The Worlds Oldest Pants

THE WORLDS OLDEST PANTS

Photograph by Mayke Wagner / German Archaeological Institute

Pictured here are the oldest known pants in history at 3000 3300 years of age. The ancient trousers were
excavated from tombs in western China along with the remains of two men. The team of scientists was
led by archaeologists Ulrike Beck and Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin.
In a recently published paper, Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania remarks:
This new paper definitely supports the idea that trousers were invented for horse riding by mobile
pastoralists, and that trousers were brought to the Tarim Basin by horse-riding peoples.

Previously, Europeans and Asians wore gowns, robes, tunics, togas or as observed on the 5,300-yearold body of tzi the Iceman a three-piece combination of loincloth and individual leggings. A dry
climate and hot summers helped preserve human corpses, clothing and other organic material in the Tarim
Basin. More than 500 tombs have been excavated in a graveyard there since the early 1970s.

Each pair of trousers was sewn together from three pieces of brown-colored wool cloth, one piece for
each leg and an insert for the crotch. You can read much more about the discovery at Science News. You
can also see the official press release here (in German).