Tocharian clothing refers to clothing worn by the Tocharians. A series of murals from Kizil, Kizilgaha and Kumtura caves depicting Kuchean royalties, knights, swordsmen and donors have provided the best source of information on Tocharian costume. Their clothes were made of colourful, richly patterned fabric; a single- or double-lapel, belted caftan was very popular. This type of clothing was referred to as East Sassanid costume (ostsassanidischer Tracht) by Albert von Le Coq. [1] However, Mariachiara Gasparini argued that the style was under various influences, which can not be easily categorised as being strictly "Sasanian". [2]
According to Mariachiara Gasparini: [3]
The so-called Tocharian donors portrayed in the Kucha caves wear outfits that are commonly recognized as "Iranian". Nonetheless, their clothing's tailoring patterns and textiles present local adaptations of imported materials and styles, which have been often confused as "Sasanian". Except for the article on Queen Svayaṃprabhā's dress by Jorinde Ebert ("The Dress of Queen Svayamprabha from Kuča, Sasanian and Other Influences in the Robes of Royal Donors Depicted in Wall Paintings of the Tarim Basin", Riggisberger Berichte 9, 2006), who has provided some insights on the topic, to date, a systematic study on Tocharian clothing has not yet been published. The single- or double-lapel robes worn respectively by the sword-bearers and other upper-class people depicted in the caves are similar to Turkic models widely used in Central Asia at the time. Nonetheless, the royal female and male outfits seem to be local creations.
Plaid textiles recovered from the Taklamakan Desert are of similar appearance to and are made with similar weaving techniques as textiles discovered at the Celtic sites of Hallstatt and Hallein. [4]
A draped garment is a garment that is made of a single piece of cloth that is draped around the body; drapes are not cut away or stitched as in a tailored garment. Drapes can be held to the body by means of knotting, pinning, fibulae, clasps, sashes, belts, tying drawstrings, or just plain friction and gravity alone. Many draped garments consist of only one single piece.
The Tocharians, or Tokharians, were speakers of Tocharian languages, Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from around 400 to 1200 AD, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin . The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi, who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC. This identification is generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers. Their actual ethnic name is unknown, although they may have referred to themselves as Agni, Kuči, and Krorän, or Agniya, Kuchiya as known from Sanskrit texts.
The Hephthalites, sometimes called the White Huns, were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE, part of the larger group of the Iranian Huns. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of Tokharistan, under the suzerainty of the Western Turks and of the Sasanian Empire, before the Tokhara Yabghus took over in 625.
A kaftan or caftan is a variant of the robe or tunic. Originating in Asia, it has been worn by a number of cultures around the world for thousands of years. In Russian usage, kaftan instead refers to a style of men's long suit with tight sleeves.
Kucha, or Kuche, was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of what is now the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin and south of the Muzat River.
The Kizil Caves are a set of Buddhist rock-cut caves located near Kizil Township in Baicheng County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. The site is located on the northern bank of the Muzat River 65 kilometres west of Kucha. This area was a commercial hub of the Silk Road. The caves have an important role in Central Asian art and in the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, and are said to be the earliest major Buddhist cave complex in China, with development occurring between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The caves of Kizil are the earlier of their type in China, and their model was later adopted in the construction of Buddhist caves further east. Another name for the site has been Ming-oi, although this term is now mainly used for the site of Shorchuk to the east.
Clothing terminology comprises the names of individual garments and classes of garments, as well as the specialized vocabularies of the trades that have designed, manufactured, marketed and sold clothing over hundreds of years.
The Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves is a complex of Buddhist cave grottos dating from the 5th to 14th century between the cities of Turpan and Shanshan (Loulan) at the north-east of the Taklamakan Desert near the ancient ruins of Gaochang in the Mutou Valley, a gorge in the Flaming Mountains, in the Xinjiang region of western China. They are high on the cliffs of the west Mutou Valley under the Flaming Mountains, and most of the surviving caves date from the West Uyghur kingdom around the 10th to 13th centuries.
Tokharistan is an ancient Early Middle Ages name given to the area which was known as Bactria in Ancient Greek sources.
Ottoman clothing or Ottoman fashion is the style and design of clothing worn during the Ottoman Empire.
The wrapper, lappa, or pagne is a colorful garment widely worn in West Africa by both men and women. It has formal and informal versions and varies from simple draped clothing to fully tailored ensembles. The formality of the wrapper depends on the fabric used to create or design it.
A chokha, also known as a cherkeska, is a woolen coat with a high neck that is part of the traditional male dress of peoples of the Caucasus. It was in wide use among Avars, Abazins, Abkhazians, Eastern Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Balkars, Chechens, Circassians, Georgians, Ingush, Karachays, Nogais, Ossetians, Tats, the peoples of Dagestan, as well as Terek and Kuban Cossacks who adopted it from the aforementioned peoples.
Dilberjin Tepe, also Dilberjin or Delbarjin, is the modern name for the remains of an ancient town in modern (northern) Afghanistan. The town was perhaps founded in the time of the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Kushan Empire it became a major local centre. After the Kushano-Sassanids the town was abandoned.
The Kumtura Thousand Buddha Caves is a Buddhist cave temple site in the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. The site is located some 25 km west of Kucha, Kuqa County, on the ancient Silk Road. Other famous sites nearby are the Kizilgaha caves, the Kizil Caves, Subashi Temple and the Simsim caves.
Central Asian art is visual art created in Central Asia, in areas corresponding to modern Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of modern Mongolia, China and Russia. The art of ancient and medieval Central Asia reflects the rich history of this vast area, home to a huge variety of peoples, religions and ways of life. The artistic remains of the region show a remarkable combinations of influences that exemplify the multicultural nature of Central Asian society. The Silk Road transmission of art, Scythian art, Greco-Buddhist art, Serindian art and more recently Persianate culture, are all part of this complicated history.
The German Turfan expeditions were conducted between 1902 and 1914. The four expeditions to Turfan in Xinjiang, China, were initiated by Albert Grünwedel, a former director at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, and organized by Albert von Le Coq. Theodor Bartus, who was a technical member of the museum staff and was in charge of extricating paintings found during the expeditions from cave walls and ruins, accompanied all four expeditions. Both expedition leaders. Grünwedel and Le Coq, returned to Berlin with thousands of paintings and other art objects, as well as more than 40,000 fragments of text. In 1902, the first research team financed largely by Friedrich Krupp, the arms manufacturer, left for Turfan and returned a year later with 46 crates full of treasures. Kaiser Wilhelm II was enthusiastic and helped finance the second expedition along with Krupp. The third was financed by means of the Ministry of Culture. The fourth expedition under Le Coq was dogged by many difficulties and was finally cut short by the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
Sasanian dress, represented by the Persians, was "broadly similar" to dresses worn by other Iranian peoples. It was especially appropriate and applicable for horse riding. Most extant primary sources for the study of Sasanian dress are forms of visual art, rock reliefs in particular. In relation to the Sasanian dress, Matthew Canepa (2018) states:
It consisted of loose-fitting trousers, boots, and a knee-length tunic that was bound with a belt (kamar). A heavy caftan, crossed at the chest, could be worn belted. In 3rd- and 4th-century representations, the tunic appears squared off at the bottom. From the late 4th century, the lower hem is rounded. Ornamental and figural textile motifs become prominent around the 6th and 7th centuries, as is apparent at Taq-e Bostan. Early reliefs and seals portray members of the aristocracy wearing domed or pointed hats (kulāf) with their heraldic symbols (nīšān) on the side, often bound with diadems. Nobles were given the right to wear silk and jewellery. Women’s dress consisted of long, flowing, sleeved or sleeveless tunics. They were worn belted under the breasts with a long cloak worn over the left shoulder or used as a veil. Clothing was an important element in royal gift-giving. It also marked social rank, as did jewellery, and textiles and their motifs. The king bestowed clothing and jewellery as a mark of distinction on those he desired to honour and presented his own robes to especially favoured family and courtiers.
The murals of Penjikent are among the most famous murals of the pre-Islamic period in Panjakent, ancient Sogdiana, in Tajikistan. Numerous murals were recovered from the site, and many of them are now on display in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and in the National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan in Dushanbe. The murals reveal the cosmopolitan nature of the Penjikent society that was mainly composed of Sogdian and Turkic elites and likely other foreign merchant groups of heterogeneous origin. Significant similarities with Old Turkic clothing, weapon items, hairstyles and ritual cups are noted by comparative research.
From the 7th to the 3rd century BC, the Scythian people of the Pontic Steppes produced and adopted a wide arrangement of clothing. The clothing of the Scythians was formulated in response to the nomadic, highly mobile lifestyle of the early Scythian era and the sedentary lifestyle of later Scythian kingdoms. Much of what is known about Scythian attire comes from the remains of clothing found in Scythian burial sites.
Hufu, also referred as Hu clothing, nomadic dress, 'barbarian' clothing or dress, or foreign dress, is a generic term which refers to any clothing which was worn in ancient China and its surrounding regions by non-Han Chinese people. This term is also used to refer to foreigner's dress or clothing of foreign origins in ancient China. The introduction of Hufu-style garments and attire in China occurred by the time of King Wuling of Zhao.