Women’s clothing
Persian official monuments do not include representations of women; accordingly, little is known of their costume in the Median and Achaemenid periods. There are, however, a few contemporary representations in other contexts: on a textile from Pazyryk (
Figure 56; Rudenko, pp. 296-97, pl. 177c), Greco-Persian seals (
Figure 57,
plate lxi; Gow, pl. X/1-6; Boardman, nos. 854, 879, 891-92, 964), ivory objects (
plate lxii,
plate lxiii; Amiet, pp. 173ff.; Dentzer, pp. 216ff.), the “Satrap sarcophagus” (
plate lxiv; Kleemann, pp. 21-23), the monuments from Ergili in northwestern Anatolia (
Figure 58; Akurgal; Bernard), and small metal vessels (
Figure 59; Culican; Gow, p. 137 and n. 14). There are also a few notices by ancient writers. Particularly informative is Ctesias’s reference to the wearing of the
sárapis by Parysatis, mother of Artaxerxes II (Hinz, 1969, p. 74, with reference), Herodotus’ testimony (9.109) that Xerxes’s daughter-in-law asked him to give her a robe that his wife had woven for him, and Quintus Curtius’s remark that Darius III “was girt woman-fashion” with “a golden belt” (3.3.17). Indeed, the representations of women show that they usually wore the pleated “court dress” and the voluminous “Ionic” chiton (Gow, p. 137; Dentzer, figs. 7-8; Dalton, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv, and nos. 89, 93, 103, 104). Occasionally, as on some of the Ergili sculptures and the “Satrap sarcophagus,” they wore an overgarment that, like the modern
čādor, covered the head and neck (Figure 58,
plate lxiv). The face, however, was always uncovered. The hair was often worn in a single plait at the back (
plate lxv). By far the best available documentation of women’s dress from the Achaemenid period is the remnants of actual clothing found in the Pazyryk tombs (Rudenko, pp. 91-98), though in that distant region Achaemenid influence may have been considerably attenuated and probably reinterpreted. Excavated garments include a short cape or caftan (
Figure 60) made of squirrel skin with the fur side inward and bordered with a band of black coltskin; it has narrow sleeves decorated with patterns of applied leather pieces (Rudenko, pp. 91-92). Another was a hood (
plate lxvi) of a double thickness of fine leather covered in black coltskin and ornamented with rhomboid leather appliqués; it reached to the shoulders (Rudenko, pp. 96ff., pl. 65A). Finally, two pairs of boots were found. One had fine red-leather tops and vamps stitched to soles decorated on the underside with fantastic patterns. The other was soft, knee-high, with broad cuffs of leopardskin, leather vamps, and thick, rigid leather soles ornamented on the underside (Rudenko, pp. 93-96). This curious feature was practical because the wearer “sat with legs arranged so that the heels were turned out,” as is still customary in Central Asia (Rudenko, p. 96).