A Study Of The Costume Of BeiQi Dynasty

From 317 A.D. to 589 A.D., China was divided. In the south, five Chinese dynasties followed on each other. In north China, the period was filled with a bewildering number of major and minor dynasties, most of them minorities. During this turbulent age, many Hans were compelled to move south while numbers of other ethnic groups entered the central plains. In the mean time, tremendous amount of merchants from Central Asia and Western Region along the Silk Road came to China, arousing a strong "west wind" . The costume of traditional Chinese had been revolutionarily changed under these social phenomena, especially in the period of BeiQi Dynasty, and all of these had been narrated in the ancient documents and historical records. Due to the limited resources of pictorial images of BeiQi's apparel, our understanding of it stays only on imagination for centuries until the discovery of the frescos of LouRei and XiuXianXiu's tomb. These exquisite frescos have recorded the living and life style of people at that times, therefore offer the first-hand materials for the study of the costume of BeiQi. Through observing the dresses in the frescos, a strong sense of historical time and space is presented which shows the phenomenon of a society with diversified culture and multi-ethnic groups. According to the paintings, the XianBei's dress style was populiir and it was reflected by the characteristics of XianBei hood, split shirt, pant, belt and boots etc. In the exotic frescos of the...