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0318 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 318 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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a ±

492   SING-IRANICA

and the latter a fine textile. In the Glossary of the 'rang Annals the

word tie is explained as "fine hair"   and "hair cloth" V; these
terms indeed refer to cotton stuffs, but simultaneously hint at the fact that the real nature of cotton was not yet generally known to the Chinese of the 'rang period. In the Kwan yü ki, po-tie is named as a product of Turfan; the threads, it is said, are derived from wild silkworms, and resemble fine hemp.

Russian altabds (" gold or silver brocade," "Persian brocade": DALE), Polish altembas, and French altobas, in my opinion, are nothing but reproductions of Arabic-Persian al-dib~zd, discussed above. The explanation from Italian alto-basso is a jocular popular etymology; and the derivation from Turkish altun (" gold") and b'az (" textile")' is likewise a failure. The fact that textiles of this description were subsequently manufactured in Europe has nothing to do, nor does it conflict, with the derivation of the name which Inostrantsev wrongly seeks in Europe.2 In the seventeenth century the Russians received altabds from the Greeks; and Ibn Rosteh, who wrote about A.D. 903, speaks then of Greek dibâdi.3 According to Makkari, dibâdi were manufactured by the Arabs in Almeria, Spain,4 the centre of the Arabic silk industry.'

7o. At   t`a-ten, *dap (= #1)6-dan (= A), tap-tan, woollen rugs.
The name of this textile occurs in the Wei lio of the third century A.D. as a product of the anterior Orient (Ta Ts`in),' and in the Han Annals

for cotton (VIAL, Dictionnaire français lo-lo, p. 97). Likewise it is sa-la in Ptu-pta, sö-lö in Cô-ko (Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. IX, p. 554). In the same manner I believe that *ku-thon was the name of the same or a similar tree in the language of the aborigines of Kwei-éou. Compare Lepcha ka-cuk ki kun ("cotton-tree"), Sin-pro ga-dun (" cotton-tree"), given by J. F. NEEDHAM (Outline Grammar of the Singpho Language, p. 9o, Shillong, 1889), and Meo coa (" cotton"), indicated by M. L. PIERLOT (Vocabulaire méo, Actes du XIVe Congrès int. des Orientalistes Alger 1905, pt. I, p. 150).

1 Proposed by SAVEL'EV in Erman's Archiv, Vol. VII, 1848, p. 228.

2 K. INOSTRANTSEV, Iz istorii starinnyx tkanei (Zapiski Oriental Section Russian Archaeol. Soc., Vol. XIII, 1901, pp. 081-084).

3 G. JACOB, Handelsartikel, p. 7; Waren beim arabisch-nordischen Verkehr, p. 16.

A G. MIGEON, Manuel d'art musulman, Vol. II, p. 420.

6 DEFREMERY, Journal asiatique, 1854, p. 168; FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, Recherches sur le commerce, la fabrication et l'usage des étoffes de soie, d'or et d'argent, Vol. I, pp. 232, 284-290 (Paris, 1852).

; that is

6 The fan ts`ie is a, *du-kiap= d'iap (Yi ts`ie kin yin i, Ch. 19, p. 9 b),

or   *du-hap = dap (Hou Han Su, Ch. 118, p. 5 b).

7 F. HIRTH, China and the Roman Orient, pp. 71, 112, 113, 255. T`a-ten of five and nine colors are specified.