Reviving a 700-Year-Old Heritage: A Lebanese Designer Transforms 13th Century Embroidery Patterns into a Digital Collection

Afaq News - Lebanese fashion designer and researcher Joe Shleita published a series of images of historical embroidery patterns on his official Instagram account, revealing a project aimed at digitizing nine embroidery patterns that have survived through time and transforming them, for the first time, into a complete digital collection. Shleita explained that each design includes a high-resolution image of the original pattern after restoration, a professional digital embroidery plan, along with ready-to-use SVG files for embroidery, study, preservation, or use in creative projects.

Shleita said, in an interview with Afaq News in Arabic: "Through the digitization of the embroidery patterns of the Maronite mummies, I wanted to preserve not only the engravings themselves but also the knowledge, craftsmanship, and identity they embody, ensuring the continuity of these patterns that date back 700 years through education, scientific research, and future generations." The owner of the Lebanese Fashion History page added that the project came after two years of research and documentation when he realized that these patterns should not remain confined to studies and museums, but should be transformed into digital designs that allow researchers, artisans, and interested parties to reuse and study them. Therefore, he redrew each engraving and converted it into digital embroidery plans, allowing for their re-execution and preservation for future generations.

The Lebanese designer did not stop at digitizing the patterns but also re-presented them visually in panels with colors he chose himself, giving each design a name inspired by the environment and the historical and religious symbolism it embodies, such as "Paradise of the Anointed" and "Cedar and Saints." These patterns date back to rare embroidery pieces discovered in 1990 inside the Aasi Hadath cave in the town of Hadath Jbeil in the Qadisha Valley in northern Lebanon, alongside Maronite mummies - according to the Maronite Christian sect - that wore them.

These garments are among the oldest embroidered fabrics found preserved in Lebanon and the Levant, dating back to the 13th century AD, which is over 700 years ago. Shleita confirmed that the project's goal goes beyond preserving these engravings; it aims to re-establish his country's position on the historical map of embroidery in the region.