The first evidence of quilting dates back to approximately which years?

Quilting may have started with the pharaohs in Egypt with documented evidence of the history of quilting dating back as far as 3400 BC. Quilting involves the stitching together of layers of padding and fabric.

In Europe, quilting appears to have been introduced by Crusaders in the 12th century in the form of the aketon or gambeson, a quilted garment worn under armor that later developed into the doublet, a snug-fitting jacket made to the person's body. This attire remained fashionable men's clothing for 300 years until the early 1600s.

One of the earliest quilting works made around 1360 AD in Sicily is the Tristan Quilt, one of the earliest surviving quilts in the world with two sections surviving yet today, located at the V&A Museum In London, England and in the Bargello palace in Florence, Italy. This decorative quilt depicts the story of 'Tristan and Isolde', an influential romance and tragedy.

In Russia, the oldest surviving example of a quilted piece is a linen carpet found in a Mongolian cave, dated to between 100 BC and 200 AD. It is now kept at the Saint Petersburg department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Archeological Section.

In 1989, a quilt was rediscovered in Scotland that was made by 30 convict women as they were transported from Woolwich, England to Hobart, Tasmania in 1841. Today, the National Gallery of Australia has this quilt, a 3-by-3 meter (9.8 by 9.8 feet) quilt known as the Rajah Quilt.