sayia

Inv. No. EE 4326: Female, festive sayia from Karpasia, made of thick cotton thread worked on the doulappin (spinning wheel). The garment is adorned with whitework embroidery and threaded beads. It was worn over a chemise. The back and front parts consist of a single straight fabric panel, seamless at the shoulders. At the front, a vertical slit extends all the way down. A deep opening is also formed at the bust, leaving a large part of the chest uncovered. Just below the chest, the sayia closes with six knitted loops, which corresponded to now missing buttons. A little lower an additional oblique piece of fabric is sewn on each side, widening downwards. Adding these gores served the cross-over fastening of the garment at the front. Two gores have also been added to the sides, where slit openings 34 cm. high allow ease of movement. A small patch of thin cotton cloth has been added at the end of one of these openings. The long and narrow sleeves, sewn vertically to the shoulders, have two additional triangular pieces joined diagonally below the armpit to facilitate movement. The two sleeves have a bottom opening measuring 22 and 23 cm., respectively, while in their entire length they are lined with white cotton fabric. The back part below the neck is also lined with white cotton fabric; the same applies for the part surrounding the chest opening, which is embellished with whitework embroidery in delicate scrolls or zigzag patterns, enriched with threaded red and green petroues (beads). The same embroidery covers the seams of the sleeves at the shoulders and, in a thinner band, the shistres of the sayia, namely the side openings. Threaded beads are also employed at the opening of the sleeves. Particularly interesting is the embroidery at the back of the hem: three narrow embroidered bands with threaded beads are defined by lourouthkia (thin stripes) of siettarin-coloured (light brown) thread. Two more brown stripes, 0.05 m. wide, border the decoration of the fringe. In her description of Karpasia embroideries, Angeliki Pieridou also mentions dress decoration: “The same embroideries with beads also adorned women’s clothes, white sayies. They were woven using the thick cotton thread worked on the doulappi, and the embroidery, which was usually arched, was limited to the edges, which were easy to embroider on the loom. The embroidery on the chest, the sleeves and the side openings was needlework with threaded beads for [further] decoration" (Pieridou 1980, 28). See a similar sayia in: Ohnefalsch-Richter 1994, table 65: 2; Papademetriou 2000, 110 cat. 1. Length of the sayia: 113cm. Length of sleeves: 58 cm. It belonged to Angeliki Pieridou and was donated to the Benaki Museum by George and Marina Pieridou in 1981.