Why was this tunic ornament made, and how was it used?
Egyptian tunics normally were made from linen or wool, and took a number of forms. The simplest, known variously as a kolobion or lebiton, had no sleeves and looked something like a cross between a modern-day t-shirt and tank top. It appears to have been standard apparel for laborers as well as monks, was woven in one piece, and featured only rudimentary (if any) decoration. Tunics with long loose-fitting sleeves (known as a dalmatikon) or long tight ones (known as a sticharion), normally sewn together from multiple pieces of cloth, were worn by both men and women. A rare surviving example of such a garment, now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, can be seen here. These tunics often were decorated with colored fabric bands known as clavi, geometric designs, or small decorative panels added to the front of the tunic, just above the waist, on the left and right side. The panels often featured stylized images of people—famous ones, like Achilles or a popular saint, or anonymous ones, like the men hunting lions on our object. Images of lions, and the lion hunt in particular, were central elements of Sasanian Persian artistic style, part of a "visual lingua franca found dispersed from Japan to Europe" during the Late Antique era. Such scenes were represented on garments as well as on wall hangings like the one seen here, produced in Egypt a few centuries later. In addition to its subject's symbolic association with characteristics such as strength, courage, virility, and rulership, therefore, this tunic ornament also indicated the wearer's participation in a cosmopolitan network of trade, style, and meaning linking Egypt to the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.
