The State Museum of Archaeology in Chemnitz (https://www.smac.sachsen.de/) has a long tradition of bringing results of archaeological research to the public. One of the effective forms of their work are the “foyer exhibitions.”
https://www.smac.sachsen.de/foyerausstellungen-erfindung-der-hose.html
The recent exhibition in the museum’s foyer – “The invention of trousers” (opened from 11 March until May 8th, 2022, access free of charge) – highlights the results of the international research project “Silk Road Fashion” led by Prof. Mayke Wagner (German Archaeological Institute) and is part of the large special exhibition “Chic! Tassle, Tissue & Tattoo.” The foyer exhibition presents the scientifically and technically correct replica of the entire outfit of a Bronze Age horseman buried around 3000 years ago in what is now Turfan, western China.
While building the road, workers came across an old cemetery under gravel and sand. Archaeologists examined a total of 531 graves and discovered the approximately forty-year-old man in one of the grave pits in 2003. His clothing and equipment have survived the millennia well enough to allow us rare insights into the fashion, technology and lifestyle of his time. But not the bridle hanging next to his head, the riding whip in his right hand, the battle ax across his chest, the earrings – bronze on the left, gold on the right – or the exotic cowrie shells on his headband, but something else makes him famous today. It is his pants – the oldest preserved trousers in the world and the ancestor of modern jeans.
“It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time.” (William James Durant, “Invitation to History”, the lecture first broadcast over WGN, Chicago, on November 18, 1945).
More details of the interdisciplinary research on the Bronze Age textile making in Central Eurasia have been recently published in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia co-authored by several BAP team members:
Wagner, M., Hallgren-Brekenkamp, M., Xu, D., Kang, X., Wertmann, P., James, C., Elkina, I., Hosner, D., Leipe, C., Tarasov, P.E. (2022) The invention of twill tapestry points to Central Asia: Archaeological record of multiple textile techniques used to make the woollen outfit of a ca. 3000-year-old horse rider from Turfan, China.
Archaeological Research in Asia 29, 100344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2021.100344
Photo: Ancient knowledge got a new life. (Photo: D. Hosner/DAI)