String skirt
The string skirt is a skirt-like garment worn by women , which consists of a woven band from which the weft threads hang out, thus forming the main part of the skirt. The best known historical example of such a skirt is the string skirt of the girl from Egtved from the later Nordic Bronze Age , which was found as part of a burial equipment in 1921 near Egtved in Jutland , Denmark .
This cord skirt consists of a grosgrain ribbon about 5 cm wide and 220 cm long , from which the weft threads protrude about 45 cm beyond the fabric. At the beginning and the end there was a 45 cm long piece of tape without the weft extension. Four of the weft threads were then twisted into cords and closed with a loop, the ends were connected with a woolen cord and the whole thing was worn in the manner of a wraparound skirt . In other forms, the cords are not circumferential, but only on the front and then cover the pubic area similar to a loincloth or they lie behind and then cover the buttocks or the cords lie in front and behind with openings in the cord curtain on the sides.
The string skirt by Egtved is the oldest surviving specimen of such a skirt, but it is assumed that the string skirt is one of the oldest pieces of female clothing, as images and sculptures of women with string skirts have been handed down from the Stone Age . A Neolithic clay statuette from Schypynzi , Rajon Kizman in western Ukraine, for example, wears a clearly recognizable string skirt and the engravings of the Venus of Lespugue from the Paleolithic Gravettia that run down from the buttocks are also interpreted as a string skirt.
So on the one hand it is a very old piece of clothing, on the other hand, mustaches are still part of traditional clothing in some cultures. Examples are the mustaches worn in Bali and the kiekies in Tonga , which are worn by women on festive occasions. The material from which the various shapes are made is diverse and includes all types of vegetable and animal fibers: raffia, leaves, grass, bark and of course yarns made from vegetable fibers, wool and hair (for example the must -skirts of the West Australian natives called Nyimparra ).
A non-ornamental function of this traditional piece of clothing remains unclear, as a corded skirt can neither warm nor protect significantly, nor is the usual function of optically concealing the pubic area, the area is emphasized rather than concealed.
literature
- Karl Schlabow : Germanic cloth makers of the Bronze Age . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1937, 3. The mustache skirts, p. 55–59 (detailed description of the Egtved girl's snorkel skirt ).
- Elizabeth Wayland Barber: Prehistoric textiles: the development of cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1991, ISBN 0-691-00224-X , Chapter 11: Beginnings Revisited, pp. 249-259 (English).
- O. Soffer, JM Adovasio, DC Hyland: The "Venus" Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic . In: Current Anthropology . No. 41/4 , 2000, pp. 511-537 , doi : 10.1086 / 317381 (English).
Web links
- Replica of Egtved's skirt , experimental archaeological project of the University of Innsbruck
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Elizabeth Wayland Barber: Prehistoric textiles: the development of cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1991, ISBN 0-691-00224-X , Chapter 11: Beginnings Revisited, pp. 249–259, here 256 (English).
- ↑ O. Soffer, JM Adovasio, DC Hyland: The "Venus" Figurines: Textiles, basketry, gender, and status in the Upper Paleolithic . In: Current Anthropology . No. 41/4 , 2000, pp. 511-537, here 520 , doi : 10.1086 / 317381 (English).