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Thread: 2,500-year-old Textiles Discovered by Chinese Archaeologists

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[quote=LIONPOWER,241501]Chinese archaeologists have found textiles in a mysterious tomb dating back nearly 2,500 years in eastern Jiangxi Province, the oldest to be discovered in China's history.

The textiles, which are well-preserved and feature stunning dyeing and weaving technologies, will revise the history of China's textile industry, says Wang Yarong, an archaeologist who has been following the findings in the textile sector for more than three decades.

"Chinese anthropologists suspect that the textile industry blossomed during distant periods of history. This is the first piece of concrete evidence to support their hypothesis," she stated.

Wang and her colleagues found more than 20 pieces of fine silk, flax and cotton cloth in 22 of a total of 47 coffins unearthed from a tomb located in Lijia village in Jing'an county.

"Most of them are fine fabrics and the largest piece is 130 cm long, 52 cm wide and woven with complicated techniques," added Wang, whose specialty is researching materials at the Textiles Preservation Center, located inside the Beijing Capital Museum.

A Peking University professor using infrared devices discovered that a piece of cotton cloth was partly red and partly black. "It was dyed red with vermilion," noted Professor Zhang Xiaomei.

Historical records show that the Arabs produced vermilion as early as the eighth century. Europeans learned dye production methods from them later in the 17th century.

Yet the tomb where these fabrics were found is believed to date back to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-221 B.C.).[/quote]

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