Archaeological Costume; Bronze Age; Experimental Reconstruction; Radiocarbon Date; Textile Art;

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85122406672&doi=10.1016%2fj.ara.2021.100344&partnerID=40&md5=81b075fabbdf6927f7d540c2846341b2

10.1016/j.ara.2021.100344

Ancient knowledge of the textile arts production and weaving techniques belong to the world's intangible cultural heritage and shape the appearance of most people worldwide when used for clothing. However, their ancient roots can be seldom studied because archaeological textiles and looms on which they were produced decay in most environments without trace. This article presents technical details of fabric and finishing techniques of eight wool garments of a horseman buried ca. 1200–1000 BCE at Yanghai, located in the Turfan oasis in Northwest China. They show an unprecedented diversity and a free combination of three weaving techniques and one type of weft twining supplemented by at least three different braiding methods to finish and fasten the clothes. All techniques were validated by reproduction. The most complex piece of the costume, the man's trousers, known as one of the oldest preserved to date, was made with four different textile techniques on one device, two of them are new discoveries and termed “Yanghai dovetailed twill tapestry” and “Yanghai weft twining”. The studied textiles are local products showing advancements of wool technologies developed in the southern (tapestry) and northern (twill) parts of West Asia, which were transferred and further refined by wool-workers via as yet unknown areas in central and northern Eurasia. A specific inclined T-hook pattern zone at the trousers' knees finds close correspondence with patterns on ritual bronze vessels of the late Shang dynasty in the Chinese Central Plains, ca. 1300–1100 BCE, and on pottery of the Andronovo-Federovo archaeological complex in southwest Siberia and Central Asia, ca. 1800–1000 BCE. Since the appearance of this pattern in Northwest and Central China coincides with the arrival of domesticated horses and associated technologies, the horse breeders likely were the mediators. The stepped pyramid or merlon pattern might refer to architectural features of Eastern Iran and the middle Bronze Age Oxus civilisation. To verify the possible connections, however, is subject to future studies.