Archaeology is about more than rock-hard ruins of palaces and temples, royal mummies in remote tombs and obscure writing on clay tablets. Less durable remains, like fabrics of garments and home decorations that somehow survive time’s decay, can also be telling artifacts of early cultures.

One of their messages, it seems, is that dressing for success and putting on the Ritz are hardly new in the human experience.

Rare samplings of the motifs and materials of textiles in the Mediterranean world from the third through the seventh century A.D. reflect the wealth and social standing of the elite at the time of the Roman Empire’s greatest reach, and then its decline — a period known as Late Antiquity. Christianity was spreading through the region. “Barbarians” from the north menaced outer borders and Rome itself.

In time, an expanding Arab culture introduced Islam across the Middle East.

In recent studies, art historians and other researchers have recognized more clearly elements of continuity and only gradual change in how the wealthy elite in these lands, and their wannabes, used dress to define and celebrate their place in society.