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0066 Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang : vol.1
Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang : vol.1 / Page 66 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

Captions

[Figure] 7 High boot worm by a "Tokharian" on a fresco painting from Bezeklik. (v. Le Coq: Chotscho, Pl, 22.)

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doi: 10.20676/00000195
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The body was that of an old man measuring only 1.48 m. It was mummified; only a part of the skull had lost its skin. On the left side of the back of the head a tuft of grey hair was twisted into a knot behind the ear. The incisors were much worn, the lower molars were missing, and in the upper jaw there were thirteen teeth in all. The skull was rather small, and seemed to be dolichocephalic.

The mummy was dressed in a long coat of yellow-brown undyed

   Fig. 7. High   silk of the same twill weave all over, and lined with coarse cotton

   boot worn by a   fabric in tabby weave. The overlapping front part was laid to the left,

   on   Y   PP g   P   >

   a fresco paint-   though it was made to be fastened with a ribbon on the right side

ing from Be-

   zeklik. (v. Le   below the sleeve. The long sleeves reached down over the hands. On

   Coq Pl. 22) cho,   the left side there is an open slit fram the lower edge to the waist. For

details see the drawing Fig. 6.

The trousers were of sheepskin, the wool turned inside, reaching a little below the knees, and having a string running through cut openings round the waist. He wore no shirt.

The foot-gear consisted of high leather boots and felt socks. The boots, Pl. 6: 3,

are heelless, with pointed toe, and made to fit either foot. The boot-Iegs are high in the front, where there is a strap which has been used to tie them to the knee and thus keep them in place. At the middle of either side a vertical seam runs from top to sole, a detail not found in modern boots but used in mediaeval times and occurring on the Bezeklik frescos as worn by Tokharians and Persians (?) Fig. 7; they are also fastened with a cord or strap in front (Le Coq 1913 Pl. 33 and 38 b show the same construction). A painted panel from a house in Dandan-öilik shows a man in Persian dress with boots of similar cut (Stein 1907, Pl. LXI). The long vertical seam is found on a Russian boot from the 16th century (Fornvännen 1931, Fig. 23), on a relatively modern Bokharian boot with high heel (Olufsen, p. 473), and on Yakut boots (Jochelson, Fig. 4o a—b).

Near the left knee was attached a triangular piece of brown felt on one side of

which were fastened the bones of a sheep's foreleg, apparently a little charred. The felt is shaped to imitate the flesh of the foreleg, Pl. 6: 2, and the whole object is no doubt meant to represent provisions for the dead man. Two vertebrae of a fish were also found.

Immediately below the right hip, and under the coat, the felt doll Pl. 6 : I was

fastened with the strings still attached to its waist. The doll probably had its features painted on the piece of light stuff that is sewn to the front of its head. It no doubt represents a woman, and was presented to the dead man as a symbol of a feminine companion. For similar phenomena cf. pp. 110 and 137.

We have very few clues by which to date this burial. One of the Miran graves has exactly the same kind of coffin, Fig. 52, but this circumstance is of no real significance. To date it within the same chronological limits as the other Lop-nor

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