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Ancient fashion: 3,200-year-old pants on Chinese mummy
- ggm 3y agoI recommend The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia I. Postrel She, and the acoup site make the point about the sheer cost of labour to make thread, and the asymmetry in costs to produce sufficient thread from either a staple or from a source of filament like silk, compared to the rate of weaving which itself is not exactly cheap labour. Producing thread is probably the limiting factor in times past. It's unavoidably time consuming before there are 'machines' -the first machines are very likely to be the conical weights which combine with a spindle to make a spinning device to allow faster thread production, and finally the invention of the spinning wheel. There's over a kilometre of thread in a pair of trousers. Women are portrayed as spinning back to greek vases and Egyptian murals because it was a task which consumed as much of their working day as possible, alongside other duties. For complex thread production, Women could be paid more than unskilled men, for this task. (They were typically underpaid compared to men for almost all work)
- ch4s3 3y agoI really enjoyed that book! This pair of pants actually looks fairly complicated. If you look at the knees, they're a different patter of twill than the upper and lower leg. This could possibly be made so that the knee flexes more easily and is more durable. The seat reinforcements are interesting as the article points out. You commonly see a smaller version of this added to jeans worn by people who commute on their bikes.
- WalterBright 3y ago“Previously, Europeans and Asians wore gowns, robes, tunics, togas or — as observed on the 5,300-year-old body of Ötzi the Iceman — a three-piece combination of loincloth and individual leggings.” Hmm. My learning from TV and movies is that ancient Greeks, Romans and Vikings all wore leather bikinis.
- jhbadger 3y agoI remember reading how the Greeks claimed the Persians wore outlandish clothing -- rather than "normal" clothing, the Persians wore "tubes of cloth around their legs" -- in other words, they wore pants like modern people rather than the toga-like (technically not togas) garments Greeks wore.
- bovermyer 3y agoThe older I get and the more I read, the more I'm convinced we peaked as a species a long, long time ago.
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- greatpostman 3y agoActually been thinking the same. Ancient cultures had more meaning, respect for ancestors, etc.
- syspec 3y agoIt was a pretty great time to be alive.... for the 4-5% that weren't slaves
- jareklupinski 3y ago> Modern-day denim jeans, revered for their durability, use the same technique. “This is not a beginner’s item,” Grömer, who wasn’t part of Wagner’s study but studied the garment some years ago, told Science News. “It’s like the Rolls-Royce of trousers.” or we found the grave of a jean-wearing time-traveller
- dekhn 3y agoThreads, Weaves, Clothing and shoes were high technology for most of human history.
- erikig 3y agoPretty stylish even by today's standards. Which leads me to wonder if distressed pants were considered fashionable back then too.