An ancient cotton blanket made in the Southern Song Dynasty is exhibited at the Lanxi Museum. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]
An ancient cotton blanket made in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) began being exhibited at the Lanxi Museum on Jan 17.
This cotton blanket was unearthed in Xiangxi town, Lanxi in 1966 and is the only complete and earliest cotton blanket found so far in China.
It is about 100 years older than the cotton spinning and weaving technology brought back by spinner Huang Daopo (1245-1330), known as the mother of Chinese textile technology, from the Li ethnic group in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), rewriting the history of cotton spinning and weaving in China.
The Lanxi cotton blanket is 2.51 meters long and 1.16 meters wide, with six interconnected square patterns composed of 81 Kaiyuan Tongbao copper coins and Northern Song coins sewn with thread.
The excavation of the cotton blanket has confirmed that the cotton spinning and weaving industry in the Wuzhou area (the ancient name of Jinhua), especially Lanxi, had reached an advanced technological level in the Southern Song Dynasty.
During the exhibition at the Lanxi Museum, visitors will be able to learn about the owner of the ancient cotton blanket and its production and preservation, as well as about life in Southern Song Dynasty. The exhibition will run until the end of March.
Visitors take photos of the special cotton blanket at the Lanxi Museum on Jan 17. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]
