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 motifs on his official Instagram account, revealing a project aimed at digitizing nine embroidery motifs 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 motif after restoration, a professional digital embroidery pattern, 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 motifs of the Maronite mummies, I wanted to preserve not only the motifs themselves but also the knowledge, craftsmanship, and identity they embody, and to ensure the continuity of these motifs 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 motifs should not remain confined to studies and museums, but should be transformed into digital designs that allow researchers, artisans, and enthusiasts to reuse and study them. Therefore, he redrew each motif and converted it into digital embroidery patterns, allowing for their re-execution and preservation for future generations.

The Lebanese designer did not stop at digitizing the motifs but also re-presented them visually within panels in 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 motifs date back to rare embroidery pieces discovered in 1990 inside the Aasi al-Hadath cave in the town of Hadath al-Jebbeh 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 motifs, aiming to re-establish his country's position on the map of embroidery history in the region.