Secrets of the Silk Road notebooks

[hrj]

New item

Teaser image: this is a miniature garment. When I saw some items similar to this in Von China nach Byzanz (Ierusalimskaja, Anna A. & Birgitt Borkopp. 1996. Von China nach Byzanz: Frühmittelalterliche Seiden aus der Staatlichen Ermitage Sankt Petersburg. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum un der Staatlichen Ermitage, München. ISBN 3-92505-33-8), I assumed they were doll clothing, but the exhibit notes on this and another miniature that I'll be posting later indicate that they are symbolic funerary garments -- possessions for the afterlife.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting--except for how the brown ties are attached, it is superficially similar to Korean garments (Chosŏn dynasty, so quite a bit later). My one reference point is Kumja Paik Kim and Huh Dong-hwa, eds. (1995), Profusion of Color: Korean Costumes & Wrapping Cloths of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Seoul: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and The Museum of Korean Embroidery).
--skg

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Some day my website will get a version of my "garment construction genealogies" analysis that looks at the various basic strategies in how to make clothing. The construction here falls in the style I'd describe as "front-opening non-overlapping robe, no gussets, simple continuous collar/facing". Except for the addition of the collar/facing, it's about the most basic front-opening robe treatment you'll find, so it would not be surprising if it shows up independently in a wide variety of cultures. Some construction strategies do seem to be distributed based on a single-source-and-dispersion pattern (based on where and when they appears) while others seem to have been invented multiple times. This particular type shows up so early that it's hard to tell.

[(Anonymous)]

*nods* I don't mean to suggest that I think the two are necessarily related. :) What struck me is sleeve/shoulder in particular. Anyhow--thanks for posting your notes! --skg