National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

the whole of China. It is therefore scarcely surprising that it remains quite unique as to style and cut.

Miss SYLWAN has reconstructed the whole garment, and without the aid of her deep knowledge and understanding of textile matters I should never have been able to clear up the different fragmentary elements of this puzzling dress and combine them to form something like a complete garment. What has come out of it is therefore totally due to Miss SYLWAN'S untiring labour. She has tentatively characterized it as of non-Chinese style though the fabric it is sewn of is of Chinese origin.

None of the plentiful Chinese grave sculptures of clay or the larger stone sculptures show any dresses cut to the same model as ours, and a search for an Indian parallel is equally unsuccessful. Some general resemblances are of course to be found, both with Chinese and Indian-influenced and Iranian specimens. Let us hope that Miss SYLWAN will be able to determine the homeland of this type of dress in her coming investigation of the silk materials from Lop-nor and Edsengol, collected by me during SVEN HEDIN'S expeditions.

A round pouch or small bag of undyed silk taffeta, Pl. 16 : 4, was carried at the right side of the waist. The loose bands seen on the plate, besides serving as an attachment, were also decorative, as they are tied in artful knots. The red ribbon encircling the pouch had gold ornaments glued on to it.

Near the waist the rusty iron mirror Pl. 16 : 6 was found, with its cover of red silk bordered by a beige-coloured ribbon with a pattern of squares, and once carrying a row of small attached gold spots.

This technique of glueing small pieces of hammered gold on to soft material is, according to Miss SYLWAN, probably Chinese.

A small embossed bronze plate, Pl. 17: 3, certainly adorned the garment too. STEIN found identical gilded plates near Lou-lan (Stein 1928, Pl. XXVI, L. C.

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The wooden spindle-whorl still sticking on its peg, which has a small perforation near the upper end, also belongs to the outfit of this lady, P1. 16: 8.

Round the neck she wore a simple necklace of strings with a few small white beads of stone or shell, and some of gilt glass in the front. Unfortunately this necklace was lost in the transit from the cemetery to the camp and could not be recovered. From Cemetery 5, however, we have a somewhat similar one (5. K: 2). The white beads were of the type shown on P1. 15 : 15 and the glass beads of an oblong shape. The latter are no doubt of Western origin. Similar ones have been found in the Lou-lan station.

Among the remains of the garment was found the doll's dress Pl. 17: I, 2, 4, 5, consisting of a coat, two shirts and a pair of shorts. There was, however, no doll. In spite of this it is highly probable that the doll's garment was placed in the grave as an expression of the same belief that caused the felt doll to be placed in Grave io and the rag doll in Grave 36 (cf. pp. 56 and 137).

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