Tell me about your tartan, mummy

[Phil E. Begg]

Haven't posted in a while, but I am back from the desert. Whilst watching a somewhat melodramatic special on the History channel, I saw a swatch of tartan fabric that seems to be about 4000 years old. This was a special on the Taklamakan/Urumchi/Loulan mummies of the Tarim basin, and although they seem to have intermarried, the first group of western settlers there must have been very much a Celtic group.

I have wondered - there is plenty of fabric there, enough to determine the original sett. Has anybody looked into doing a run of that? I'd be in for a kilt's worth in a heartbeat.

Any interest?


Phil

[Nick the DSM]

i've heard of that. i don't know about an egyptian tartan, have you checked tartan finders?

[Doomsday]

Sounds interesting, You should look into it some more, and keep us updated.

[Phil E. Begg]

Aye, tha' I will... and I imagine M.A.C. could help out a bit.

Oh, the Taklamakan is up in the Steppes, in the northern Uighur territory that China now claims, not in Egypt. It is along the Silk Road that Marco Polo traveled.


Phil

[Brewboy]

Here's a pic of the tartan:

[Riverkilt]

Looks a tad like the Braveheart tartan...

But dang...Scotsmen were EVERYWHERE in the old days. Or did we "steal" tartans from them folks?

Learned something today. Thanks.

Ron

[Nick the DSM]

in some myths they say scots came from some egyptian princess "Scota" or something like that.

[sirdaniel1975]

Folks,

I've reproduced an image using House of tartan's site. Now, there really isn't a lot there and there is the what it looks like on my monitor deal. You know, the color differences. I treated the khaki color as yellow, being the easiest color to produce in pre-modern chemical dyes eras. With the other colors, if the stripe looked white I made it white and the same goes for blue. I gave it this thread count from what info was provided:

W4 B8 Y16 B4 Y16

This is the best I could do with the info provided. I did the best I could counting the Yellow sections. I hope you all enjoy my reproduction.

First let me show you all a reproduction example of the small piece provided.



And I used a small sample to produce the result below.

[Phil E. Begg]

Wow! Weel doon, Sir Daniel!!!

I think there may have been more to the original than that; I seem to remember a bit with "guard stripes"...

So, does this resemble a modern sett? Anybody? I haven't the foggiest on how to compare the weave pattern to what has already been registered...

This is great!!!

Thanks, all


Phil

[Brewboy]

Excellent job on the reproduction, sirdaniel. I found a bigger picture, and the reproduction seems spot-on.