, the first nod to any kind of “underwear” was purely for protection – a hollowed, dried out gourd – basically a penile shaft - that was worn to protect the man’s genital area. Since then, men’s underwear has changed enormously   –   yet it remains a functional, at times protective item rather than the pointedly attractive covering that women’s underwear had evolved into (more on ladies undies another day).

Modern Native Men wearing Penile Sheath Gourds

Cavemen wore loincloths – these are documented in Ancient Egyptian tomb drawings and King Tutankhamun’s mummy wore a linen loincloth. Physical proof of loincloth wear was also noted upon the discovery of 3300 year old Otzi Man in the Swiss Alps:  his frozen corpse wore a leather loincloth under his cloak. Even medieval artists depict the Crucifixion with Jesus wearing a loincloth – whether he actually did we will never know for sure.


Ancient Ethiopian painting showing loincloth

The Ancient Greeks wore no underwear at all!

The Ancient Romans adopted longer underwear, similar to shorts or trunks,  to be worn with their short tunics, and eventually also under togas. Women, who still wore longer dresses, as such did not at this time tend to wear any “underwear”.

During the first millennium AD, the wearing of “underpants” became more commonplace – the nobility wore fitted breeches, which fell to anywhere below the knee, while the working class wore looser, baggy breeches. Both were usually made of linen. Peasants, however, were still known to wear linen loincloths (even, in some places,  up to the nineteenth century).

By the time Knights wearing armour were commonplace, underwear had a new purpose to serve: protection against the cold, hard metal. Padded loincloths came into vogue…

Next Week: Part 2: Medieval Undies



No comments:

Post a Comment