A Study On The Costumes And Restoration Of Secular Figures In The Northern Wei Dynasty

Since the establishment of the Northern Wei Dynasty,the Tuoba Xianbei have been moving toward a path of feudalization in the process of unifying the northern territory of China and confronting the corresponding regimes in the southern territory of China,which in a certain sense is a path of Hanization.In particular,Emperor Xiaowen’s two policies of moving the capital from the Pingcheng area to the Luoyang area and making comprehensive Hanization reforms promoted political unification and ethnic integration in the Northern Wei Dynasty,which led to a major change in the costume style at the time compared with the previous period.In the present systematic studies on the costumes of the Northern Wei Dynasty,few studies are focusing on the structure of the costumes,the way of dressing,and the techniques and concepts of dress-making.In this thesis,the author takes the costumes of secular figures from the archaeological data of the Northern Wei Dynasty as the object of study,and the following three parts of the discussion are carried out by combining documentary,images,physical data,and physical restoration methods.In the first part of the thesis,starting from the archaeological image data of the Northern Wei including tombs,caves,and temples,the costumes’ styles and developments contained are outlined by region and period,and the causes of the main popular costumes’ styles of the corresponding periods are summarized according to the social,political and cultural background features of the three periods of the Northern Wei Dynasty that includes Shengyue and Pingcheng periods(386A.D.-494 A.D.),the junction period of the Pingcheng and Luoyang periods(477A.D.-499 A.D.),and Luoyang period(494A.D.-534 A.D.).In the second part of the thesis,the categories of costumes mentioned in the first part are summarized in detail.At the same time,the physical and documentary data of the Northern Wei Dynasty,the Northern Dynasties,and other related dynasties are used to study and speculate on the style and structural features of these categories,and to explore their fabric varieties,dressing styles,and dress-making techniques and cultures.The third part of the thesis is a study of the restoration of two individual examples of the Northern Wei Dynasty costumes.This part is based on the collection of more detailed reference data,inferring the objects’ forms and materials,and completing the restoration of the "Leather Coat with Fur Collar in Northern Wei Excavated from Cemetery No.M3 near Yihe Naoer Zhengxiangbai Banner,Inner Mongolia",and "Five types of Xianbei hats worn by the ceramic figurines excavated from the Datong Yanbei Normal University Tomb Group".In the process of restoration research,the characteristics and culture of the restored objects are also discussed.The main conclusions of the thesis are as follows.The styles of the Northern Wei secular figures’ costumes,as shown in the archaeological image data,were mainly influenced by the costume policies of each period.In the Shengyue and Pingcheng periods,since the rulers focused on external conquests and had no time to take care of internal costume reform,the people of the society continued to wear the traditional style of Xianbei cultural costumes.In the junction period between the Pingcheng and Luoyang periods,since the rulers carried out the reform of the Han-Chinese cultural costumes for the ruling and bureaucratic classes,both the Xianbei cultural costumes and the Han-Chinese cultural costumes appeared in the society at that time.In the Luoyang period,the people frequently wore modified Han-Chinese cultural costumes with a separate top and bottom because of the ruler’s policy of reforming the Hanization of the costumes of all social classes,balancing the ceremonial and functional features of the costumes.Since the rulers of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved the capital from the Shengyue area to the Pingcheng area and then to the Luoyang area,the climate of the area where the society was located gradually warmed up,the focus of economic production shifted from animal husbandry to farming,and the textile industry developed,so the characteristics of costumes changed from the original pursuit of warmth and practicality to the first emphasis on ritual,and then to take into account practicality and aesthetics.This change is mainly seen in the evolution of the shape and popularity of the Xianbei hats and boots in the three periods mentioned above.The costume elements of Han-Chinese culture and Hu culture can be seen in the formal features of Northern Wei costumes,which were related to the Hanization reform of the rulers at that time and the cultural communications between various ethnic groups in society.Especially in the Luoyang period,the Han-Chinese cultural elements in the costumes were not only reflected in the wide body piece,sleeves and trouser legs,and the high waist of the skirt,but also in the y-shaped collar which had a larger depth and width.At that time,the Hu cultural elements in the costumes were mainly reflected in the lapel garments worn by the warriors and guards in the archaeological images of the Luoyang period,which were originally the traditional costume style of the Sogdiana.Because of the two-way communication of costumes,the improved Han-Chinese cultural costumes of the Luoyang period also influenced the costumes of later generations in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.In addition,the "mountain" shaped boat-shaped hat and the three-piece boots were handed down to a certain extent in the Tang Dynasty.After completing the research and restoration of two objects,the author conjectures the leather coat is an item of the mantle with sleeves derived from the life of nomads,and in the scenes shown by the archaeological image data of the Northern Dynasties,it is fixed at the collar and the sleeves hang empty outside when worn by the figure.When the Xianbei hats with four pieces on the crown shown in the archaeological image data of the Northern Wei Dynasty were made,the author found that their crown couldn’t reach the round and smooth shape shown in some of the images.Therefore,the author speculates that in the archaeological image data,this kind of Xianbei hat’s round and smooth crown shape is the artistic expression of the maker of mural painting,ceramic figurines,etc.,and its actual shape at that time is not so round.Alternatively,the author has not excluded the possibility that in the process of making this Xianbei hat in the society at that time,the maker designed more than four separate pieces on the crown of the hat,or the maker used the technique of closing the shape such as pleating when sewing to achieve its round and smooth shape.