Conventional Female Donor Costume of Cave 79 of Kumtura

Cave 79 of Kumtura grottoes, is the best preserved cave, which has an important meaning for research on Uighur costume. This paper is intended to analyze the costume characteristics of female donors in Cave 79 by comparing image materials between Dunhuang murals and other murals in Xinjiang province. In Cave 79, female donor wears red robe with tight sleeve, whose collar is crescent-shaped decorated. Two different opinions are upheld for this decoration. One regards this as the turn-down collar, while the other believes this as decoration on V-neckline. Red robe is quite common in female donors of Xinjiang and Dunhuang murals and a female in fresco is wearing a crown in a triangle red headwear style, regarded as red silk and drooping at head. Female donors wear an extra coat, kame hair clasp, red jacket, light-colored high-waist skirt with a long-tail waistband, and tangerine Pibo (silk ribbon) with scattered small flowers. All these costume styles are commonly-used by Han females. The kame headwear is also the common ornament for Han females and the female's hairstyle is in cone shape on head by a white kame. Current costumes are similar but not completely same.