The History of Underwear… From Loincloth to Thongs
It has long been believed that the first known underwear dates back about 7000 years when prehistoric man used leather to cover and protect his loins while running prehistoric errands. Otzi the Iceman, a glacier mummy that had been preserved in ice for 5300 years, had the first sign of underwear documented. It was a goatskin loincloth, triangular shaped that fastened at the hips.
He was discovered in 1991 amidst sheets of melting ice on the Tisenjoch pass of the Similaun glacier in the Tyrolean Alps. This was on the border between Italy and Austria, at an altitude of 3,200 meters above sea level.
The clothes he wore and the equipment he carried were unique. This mummy is still invaluable for archaeology as well as for medical science, genetics, biology, and many other disciplines because the Iceman was not the subject of a burial. Today, in 2022, his remains are located in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.
Pharaoh Tutankhamun was entombed with 145 spare loincloths to use in his afterlife -1,500 years ago in the Bronze Age of Egypt.
Loincloths were known as a schenti, they were made from woven materials, commonly cotton, and flax, and often kept in place with a belt. The slaves and lower classes of men were almost naked, so technically this loincloth was often “outerwear”.
