Figure 1.--This is a limestone statuette from the 5th Dynasty, Old Kingdom, about 2465-2323 BC. It comes from the Saqqara necropolis. It appears to depict a young slave serving as sandal-bearer for a highstatus individual, perhaps pharoah.

We are not entirely sure what garments children wore. Presumably they would be the same as worn by their parents, perhaps smaller versions. But as children are commonly depicted naked, this is a little difficult to confirm. Boys when clothed might wear little kilts or even and sometimes tunic-style shirts perhaps in cool weather. Older girls might wear ankle-length, sheath dresses like their mothers. We suspect that because the wearing of clothing by children was significantly affected by seasonal factors that cold weather garments like cloaks would have been worn. Early Egyptian society was very insular. The deserts on all sides cut down on contacts with other societies. As contacts expanded, there were fashion impacts to contact with other societies. We do not see basic garments changing (except footwear), but we do do see changes in decoration and cut of the basic garments. Footwear was sandals, but few children wore them. Tomb paintings show the peasantry barefoot and this would have been the vast majority of the population. And there is very little evidence that even elite figures wore footwear in early Egypt (based on tomb paintings and other artistic artifacts. The statuette here is a rare example of a depiction of footwear before 500 BC(fifure 1). This began to change (about 1500 BC). We see the wealthy and royal/aristocratic figures wearing sandals made woven from reeds or leather. As far as we can tell, the peasantry still went barefoot as well as most all children.