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The ornamental trousers from Sampula (Xinjiang, China): their origins and biography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Mayke Wagner ,
Wang Bo ,
Pavel Tarasov ,
Sidsel Maria Westh-Hansen ,
Elisabeth Völling  and
Jonas Heller
Mayke Wagner*
Affiliation:
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Eurasien-Abteilung, Im Dol 2–6 Haus 2, 14195 Berlin, Germany (Email: mw@eurasien.dainst.de)
Wang Bo
Affiliation:
Museum of the Autonomous Region of the Uygur Xinjiang, 132 Xibei Road, 830000 Ürümqi, P.R. China
Pavel Tarasov
Affiliation:
Museum of the Autonomous Region of the Uygur Xinjiang, 132 Xibei Road, 830000 Ürümqi, P.R. China
Sidsel Maria Westh-Hansen
Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, byg. 1414, Afdeling for Klassisk Arkæologi, 8000 Århus C, Denmark
Elisabeth Völling
Affiliation:
Universität Würzburg, Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, Lehrstuhl für Klassische Archäologie, Residenzplatz 2 A, 97070 Würzburg, Germany
Jonas Heller
Affiliation:
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Eurasien-Abteilung, Im Dol 2–6 Haus 2, 14195 Berlin, Germany (Email: mw@eurasien.dainst.de)
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Abstract

A decorated pair of trousers excavated from a well-preserved tomb in the Tarim Basin proved to have a highly informative life history, teased out by the authors – with archaeological, historical and art historical dexterity. Probably created under Greek influence in a Bactrian palace, the textile started life in the third/second century BC as an ornamental wall hanging, showing a centaur blowing a war-trumpet and a nearly life-size warrior of the steppe with his spear. The palace was raided by nomads, one of whom worked a piece of the tapestry into a pair of trousers. They brought no great luck to the wearer who ended his days in a massacre by the Xiongnu, probably in the first century BC. The biography of this garment gives a vivid glimpse of the dynamic life of Central Asia at the end of the first millennium.

Keywords

ChinaTarimXinjiangIron AgeGreekMacedoniantextileswall hangingtrouserscentaurXiongnu
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 322 , December 2009 , pp. 1065 - 1075
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

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