In the book of Exodus, the various coverings, hangings, and priestly vestments used in the Tabernacle are to be made of wool, linen, goat hair, or animal hide, but the Hebrew Bible likely makes no mention of cotton. Yet researchers recently discovered fibers they believe date to the fifth millennium BCE at the site of an ancient Jordan Valley settlement known as Tel Tsaf. Melanie Lidman writes:
The newly uncovered microscopic remains of cotton fibers join an array of other preserved prehistoric organic materials found at the site: over the past several years of excavation, Tel Tsaf, located near Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, has provided a wealth of discoveries, including the earliest example of social beer drinking and ritual food storage.
Textiles made from organic materials break down with time, so few examples are available for archaeologists to study. However, even after a textile has disintegrated with time, the remains of the fibers may still be present in the surrounding sediment. New technologies are offering archaeologists unprecedented ways to study the microscopic amounts of organic remains, including understanding the remains in such detail as to determine whether or not the fibers were woven.
The discovery of cotton-fiber remains at Tel Tsaf is the oldest evidence of the use of cotton in the Near East. The cotton is likely to have come from the Indus region, now modern-day Pakistan, which was the only area of the world that had started to domesticate cotton during this period. . . . The Pakistani cotton joins a large number of discoveries in Tel Tsaf stretching across the ancient world, highlighting the town’s importance as a global trading hub.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/7000-year-old-fibers-in-jordan-valley-oldest-known-evidence-of-cotton-in-near-east/