Textile Arts Council Lecture: Silk Road Textiles and Archaeological Loom Reconstruction in San Francisco

Textile Arts Council Lecture: Silk Road Textiles and Archaeological Loom Reconstruction
Koret Auditorium
with Zhao Feng, PhD
In the last century, excavations along the Silk Roads yielded a large number of textile finds. The earlier archeological sites are concentrated at the heart of the Silk Roads, for examples Loulan and Dunhuang in China as well as Pazyryk and Noin-Ula, in Russia. But more recent archaeological investigations have reached the further arm of these trade routes, covering a wider expanse into Mochevaya Balka, Monchak-Tepe, Dulan, Xi’an, and Tibet. This talk will give an overview of the various sites and their important textile findings. These textiles have informed much of our knowledge about ancient Chinese textile techniques and weaving technology.
One of the most important discoveries for research on weaving came from a Han Dynasty tomb in Laoguanshan, Chengdu, located in the Sichuan province in southwest China. Four loom models were found inside the tomb. One of these looms was recreated at life size at the China National Silk Museum and has been successfully used to weave a Han Dynasty warp-faced compound plain weave silk. The reconstruction of this loom and the study of other looms that may have been used to weave compound patterned weave in China from the earliest period to the 9th–10th century speak to cultural exchanges along the Silk Road, which contributed to the development of weaving technology in China.
Following this lecture, at 1:30 pm the
Thirteenth Annual Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Memorial Lecture
will be given by Deniz Beyazit, PhD,
.
Please note that the 150th anniversary of Golden Gate Park will also be kicking off on the day of this lecture.There will be a large,
park-wide Community Day
celebration, including the opening of a
150' tall Observation Wheel
on the Music Concourse adjacent to the de Young Museum. Traffic and parking around the de Young and surrounding areas can be expected to be busier than usual.
Zhao Feng, PhD
is the director of the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou. After graduating with a Master of Engineering from the Zhejiang Institute of Silk Textiles (Zhejiang University of Sciences and Technology nowdays) in Hangzhou, he was teaching the history of Chinese silk and editing a journal studies on history of silk at the institute from 1984-1991. In 1991, he moved into the China National Silk Museum (CNSM) in Hangzhou as the deputy director and chief curator to prepare the formal opening of the museum. During his career at the museum, he studied the history of textiles at the China Textile University (Donghua University nowdays) in Shanghai and got his PhD in 1997. He got the fellowship and did researches at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from the Nov 1997 to Oct 1998, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for two months in 1999, and at the British Museum in London for half year in 2006. In 2000, he founded and became the director of the Chinese Center for Textile Identification and Conservation, which is now the Key Scientific Research Base of Textile Conservation of State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China. Since 2009, he became the director of the NSM. Meantimes, he also teaches the history of textiles in Donghou University as a PhD superadvisor. His major interest is the studies of Chinese silk history and the Silk Road textiles. Since 1992, he has published more than 10 academic books and 100 research articles.
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