Among the artifacts discovered in one of the mass graves at Sampul was a pair of woolen trousers, still on the disarticulated legs of their owner. The trousers were gathered at the ankle and bound with a blue fabric strip. On the right lower leg was the woven image of a centaur—an ancient Greek mythological creature, half man and half horse. The centaur is blowing a trumpet and surrounded by flowers. On the left lower leg of the trousers was illustrated the larger-than-life-sized head of a blue-eyed warrior, dressed in the attire of a Scythian nomad.
Bactrian Tapestry
When archaeological conservators picked apart the trousers, they recognized that the original form of the cloth was as a wall hanging or tapestry. The composition of the tapestry follows classical Greek conventions, with a warrior as the dominant figure, and decorative zones, such as the one with the centaur, above it.
The face of the warrior is in three-quarter profile, in close copy of Greek art of the 4th-5th century BC and similar to those seen in Greco-Roman mosaics of North Africa, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and other areas which fell under Greek or Roman influence. But the warrior's clothing is not Greek: instead he is clothed in a long-sleeved caftan common to steppe people throughout Eurasia. This style of clothing was illustrated on the walls of Persepolis as early as 500 BC. The warrior wears a golden belt buckle and carries an animal-headed knife. Scholars believe the image is intended to represent a Greek-Macedonian lancer in steppe nomadic apparel.
The centaur's trumpet is similar to a salpinx, a Roman trumpet used to signal an attack or the beginning of a festival or rite. The centaur is surrounded by flowers, in a pattern which scholars attribute to the Greco-Scythian culture. Feather tips barely visible above the centaur appear to represent a griffin, bird, or winged horse.
The tapestry combines both western (Greek) and central Asian (Scythian) images, and it is likely, say scholars, that it hung on the walls of a palace or elite residence somewhere in Greek-influenced Asia, perhaps made in Seleucia or Palmyra in Asia Minor. Alternatively, it may have been made in the Black Sea area when Scythians and Greek colonists occupied the region in the 4th and 5th centuries BC; or perhaps in a Bactrian (ancient Afghanistan) city after the visit of Alexander the Great in 329 BC.
How the tapestry ended up as a pair of trousers must also be the subject of speculation. The scholars point out that one possibility is the sack of Ai Khanum, a city in modern Uzbekistan founded by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC. According to historical records, the city was sacked about 145 BC when nomads set fire to the palace and robbed the treasury. Could the tapestry have been part of that sack?
Tapestry Trousers and the Silk Road
What the tapestry trousers give us is a picture of the extent of trade influence along the Silk Road from the Han Dynasty capital at Chang 'An in China to the classical western capitals in Roman and Alexandrian Europe. They also force us to look into the sometimes violent nature of that influence and to recognize that not all cultural influence is dictated by negotiation and diplomacy.
Sources and Further Information
This article is part of the About.com Guide to the Silk Road.
Mallory, J. P. and Victor H. Mair. 2000 The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. Thames & Hudson, London.
Wagner, Mayke, et al. 2009 The ornamental trousers from Sampula (Xinjiang, China): their origins and biography. Antiquity 83(322):1065–1075.
Yang, Xiaoneng. 2004. Niya Site at Minfeng, Xinjian Uygur Autonomous Region. Pp. 296-300 in Chinese Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: New Perspectives on China's Past. Yale University Press, New Haven.
