From Utility to Nobility: The Rise of the Steppe-Style Belt in East Asia

• In Event: Fashioning Status: Making Meaning through Dress and Adornment across Asia

Abstract

This paper will explore the history of Inner Asian and East Asian belts decorated with pendant ornaments and their gradual evolution from functional mobile toolkits to potent symbols of status and prestige donned by the highest echelons of society. By examining the earliest forms worn by steppe nomads and regional variations in the first millennium CE, it is possible to identify substantial shifts in their function, meaning, and reception.
Beginning in the Han dynasty, fabric belts worn to bind flowing robes began to be replaced by sturdier leather belts adopted from the horse-riders of the steppe. Two varieties gained popularity in China: the kua dai (belts with plaques placed at variable distances, with rings suspended from their lower edge so that knives, tallies, small bottles, etc. could be attached) and the diexie dai (belts on which strips of leather replaced the rings, allowing for additional accessories like leather pouches). Following the Han, both forms spread to the Xianbei in northeast China and to the early Korean and Japanese states, and they remained popular in China through the Tang and Liao periods. Although the later belts—often executed in precious materials like gold, silver, and semiprecious stones—continued to share features with the belts worn by Inner Asian nomads already in the seventh century BCE, they became more closely tied to the performance of kingship, religious authority, and ethic identity in specific localities.

Author

• Sarah Laursen, Middlebury College