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An Early Date for the Origin of Felt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2015

Mary E. Burkett
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Extract

The origin of felt is unknown. It is in all probability the earliest form of textile making. Like most textiles, it has a low survival rate in archaeological conditions, so that specimens from the earlier millennia rarely come to light. The earliest documentation on it comes from China, c. 2300 B.C. but it is from the Central Asian Steppes that archaeologists have so far found the earliest examples of it. It has been produced there ever since. Sir Aurel Stein made numerous interesting discoveries of felt on his many journeys in Asia.

Through T'ang writers we first hear of felt in Tibet and that the Chinese were familiar with the famous felt industry of Persia. Herodotus gives accounts of its frequent use amongst the Persians and associated tribes. Strabo, for example, describes the felt caps of the Persians as “high turbans of felt” which protected them from the cold winters of Media. The Medes themselves can still be seen in the fifth century B.C. portrayed in their rounded felt caps in the reliefs of the Achaemenian palaces of Persepolis. (Pl. XlXa)

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 27 , December 1977 , pp. 111 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1977

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References

1 Laufer, B.: “Early History of Felt”, American Anthropologist New Series, vol. 32, no. 1 (1930), pp. 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Serindia. Ancient Khotan, Innermost Asia (Oxford 1928)Google Scholar; Sand Buried Ruins of Khotan (T. F. Unwin, 1903)Google Scholar; Ruins of Desert Cathay, Vol. 1 (Macmillan 1922)Google Scholar.

3 Herodotus VII 92.

4 XV 3.15.

5 Pliny VIII. 73 said that compressed, well soaked in vinegar, it was capable of resisting iron and even fire. Papadopoulo-Vretos in 1845 made this statement to the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters in Paris: “I have macerated unbleached flax in vinegar saturated with salt, and after compression have obtained a felt with a power of resistance quite comparable with that of the famous armour of Conrad of Montferrat: seeing that neither the point of a sword nor even balls discharged from firearms were able to penetrate it.” (Laufer, op. cit., P. 18.)

6 B. Laufer, op. cit. p. 4.

7 Meister, W., “Zur Geschichte des Filzteppichs im I. Jahrtausend n. Chr”, Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, Neue Folge, vol. 12 (1936), pp. 56–61Google Scholar; and Trever, Camilla, Excavations in Northern Mongolia, 1924–25, (Leningrad 1932)Google Scholar.

8 Rudenko, S. I., Kultura Naseleniya Gornogo-Altaya v Skifskoe Vremya (Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1953)Google Scholar; English translation, Frozen Tombs of Siberia, (London & Berkeley 1970)Google Scholar.

9 Rice, Tamara Talbot, The Scythians (London, Thames and Hudson, 1957), p. 133Google Scholar.

10 Mellaart, J., “Excavations at Çatal Hüyük 1965”, Archäologischer Anzeiger (1966), pp. 1–15Google Scholar; “Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, 1965: Fourth Preliminary Report”, Anatolian Studies XVI (1966), pp. 165–91Google Scholar.

11 Perkins, Dexter Junior, “The Fauna of Çatal Hüyük”, Science, 24th April, 1969Google Scholar, gives important information about the range of species which could have provided the raw materials for felt making.

12 Anatolian Studies XVI (1966), p. 179Google Scholar, Fig. 7, Plan of Level VIII, north wall of Shrine E VIII 14.

13 Mellaart, J.: Anatolian Studies XVI (1966) p. 180Google Scholar. Hans Helbaek, paleoethnobotanist, while partaking in the excavations at Çatal Hüyük in 1963, identified felt remains in Level VI. There was no sign of pattern, but it proved to be animal hair, pressed together. In this context it may be worth noticing that at Beycesultan, Seton Lloyd and James Mellaart found thick patches of felt in the floors of early Bronze Age, now c. 3000–2700 B.C. (information from J. Mellaart, not yet published).

14 Illustrated in Anatolian Studies XVI, Pl. XLIIIb.

15 Textiles from Level VI A and B are all well dated through a series of radio-carbon dates which give an average of 5700 ± 100 for Level VI A, and an average of 5867 ± 100 for Level VI B: Mellaart, J.: Neolithic of the Near East London 1975, p. 285Google Scholar; cf. Burnham, H., “Çatal Hüyük: the Textiles and Twine Fabrics”, Anatolian Studies XV (1965), pp. 169–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 This reconstruction in felt was made by Miss Raymonde Enderley, Senior Conservationist Officer, British Museum Department of Conservation, who was on the site. It is published here by permission of Mr. Mellaart and Miss Enderley, who have allowed me to photograph the felt reconstruction, and provided me with information about felt at Çatal Hüyük and Beycesultan. Miss Enderley herself traced the clear but faint pattern from the wall.

17 See above, note 13.

18 For a fuller description of the methods of felt-making see Gervers, Veronika, “Methods of Traditional Felt Making in Anatolia and Iran”, Bulletin de Liaison du Centre International d'Étude des Textiles Anciens, 1973Google Scholar.

19 Horns have been used as decorations since very early times: often the bodies of the animals have completely disappeared. Cf. the huge horns used in decorations on pots found at Tel-i-Bakun, Langsdorff, Alexander and McCown, Donald, Tall-i-Bakun A (Chicago, 1942)Google Scholar Plate 71, especially nos. 7 and 15.