Author: Wang Yarong
Source: "Image Historiography" WeChat public account
The original article was published in the summer 2022 volume of Image Historiography
Wang Yarong's team at the site of textile cultural relics protection in the Zhouda Tomb of Jing'an (Source: WeChat public account of "Cultural Relics World Monthly")
In the 60s of the 20th century, I had the opportunity to study at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, but finally I went to the front line of costume culture archaeology, facing the smelly and corrupt corpses of clothes. Such a change, perhaps at the beginning, I felt that it was because of the need for work, and after a long time, among these many "not beautiful", I finally realized: my persistence and the shock of textile culture research have made me inseparable from these, I stubbornly embarked on the road of clothing culture research, a road that Mr. Shen Congwen and Mr. Wang Yu all supported and encouraged - the restoration of ancient clothing.
The following text, taken from a speech I gave in Japan, was taken from 1982 after I participated in the excavation of the Chu tomb at Mashan No. 1 in Jingzhou, Hubei Province. From 1984 to 1990, I was briefed on my research on the reproduction of clothing excavated from Chu Tomb No. 1 in Mashan, Jiangling, Hubei Province.
During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, major changes were taking place in all aspects of society, politics, and economy. The textile industry using silk and linen as raw materials has also prospered unprecedentedly, especially the improvement of advanced silk processing technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. The upper echelons of society have formed a huge luxury consumer group, and it goes without saying that even the palace dogs and horses are also wearing splendid embroidery. The exchange of courtesy between states and countries is expensive to use Meijin embroidery. Even in order to solve political problems and war requests, they even used a large number of producers of textile embroidery - knitting, weaving serves and "female concubines" as bribes (Zuo Chuan Chenggong, Chu Ren Varu; "Chinese Jin Language" Jin Ren Fa Zheng). Under these various customs in all aspects of society, the consumption of high-grade silk increased sharply, which promoted the scale of official and private textile embroidery production during this period. The exquisite novelty of the products has reached an unprecedented level.
Chinese silk has been world-renowned since ancient times, not only in the records of ancient documents, but also in the past three decades of archaeological excavations have continuously provided evidence for China's glorious ancient clothing culture. The study and inheritance of Chinese clothing culture has become more urgent, more needed, and more conditional. The physical materials of Warring States costumes can be found mainly in the tombs of the nobles of the Chu State that were praised as "silk treasures" by Mr. Shen in 1982. The numerous silk cultural relics unearthed from the tomb provide us with important empirical evidence to understand and study the costume culture of the Chu State.
This tomb is buried in the Mashan Brick and Tile Factory outside Jiangling County, Hubei Province, and the silk cultural relics unearthed are extremely rich, with a total of 35 pieces of clothing, including clothing, quilts and other silk supplies, and the silk varieties found are also considerable, including silk, silk, yarn, luo, qi, brocade, silk, marshalling, embroidery and knitwear and other ten categories. In terms of craftsmanship and decorative arts, it is quite well represented, which can be called the essence of the Warring States silk weaving cultural relics, and in recent years, on the basis of studying this batch of cultural relics, I have conducted experimental re-weaving research on silk clothing in Gangneung. In the experiment, we have a more comprehensive understanding of the various processing techniques of Mashan clothing and its wearing function. Here are just some questions about the reproduction work, and I will try to talk about my preliminary research results and evaluation of the costumes, dyeing and weaving, embroidery and sewing processes unearthed in the Warring States.
The usual concept of a replica is to make a substitute for display and display after the original artifact, but this is the most general replica. From practical experience, there are mainly the following forms of replicas:
(1) "Replica of the current situation" of cultural relics: that is, according to the appearance of cultural relics after they are unearthed, the texture, tone, ornamentation, incomplete shape and historical characteristics of cultural relics that have been buried for a long time, are deliberately expressed truthfully, and the high level of work can be chaotic. The reproduction materials and processes selected can be consistent or different from the cultural relics, focusing on the pursuit of surface similarity. For example: use plaster to reproduce copper, bone, pottery, and paint to imitate the surface color. The focus of the reproduction is on the shape, size, ornamentation, tonal appearance as the original. This kind of replica is a common substitute for exhibition and observation, because it is directly modeled on the cultural relic itself, and also has certain scientific research value.
(2) Reproductions that combine the current status of cultural relics and restoration: This kind of reproduction is not a compromise, nor is it half of each other, but a reproduction method that focuses on the current situation or the original appearance of the cultural relics, and the reproduction should take into account the coordination between the current situation of the cultural relics and the original appearance.
(3) Experimental archaeological research results of cultural relics - "restored composite fabrics": This is a kind of research and re-weaving method that has physical basis and credible documentary materials, and restores the shape, ornamentation, color and structure of cultural relics through research, and completes and reproduces them. This research method is a method for us to reproduce the original form of cultural relics after we have a more in-depth and practical study of the actual form, process technology and productivity level, aesthetic value and historical status of ancient cultural relics. The basic element of "re-weaving research products" is to master quasi-materials, should use the same raw materials as cultural relics, and also apply the craftsmanship methods of the ancients to re-weave finished products for weaving conditions. Restoration and reweaving is the research results of restoring the original appearance, quality and craftsmanship of cultural relics on the basis of comprehensive research and scientific experiments.
In order to have some practical understanding of the research work of Warring States costumes, after preliminary intuitive analysis, we selected several physical specimens of Mashan Chu Tomb and tried to do "restoration and reweaving" experimental research, as a form of specific research to explore various processing techniques applied in ancient times, in order to reproduce the historical original appearance of Chu State clothing. Through the comprehensive exploration and research of cultural relics, the original magnificence of the clothing, as well as the skill level of dyeing, weaving and embroidery, are re-expressed based and closest to the original sensory effect of the cultural relics. I think this is a good scientific research method to study the weaving, design, tailoring and other aspects of ancient clothing.
A Restoration Study N7 to Dragon to Phoenix Embroidery (Big Quilt)
The embroidery is 220 cm long and 207 cm wide, and there is a square notch 20 cm deep and 40 cm wide in the middle of the upper edge. The upper edge is "recognized" as a colorful striped embroidery, and the quilt is inlaid with flying phoenix embroidery on three sides, and the surface is made of five embroidered dragon-to-phoenix pattern patchwork.
After more than 2,000 years of underground burial and the immersion of the liquid in the coffin, the color has faded a lot, but some local superimposed parts or reverse sides still retain some of the more vivid colors. This restoration is based on the color of the brighter parts of the freshly unearthed fabric when we participated in the excavation of the Mashan tomb, and observed the color rules on the spot, and copied the color recorded in the color scale. There are six colors: navy, azure, purple, golden, dark yellow, and tooth white. The embroidery process is the lock embroidery needle method, the original embroidery technique can be clearly distinguished by multiple people embroidery, the size, width and texture of the embroidery needle code is slightly different, the commonality shows personality, the restoration according to the most typical process to make unified regulations, 8 stitches per 1cm, each lock embroidery snare 1.25mm, width 0.7mm.
Because its local climate is rainy and humid, it is specially designed to keep warm and healthy. That is, there is a notch in the middle of the duvet head, which is better than the modern rectangular quilt type to keep the shoulders warm. Its form is not recorded in pre-Qin literature, and Mr. Shen Congwen once wrote an article about the silk of the Chu tomb of Jiangling, pointing out that this was or what was later called "mandarin".
The embroidered pattern of the dragon and phoenix (Figs. 1 and 2) is not only exquisite in embroidery, but also unprecedented in the excavated silk cultural relics ornamentation. The pattern is heavily contrasted, and the whole body is dominated by cool colors, elegant and lyrical. A pattern unit is composed of four pairs of phoenixes, three pairs of dragon patterns, symmetrical left and right, the pattern is longitudinally connected by plant branches and vines, and a triangular pattern is used at the upper axis to combine two rows of dragons and phoenixes to form a large unit pattern 181cm long. The level of pattern design and color setting is extremely high, and the shape of the phoenix and dragon is realistic and very abstract. One pair of dragon and phoenix patterns only has one foot and one tail each, which is connected to a phoenix body by a line, while the other pair of phoenixes has only one feather and one claw, and fits with the upper dragon pattern with a mid-waist line. In addition, the examples of dragon body and phoenix distance, phoenix body and dragon claw can also be seen in each other, and the artistic conception is bold and full of fantasy, the mood is dense and the discipline is strict.
2. Restoration study N-10 phoenix floral embroidered cotton coat
This is the tenth colorful embroidered cotton coat unearthed in the coffin of Mashan No. 1 Chu tomb, with straight sleeves, 158cm sleeve span and 165cm length. The top is cut into four pieces, and the "bottom" is made of nine patchwork, and the placket and brocade edge are 9 cm wide (Picture 3). N10 embroidered garment, is the most exquisite piece of this tomb embroidery clothing, embroidered 10 lock embroidery ferrules per centimeter, each ferrule is 1mm long, the silk pattern is crisp and neat, exquisite and unmatched. Embroidered with a frontal bird statue, wings spread flat and standing straight in a dancing shape, crown feathers on the head like a canopy, and hanging tassels on the sides, mysterious and solemn reminiscent of ancient decorated witches. The upper curved part of the two wings reproduces the shape of two bird heads, one of which gives birth to a flower branch that spreads upwards to the top, but hangs a long three-spike flower bunch, like a warring States group separated from the jade pei. It shows the mysterious charm of Chu cultural ornament design and color setting (Figure 4).
Figure 3 N10 front of the cotton coat
This brocade robe has a collar, sleeves, rim, and all around the body, and the edge is a specially woven C-shaped large diamond brocade from the Mashan Chu tomb. The brocade collar is fitted with nails sewn on the inside and outside, and the intricately decorated narrow embroidered decorative bands resemble today's collars or the various colors used by men. This dress may be a ceremonial dress, the brocade collar is fixed with sparse stitches inside and outside, and the Chu people had to change the narrow belt at any time according to the season.
There are four kinds of narrow embroidered decorative bands on the collar, and the embroidered ribbon nailed to the outside of the N10 collar is the most exquisite. The width is 6.8cm, the pattern unit is 17cm long, and the method of embroidering the pattern to the thimble weft is used to display the pattern. In the square inch of land, make a picture of the Chu aristocratic mausoleum, fighting tigers and leopards, shooting fierce beasts in the field hunting scene, the craftsmanship is unimaginable, only the four colors of silk, yellow, blue, and brown create such a rich effect, especially emerald blue is the most beautiful (Figure 5). Copying this collar, the embroidery is difficult in the stitching method is very delicate, and the amount of man-hours consumed is amazing.
Fig. 5 Comparison of the front and back of the collar edge of the Najin embroidery technique
(1) First use stranded filament to flat-weave narrow tape, and the average weaving density is 32.6 warp threads per square centimeter, and 18 weft threads. The width is 6.8 cm, and a total of 222 warp threads are arranged.
(2) After the webbing is completed, dye it dark brown, and then embroider the warp thread weft according to the pattern of the craftsman. On the surface, this embroidery method looks very much like a brocade with weft flowers (Fig. 6), but it has a stronger hiding power than the weft pattern, and the thread pattern is pure and distinct. Due to embroidery on the belt all over the ground, in the past we mistakenly thought it was a special "warp and weft flower fabric", until the recent research on the need to weave this tie knot flower book for rewoven N10 embroidered clothing, the recent contact practice found that the so-called "warp and weft flower fabric" is absolutely difficult to weave on the loom. Turning to other methods, practice proves that it is a special embroidery technique - the work of the needle method of twisting and embroidering. When embroidery, the use of this embroidery process, requires the embroiderer to have excellent eyesight, count the cloth silk a good stitch according to the craftsman's diagram in turn around the embroidery, a unit pattern to embroider about 30 working days. It takes more than half a year to complete this embroidery collar, not to mention the designer's ingenuity and artistic value, the amount of labor alone to embroider this decorative embroidery belt is shocking.
(3) In terms of the appearance of the embroidery tape, it resembles a brocade, more like a brocade, but it is not a brocade in the end. If this embroidery process has to have a name, it can be called "Na Jinxiu" or "Na Wei Embroidery" Wang Chong's "On Heng Cheng Materials" mentioned "the work of Na Wei, can not weave brocade", may refer to this special and time-consuming embroidery. This text should be a comparison of embroidery and brocade, which can be used as a reference for naming.
3. Restoration study N9 dragon, phoenix and tiger embroidered single coat
This tiger-striped single coat is the sixth layer wrapped in the corpse (that is, the sixth layer from the outside to the inside within the nine straps) with a total number of N9, when the body and sleeves were placed separately on the corpse, unsewn into clothing, and now the restored piece is completed according to the shape of N13, and the original embroidery is replaced by silk, because the technology of weaving has been temporarily lost, and only silk can be used for trial embroidery of a substitute.
The embroidered coat has straight sleeves, a sleevespan of 274 cm, a length of 175 cm, long sleeves, five patchwork seams of the "bottom", a width of 12 cm at the placket and a 4 cm wide collar (Fig. 7).
N9 is embroidered with a swirling phoenix with wings and two wriggling dragons and a roaring tiger under its claws. Abstractly and divinely, a group of phoenix-tiger dragon fighting scenes are depicted, and the whole embroidered dress is composed of 76 groups of ornaments, which is elegant and magnificent. In particular, the tiger facing each other in the pattern, the whole body is embroidered with two colors of vermilion and ink as rotating stripes, colorful and majestic and beautiful, which can be said to be a masterpiece of tiger and tiger style. The pattern unit pattern is not large, with one phoenix, two dragons and one tiger forming a square pattern unit, only the golden bell flower phoenix crown breaks through the square and throws out and presses on the tiger tail of another pattern unit, becoming a tie between the patterns and each other. The wings of the phoenix bird are spread out and pressed on the diagonal of the square pattern unit, which is a very ingenious pattern complete design trick. The pattern units are reversed left and right, panned up and down, and the entire pattern layout is changed, and the large diagonal line caused by the phoenix spreading its wings stitches together the pattern into a large diamond-shaped joint unit pattern, and the two tigers stand side by side, adding infinite vitality (Figure 8).
Figure 8 N9 monocoat dragon, phoenix and tiger embroidery pattern
4. Restoration study of N2 dragon and phoenix large pattern color embroidery
N2 embroidery original embroidery surface is made of embroidery material fragments into the quilt, so the pattern is incomplete embroidery surface performance does not have a complete law, but the color preservation is better, brilliant and magnificent artistic effect is still radiant, can not be concealed. First of all, the pattern and color were restored in pairs. The color embroidery reproduces the original appearance of the material, and the grandeur and majesty of the design layout are also seen.
The pattern is based on the theme of dragons and phoenixes, symmetrical left and right, not many colors but ingenious in coloring. It forms a rectangular block in a dense pattern, forming an axisymmetric pattern unit, 78 cm high and 45 cm wide. On one side of the axis of symmetry, a large dragon is placed on the top, and the body shape is like a swimming snake, and the coil is in the shape of a "bow". The dragon has a huge mouth and a thin tail, open teeth and dancing claws, the upper jaw is exaggerated and stretched forward, the head has a crown horn, and the body is 96cm long, and a small dragon is climbed in the middle, and the curly head turns around to echo it. The lower part is a large phoenix with a long crowned and curved neck and a curly tail, which is used as a volley (Fig. 9). Under the wings, a charming young phoenix is attached to each other, the phoenix beak is attached to the dragon's tail, and the dragon is twisted and struggling, such a scene makes the picture full of vitality, full of worldly flavor and drama. The meaning may not be related to the symbol of the emperor and empress of the "dragon and phoenix chengxiang" in later generations.
The middle and upper riding axis of the pattern is set with a flower tree, and the upper end of the flower tree is embedded with a distinct golden turbine pattern at the arch of the two dragons, if this represents the sun, the pattern is intended or associated with the story of the Fuso tree in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" in which "nine days live in the lower branch, one day in the upper branch". The original pattern can distinguish as many as six or seven colors, and in ancient times the dyeing process must be quite exquisite, and it still appears deep, bright, and new in the old.
The restoration of the two embroidered clothes of the Mashan tomb and the study of their various costumes gave us the opportunity to gain some new understanding of the design, cutting and printing, dyeing, weaving and embroidery decoration techniques of the Warring States costumes. I would like to make some rough comments on the dyeing process and the design of the tailoring structure.
In this restoration research work of silk cultural relics, the embroidery threads of the N10 field hunting pattern na embroidered collar ribbon were dyed with vegetable dyes. The scarlet embroidery thread of N9 tiger pattern is colored with the mineral pigment cinnabar. Since 1973, Mr. Wang has carried out a variety of experiments in this regard, solved the technical problem of mineral pigment cinnabar dyeing, and first applied it to the restoration and reproduction embroidery of the Mashan Chu tomb. Mineral cinnabar dyeing is a special coloring method, which uses natural yolk emulsifier mixed with binder, cooked tung oil, and then added extremely fine cinnabar pigment to make a color paste, which is colored by kneading and dyeing. The amount of cinnabar used is also beyond the imagination of ordinary people, and the weight ratio of silk to cinnabar is roughly 1:1. That is, 1 kg of silk has to be dyed with 1 kg of cinnabar, and even highly saturated dyeing can reach 1:3. The process time is also relatively long. Other colors, take the Tian hunting collar as an example: the ribbon itself is first treated with iron mordant, and then dyed with yellow pine bark and hematoxylum, and cobalt blue is dyed with green dai; Yellow is gardenia and brown is yellow flower pine bark, which is dyed with different mordant dyeing methods and different dipping times.
In terms of clothing form: In the past, it was thought that the only way to cut Chinese clothes was traditional flat tailoring. The cut of the flat piece, the seam of the flat piece, wide and comfortable, but the shoulder and armpit are folded back and forth, and it is not very appendaged. The clothes unearthed from the Warring States Chu tomb are an early example of the three-dimensional effect of flat cutting, that is, the flat Chinese style of cutting flat seams shows a vertical cutting effect. The Mashan tomb clothing is all made of deep clothing that combines collar, right side, straight shirt, top and bottom. "Clothes are embroidered, brocade is the edge", and the sleeves and armpits are set with a "small waist" on the left and right, that is, the so-called "shirt" of the deep clothing system. When wearing the body, the effect of the small waist can be revealed: the top that was originally straight front and back, because the "small waist" insert was across the armpit after wearing, the chest of the top was pushed forward by more than ten centimeters, and the two were lowered in a figure-eight pattern. The waist naturally converges, the knot belt is corset, and the "bottom" part is changed as a tube skirt. The "top" is three-dimensional, and the beauty of the human body is correspondingly expressed. It's a simple, mature, and intelligent design that we today's fashion designers can learn from.
This restoration research work, the shape and size of the clothes are based on Mr. Peng Hao's "Mashan No. 1 Chu Tomb" excavation report, and refer to Wang Yu's "Deep Clothes Shi - Jiangling Mashan No. 1 Chu Tomb Excavation Report" on the new interpretation of the armpit angle "small waist", thank you!
Author's affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of History
Notes omitted, please refer to the original text for the full version.
Editor: Xiang Yu
Proofreader: Shui Shou
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