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

of the scrolls surrounding the different kinds of beast representations, all of a
feline nature, point to later Han. To the stylistic parallels between these scrolls
and those on Han tomb sculptures that Andrews has pointed out we may now add
the fresco scrolls from a brick tomb of the later Han dynasty at Ying-ch'eng-tzu,
South Manchuria (Mori & Naito, Pl. XXXVI a and XLIII). A close resemblance
is also furnished by a tomb relief from Lü-tsun, south of Kia-hiang in Shantung,
especially as regards the fierce-looking slender-bodied quadrupeds in a surgent mo-
vement competing with the waves of the scrolls (Laufer 1911, Pl. IX. The left-
hand animal on this relief is executed in a position nearly identical with that of the
third from the right on our textile, as seen on Stein's complete specimen). It is rather
a coincidence that this tomb sculpture comes from Shantung. We know that a part
of the plain silk which China exported westwards was manufactured in Shantung,
a province which still ranks among the foremost silk producing parts of China. It
almost lies within the range of probability that the polychrome silk under con-
sideration is a Shantung product too.
The whole composition with animal figures interwoven between flowing scroll
bands is also known from lacquer work and inlaid bronzes of the Han period, the
beautiful bronze tube in the C. T. Loo collection (Rostovtzeff 1927, Pl. II) form-
ing the closest analogy.
On Pl. 22 are collected small silk bags or pouches with pleasant colours. Three of
them are made of old embroideries executed in chain-stitch. Apparently they have
formed part of ladies' outfits. One of them contained a diminutive leather bag with
a white powder. A chemical analysis undertaken by Mr. Hj. Ljungh has proved this
powder to consist of white lead. This lucky find shows that the ladies even of this
desolate Chinese outpost knew how to embellish their oriental features by the use of
face powder. In Wang Hsü's tomb at Lo-lang in Korea both a powder brush, pul-
verized talc and white powder were met with, the latter consisting of native car-
bonate of lead (Harada pp. 33 f). The chemical composition of the powder used in
Lou-lan and Lo-lang is thus the same. This indicates that white lead was the material
commonly used for face powder in China at the end of the Han dynasty. Already
before any actual specimen had been found Laufer has stated from literary evidence
that making face powder of white lead is a thoroughly Chinese practice and not an
importation from some tribe outside the frontiers as had previously been suggest-
ed. (Laufer 1919, p. 201).
The bags Pl. 22: 4 and 5 are partly cut from embroideries with very similar
pattern of S- and C-shaped figures, and they may also be compared with the square
embroidery Pl. 22: 3 from the single grave nearby. A part of the bag Pl. 22: 5 is
made from another embroidery with a larger pattern, and the bottom is of a third
piece.
The largest bag, Pl. 22: 1, is moss-green, also sewn together from several pieces
taken from one embroidered damask patterned in warp-rib. The embroidered pat-

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