Lady in wool and silk: 2000-year-old fashion from the Niya River oasis in the southern Tarim Basin, China

Abstract

Wool and silk are regarded as hallmarks of distinctly separate climates and environments, textile and tailoring crafts, social status and fashion regions. Wool was the domestic material for clothing in the Tarim Basin when silk became widely available some 2000 years ago. The multi-layered garment of a young woman discovered by a Sino-Japanese team in 1995 in tomb 95MN1M5 at the Niya site consists of both materials and shows an astonishing variety of textile and garment construction techniques. The outfit was thoroughly analysed and the results were validated by reproducing the entire costume, consisting of a robe, tunic dress, wrap skirt, blouse, loose trousers gathered round the ankle (bloomers), socks, shoes, and a girdle. These items represent three sets of garments belonging to different vestment traditions. The trouser-tunic suit resembles Parthian fashion, comparable to the pictorial art in Dura Europos, Palmyra and Noyon Uul (Noin-ula). The silk robe is reminiscent of Han fashion comparable to finds from Mawangdui (Hunan) and Mashan (Hubei), but with the addition of a wool fleece padded ruffle at the hem to change the silhouette from a tight fit to a loose conical shape. The blouse-skirt suit resembles local wool fashion from the Tarim Basin, but in silk. Insets of multicoloured floral tapestry bands framed by colour shading in the trousers and shoes belong to a family of closely related textile designs that were highly valued between the Mediterranean and Central Asia in the 1st–4th centuries CE. Direct radiocarbon dating places the burial between 60 and 130 CE, during the ‘First Silk Road Era’. Despite the seemingly archaic nature of the burial, in a tree trunk and wrapped in a felt blanket, the young woman's outfit is evidence of the most skilful recombination of elements from different fashion traditions to create something new, at once cosmopolitan, local and individual.