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

The fragment Pl. 11 : 1 is from one end of another loin-cloth; the material is quite
the same as in the preceding one, and so is the technique. When complete these
fringes must have reached to the knees.

The chief article of the apparel was the big mantle, woven of heavy woollen
stuff. No. 5. A : 1 is the only complete specimen that was brought away. They were
large enough to protect the whole of a man's body.
In Pl. 13 : 5 is shown a sample of a mantle of good quality, neatly woven of soft
material, much superior to the ordinary ones. It is light yellow with a bright red
ribbon stitched on to it afterwards.
Ördek told us that on the first tour of exploitation to this place some of his com-
panions found some of these mantles in such an excellent state of preservation that
they used them as horse-cloths. It might be recorded here, too, that the ox-hides
covering coffin 5. A were so little ravaged by time that they aroused the greed of
one of our Turkish diggers, who wanted to take them for making boots. I mention
this incident to emphasize the state of preservation of perishable articles, which
can only be due to the extraordinary aridity of the climate. It also corroborates the
supposition that the corpses owe their mummification more to natural conditions
than to artificial treatment.

The last article of dress is the shoes or low boots made of ox-hide after a very
primitive model. Except on the soles the hair was turned inside. On the toes or on
the front of the instep there are traces of small feathers and red woollen threads
serving as decoration.
The outline of the footgear recalls the low Scythian boots, as far as their shape
can be judged from the vase-pictures from the Kul Oba kurghan, Fig. 31.
If the head-dress, mantle, loin-cloth and shoes do actually constitute the entire
dress, it is rather a primitive one. Considering the severe winter climate prevail-
ing in the Lop desert with temperatures down to —32° C, and the terribly violent
north-east storms, this dress seems very inadequate. It is very likely of course that
the people used some kind of furs in the cold season, though nothing of that sort
has been buried with the dead in the tombs.
One cannot fail to notice a general resemblance between the dress of this Lou-
lan people and that of the inhabitants of the Danish Isles in the early Bronze Age,
though there are of course no direct connections. These similarities are especially
observable in the fringed loin-cloths as far as regards their general features. The
technique is quite different. It is worth observing that the large skirt with which
the Borum-Eshøj lady was provided has lately proved to be impossible to wear as
a skirt owing to its size.
The natives of Tangir in the border country between present-day India and East-
ern Turkistan still wear a sort of coarse mantle which must be of the same simple

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