Sinai embrodery
Since ancient times, women in Sinai have been interested in embroidering their dresses and headscarves with decorative units and special colors that express the environment and highlight many cultural symbols and connotations. The Sinai women’s dress stands out as a piece of art and a reflection of traditional culture at the same time. The decorative units, with their bright shapes and colors, reflect special symbols. Each tribe has its own specific decorative units and motifs through which it declares its identity and social status, moreover, declares whether she is a married woman or a girl as well as her age. The decorative units and motifs are known and circulated with names familiar to the members of the Sinai society, such as “the unit of the clock”, “the unit of the lemon” and “the sycamore tree. Women were also inspired by nature and its elements in embroidery to show the deer and birds as motifs on their dresses. Women transfer the skills and knowledge of embroidery to their daughters so that the element continues alive and expresses the local community’s culture. Women use embroidery to decorate their headscarves and burqas, “face coverings”, as well as veils that they believe protect them, their children, and their beauty from envy and the evil eye as well as from the heat and sand of the desert, with motifs that reflect the beauty and uniqueness that characterize the culture of the Sinai desert. The plant and environmental elements and the colors that are available in their surroundings are the main characters of Sinai embroideries so the used colors usually are the degrees of dates from yellow to red with all its degrees with a local name for each color.