Shoe fragments, 200-400 AD. Museum no. LOAN:STEIN.58 (L.B.IV.ii.0014).

Shoe fragments
Central Asia
200-400 AD
Twining in silk
Length 24 cm x Width 5 cm
Museum no. LOAN:STEIN.58 (L.B.IV.ii.0014)
On loan from Government of India and the Archaeological Survey of India

This bundle of strips used to be a shoe upper. It was made in the twining method, where the silk thread is twined / wrapped around a warp, probably of hemp. Two sets of coloured silks, here blue and red, were twined and changed in position for patterning a chevron band. A similar but complete shoe is in the collection of the British Museum, which was found in the same office room of a ruined house in Loulan as this one. Similar shoes are often found in Chinese tombs located in the Gansu province.