This blog, you probably noticed, took an unintended detour into silence for too long a period of time than I'd have liked and I want to give some background.
I had an attack of life and took a big step away from research while the dust settled and then I had technological problems.
You see, reader, I became a dad! We're hoping to adopt a 2 and a half (now) year old little boy and he was placed with us in October of last year. That's why the blog suddenly ground to a complete stop instead of being a sporadic "oh yeah, I should put this in writing" endeavor. Toddlers are bundles of energy and my entire life got rearranged. I wasn't sure what my playing in the SCA would look like, let alone what I could do to further my research.
But, things have settled. We have schedules and routine and, happily, time for me to play. It's complicated, as it always is, but I'm able to make time for everything, even if it's more limited.
We also had an issue with our computer which meant I was completely without one for most of the past year. We were managing before the little guy got placed with us, but all the wires are not conducive to a small, energetic kid running around.
At that point, I had to halt the blog until we could get a replacement. And, now we do!
Now back to the usual. :-)
05 June 2016
My Quest
As stated in my previous post, I was given a quest by Her Majesty to seek out period and persona appropriate titles for Mongol personae when I received my Award of Arms.
I am always looking for new ways to expand my knowledge, so I obliged the quest. It intersects a lot of less-utilized aspects of my interests when it comes to the SCA. I have a big interest in linguistics, especially historical linguistics. Needless to say, this is entirely in a wheelhouse I never thought I'd ever be able to live in while playing, given the focus on material culture in the SCA.
With all that being said, there are several challenges I'm going to face when it comes to getting everything sufficiently equivalent for my tastes. Below is a basic breakdown of what I know already, the challenges it's going to present and what I'm thinking right off for how I can overcome them.
First challenge:
Our game uses a European, especially a French/English, structure to titles based off of High Middle Ages Feudalism. There is an influence of the trade guilds, as well, with Masters and Mistresses for highest level artisans and scholars. They all come together right around the end of period, to my knowledge. So, 1550s to early 1600s. I am not an expert, by any means, in the timelines and the rises and falls of titles and social structures in Europe, given my own focus, but that's the understanding I have.
Added into that, the Mongol people were and, to some extent, still are a nomadic people. Landed gentry, frankly, didn't exist in period that was home-grown. Social structure was based off of cultural norms and the military structure. As the SCA has an independent military structure, it would be less informative and absolutely be a shoe-horn to take military terms for non-military positions (i.e. not Knights and Squires). The last thing I want to do is be controversial to the Chivalry -- making a new problem to solve an old one.
Strategy
I'm going to take a look at the Mongols who did settle, so post-Chinggis and see what I can find for the governmental structure. The Mongols held, and held sway, in territories and kingdoms long after the conquests which brought about the Golden Age of Mongols. In particular, I'm going to be looking at a couple different places and times to see what it has to offer:
(1)Persia
Persia offers a lot in terms of finding what I need. The largest advantage to Persia is that they did have land owners and a more European style (than, say, Eastern or Indian style) court. There was the Shah and then those who reported to him; there were levels of nobility and, most importantly, there was both a military and an artistic/scholarly culture home grown in Persia and its environs.
Additionally, when the Mongols invaded and overthrew the Persians, they didn't overthrow the government in its entirety. What they did was they created what can be thought of as one of the first modern style shadow governments. It's not an exact match to what we've seen in the Modern era, like with Vichy France during the Nazi Occupation (Did I just Godwin my blog?), but it's definitely a shadow government.
The way it worked, from what I've been able to find, is that the Mongols took the existing structure and added themselves into it. This is shown in the miniatures (look, overlap) in that there are always Persians and Mongols together and in relatively reflective positions. In my garb breakdown, which I'll be posting later today, I have a good example of what I mean.
So, what you have, in essence, is that the Mongols would have had their own positions and what I seek is if they would also have had their own titles to go with those positions. If that's the case, then it's a Mongol-specific title system I can lift and adjust grammatically according to gender.
(2)The Timurids
The Timurids are one of the last great gasps of the Mongols as a huge force in Asia. They had their own empire and then went on the conquer and become the antecedents to the Mughals in India. Having land, they would have needed to structure themselves in a way in which I could use a mirror to find approximates. Then, the same pattern applies as with the Persians -- figuring out how to make it grammatically sound through gender and post.
This is largely a guess in terms of it will work, but I know that Tamerlane had a court and his successors also had them. It's also another way for an Indian persona to attribute the appropriate titles onto themselves, as India is neither a monolith nor even a single state area until modern times. And, depending on what you're looking at as "India", it is still a three-state region with India, Pakistan (where the Indus River is actually located) and Bangladesh (former East Pakistan).
This would make the strongest arguments, if it proves out, because it's homegrown completely within the evolving Mongol culture throughout period and so doesn't fall victim to biases in the way that the Persians do.
(3)The Chinese
The Yuan dynasty, oh how I love you. You have given me so much inspiration and knowledge. It's the material culture I know the most about and was the Mongol cultural area I was most familiar with even before I started in the SCA.
In all truthfulness, I don't know as much as I should about the social structures of Chinese court and dynastic life as I should. I tend to focus more overall in figuring out where someone sits in a portrait for general social standing than I do with figuring out what all the iconography means beyond know "Emperor" or "Scholar". The civil society in China goes back thousands of years and the Yuan dynasty is a funny period for China in terms of how it sees itself, largely being eschewed for native rule dynasties.
This would be similar to Persia in application in that the terms and titles would be adapted from the home culture. The main difference is that the Chinese were subjects of the Mongols directly instead of shadowed by Mongol overseers (more or less). The terms, however, would be in Chinese. That works to the advantage that there is no grammatical gender in Chinese, nor is there real structure in number and tense. The difficulty is that we have to use modern pronunciations to Middle Chinese because of a pictographic writing system. There isn't an actual way to know if what we're using now were the actually pronounced ways of the language back that far.
(4)The Crimean Khanate
The Crimean Khanate is a largely forgotten, semi-independent successor state to the Golden Horde. It existed as a tribute to the Ottomans and was founded in the mid-late 15th century. It dates to well within period and, with direct contact with the Ottomans as a tributary, would have had ample information if I can find it.
There are several problems with the Crimean Khanate that can cause issue. First, its position was precarious. Sandwiched between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, it was hot territory for the Russians to take over, which they eventually did in 1774 according to the linked article. They existed as a trading outpost on, as you can guess, the Crimean peninsula and its environs.
interesting historical tidbit -- the reason why the area is primarily Russian and not primarily Turkic today is because the Soviets expelled the Turkic peoples to the PR Kazakhstan and then russified the area. This resettlement makes the area Russian ethnically and is a bit of an antecedent to some of the problems that arouse a couple years ago. See? History is still relevant, even to contemporary events!
Anyway, my main issue is I know basically nothing about the Crimean Khanate, aside from that it existed, they traded with the Ottomans and they were not liked by the Russians who wanted the warm water port. It would require a ton of research and, I think, most of the information would be on the wars between the Ottomans and Russians and/or the Crimean Wars much, much later. It looks, on face, as a historical dead zone.
Second Challenge:
Even if the Mongols were to have been a landed culture on their own, they were not a literate culture until the smashed into other folks by conquering them. There simply is no way to have one, mass title database for everything that could possibly have been as oral traditions change with changes in cultures. Think about how Grimm fairy tales changed in records, even when being written down sporadically through the times they were being told in medieval and early-modern Germany.
Lacking a real written record is, of course, a challenge I work around all the time. I tend to rely on China and Persia, since the biases of the writers are well known.
Strategy
I'm going to continue to use the methods I'm already using. It will be trickier since, instead of using visual reference it will need to be written, but a process part of anything I submit as to how I worked around biases should cover those shortfalls. It's not perfect, but it can work.
Third Challenge:
I don't know that much about Middle Mongol grammar. This is a huge area that will require a good amount of study. Once Mongolian was written down, it was written using Chinese character, Sogdian-Uyghir script and Persian-adapted Arabic. Later, Mongolian used Cyrillic letters with additional home-grown lettering to capture the phonetics of the language.
Strategy
I've just got to learn the language. I've already got a request out to Jacquemine van Bel who is not only a great and close pre-SCA friend of mine but a legitimate librarian with the paperwork to prove it. We're already turning up helpful resources for me to use and, being in the higher education utopia of New England, we should be able to get some good access as she works for a college library.
Upcoming, I'll go more into what I've done so far to reach to these conclusions instead of do something smaller like just run to the College of Heralds site (spoiler: not as helpful as I'd have liked).
I am always looking for new ways to expand my knowledge, so I obliged the quest. It intersects a lot of less-utilized aspects of my interests when it comes to the SCA. I have a big interest in linguistics, especially historical linguistics. Needless to say, this is entirely in a wheelhouse I never thought I'd ever be able to live in while playing, given the focus on material culture in the SCA.
With all that being said, there are several challenges I'm going to face when it comes to getting everything sufficiently equivalent for my tastes. Below is a basic breakdown of what I know already, the challenges it's going to present and what I'm thinking right off for how I can overcome them.
First challenge:
Our game uses a European, especially a French/English, structure to titles based off of High Middle Ages Feudalism. There is an influence of the trade guilds, as well, with Masters and Mistresses for highest level artisans and scholars. They all come together right around the end of period, to my knowledge. So, 1550s to early 1600s. I am not an expert, by any means, in the timelines and the rises and falls of titles and social structures in Europe, given my own focus, but that's the understanding I have.
Added into that, the Mongol people were and, to some extent, still are a nomadic people. Landed gentry, frankly, didn't exist in period that was home-grown. Social structure was based off of cultural norms and the military structure. As the SCA has an independent military structure, it would be less informative and absolutely be a shoe-horn to take military terms for non-military positions (i.e. not Knights and Squires). The last thing I want to do is be controversial to the Chivalry -- making a new problem to solve an old one.
Strategy
I'm going to take a look at the Mongols who did settle, so post-Chinggis and see what I can find for the governmental structure. The Mongols held, and held sway, in territories and kingdoms long after the conquests which brought about the Golden Age of Mongols. In particular, I'm going to be looking at a couple different places and times to see what it has to offer:
(1)Persia
Persia offers a lot in terms of finding what I need. The largest advantage to Persia is that they did have land owners and a more European style (than, say, Eastern or Indian style) court. There was the Shah and then those who reported to him; there were levels of nobility and, most importantly, there was both a military and an artistic/scholarly culture home grown in Persia and its environs.
Additionally, when the Mongols invaded and overthrew the Persians, they didn't overthrow the government in its entirety. What they did was they created what can be thought of as one of the first modern style shadow governments. It's not an exact match to what we've seen in the Modern era, like with Vichy France during the Nazi Occupation (Did I just Godwin my blog?), but it's definitely a shadow government.
The way it worked, from what I've been able to find, is that the Mongols took the existing structure and added themselves into it. This is shown in the miniatures (look, overlap) in that there are always Persians and Mongols together and in relatively reflective positions. In my garb breakdown, which I'll be posting later today, I have a good example of what I mean.
So, what you have, in essence, is that the Mongols would have had their own positions and what I seek is if they would also have had their own titles to go with those positions. If that's the case, then it's a Mongol-specific title system I can lift and adjust grammatically according to gender.
(2)The Timurids
The Timurids are one of the last great gasps of the Mongols as a huge force in Asia. They had their own empire and then went on the conquer and become the antecedents to the Mughals in India. Having land, they would have needed to structure themselves in a way in which I could use a mirror to find approximates. Then, the same pattern applies as with the Persians -- figuring out how to make it grammatically sound through gender and post.
This is largely a guess in terms of it will work, but I know that Tamerlane had a court and his successors also had them. It's also another way for an Indian persona to attribute the appropriate titles onto themselves, as India is neither a monolith nor even a single state area until modern times. And, depending on what you're looking at as "India", it is still a three-state region with India, Pakistan (where the Indus River is actually located) and Bangladesh (former East Pakistan).
This would make the strongest arguments, if it proves out, because it's homegrown completely within the evolving Mongol culture throughout period and so doesn't fall victim to biases in the way that the Persians do.
(3)The Chinese
The Yuan dynasty, oh how I love you. You have given me so much inspiration and knowledge. It's the material culture I know the most about and was the Mongol cultural area I was most familiar with even before I started in the SCA.
In all truthfulness, I don't know as much as I should about the social structures of Chinese court and dynastic life as I should. I tend to focus more overall in figuring out where someone sits in a portrait for general social standing than I do with figuring out what all the iconography means beyond know "Emperor" or "Scholar". The civil society in China goes back thousands of years and the Yuan dynasty is a funny period for China in terms of how it sees itself, largely being eschewed for native rule dynasties.
This would be similar to Persia in application in that the terms and titles would be adapted from the home culture. The main difference is that the Chinese were subjects of the Mongols directly instead of shadowed by Mongol overseers (more or less). The terms, however, would be in Chinese. That works to the advantage that there is no grammatical gender in Chinese, nor is there real structure in number and tense. The difficulty is that we have to use modern pronunciations to Middle Chinese because of a pictographic writing system. There isn't an actual way to know if what we're using now were the actually pronounced ways of the language back that far.
(4)The Crimean Khanate
The Crimean Khanate is a largely forgotten, semi-independent successor state to the Golden Horde. It existed as a tribute to the Ottomans and was founded in the mid-late 15th century. It dates to well within period and, with direct contact with the Ottomans as a tributary, would have had ample information if I can find it.
There are several problems with the Crimean Khanate that can cause issue. First, its position was precarious. Sandwiched between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, it was hot territory for the Russians to take over, which they eventually did in 1774 according to the linked article. They existed as a trading outpost on, as you can guess, the Crimean peninsula and its environs.
interesting historical tidbit -- the reason why the area is primarily Russian and not primarily Turkic today is because the Soviets expelled the Turkic peoples to the PR Kazakhstan and then russified the area. This resettlement makes the area Russian ethnically and is a bit of an antecedent to some of the problems that arouse a couple years ago. See? History is still relevant, even to contemporary events!
Anyway, my main issue is I know basically nothing about the Crimean Khanate, aside from that it existed, they traded with the Ottomans and they were not liked by the Russians who wanted the warm water port. It would require a ton of research and, I think, most of the information would be on the wars between the Ottomans and Russians and/or the Crimean Wars much, much later. It looks, on face, as a historical dead zone.
Second Challenge:
Even if the Mongols were to have been a landed culture on their own, they were not a literate culture until the smashed into other folks by conquering them. There simply is no way to have one, mass title database for everything that could possibly have been as oral traditions change with changes in cultures. Think about how Grimm fairy tales changed in records, even when being written down sporadically through the times they were being told in medieval and early-modern Germany.
Lacking a real written record is, of course, a challenge I work around all the time. I tend to rely on China and Persia, since the biases of the writers are well known.
Strategy
I'm going to continue to use the methods I'm already using. It will be trickier since, instead of using visual reference it will need to be written, but a process part of anything I submit as to how I worked around biases should cover those shortfalls. It's not perfect, but it can work.
Third Challenge:
I don't know that much about Middle Mongol grammar. This is a huge area that will require a good amount of study. Once Mongolian was written down, it was written using Chinese character, Sogdian-Uyghir script and Persian-adapted Arabic. Later, Mongolian used Cyrillic letters with additional home-grown lettering to capture the phonetics of the language.
Strategy
I've just got to learn the language. I've already got a request out to Jacquemine van Bel who is not only a great and close pre-SCA friend of mine but a legitimate librarian with the paperwork to prove it. We're already turning up helpful resources for me to use and, being in the higher education utopia of New England, we should be able to get some good access as she works for a college library.
Upcoming, I'll go more into what I've done so far to reach to these conclusions instead of do something smaller like just run to the College of Heralds site (spoiler: not as helpful as I'd have liked).
Award of Arms, New Projects
(Photo credit Lady Fortune Sct Keyne)Yesterday at King's and Queen's Archery and Thrown Weapons here in the East, I was called into Court to receive my Award of Arms for the research I'm doing and outlining here. I'm hugely honored and flattered to have been recognized for it.
I will be breaking down the garb in a future post as the deel is new and the sleeve length, as you may be able to see, but I absolutely first wanted to thanks His and Her Majesty, Kenric and Avelina.
Their Majesties, while I was before the Court, asked me for the equivalent of Lord for a Mongol persona. I, in all my infinite casualness, responded "honestly, I have no idea. I haven't gotten to language yet" with a laugh. It was appreciated by the Crown, but did come with a quest.
I have been tasked with finding what that equivalency would be, but me being me, I want to do it bigger because why not right? I want to do the full round of titles so no matter the level of award, or area of focus, there is an option. It's ambitious, but I do have some ideas that I will outline in a future post.
I've actually got a few posts lined up, mentally, that I will be committed to "paper" in coming weeks, focused mostly in garb, but this is the first "big thing" to happen for me. As a result, I felt it deserved its own, timely, post.
All this to say, stay tuned because more is coming for real this time!
21 May 2016
And I'm back!
So, life took some turns and I was unable both to do much research nor tell anyone about it. I am back with a computer now, though, so I will hopefully be able to update more than the spurts-in-Winter that I've been doing.
BUT YEAH, we'll see.
BUT YEAH, we'll see.
06 February 2015
Birka Garb 2015
Within the last few weeks, here in the East Kingdom we had a large event called A Market Day at Birka. It's a merchant-centered event, as the name suggests, at a hotel in Manchester, NH.
Among many events, including an intensely popular armored, heavy combat tournament, is the annual fashion show where those who wish to can show off their duds to the oohs and ahs of the populace.
My household, House Strangewayes, has been running the fashion show for the past several years and it's a big success. As a member of the household, I volunteered to help keep everything running smoothly from registration through the event itself. This means I'm in the background of a good amount of photos around Facebook.
What that allows me, though, is the ability to show you the latest garb I've made and break down my inspirations and documentations for the decisions I made to construct it.
There I am holding the clip board after collecting entries to the fashion show. I have no idea why it is I'm making that face, to be honest.
So, let's break things down, shall we? I think it's best to start at the bottom and work to the top, since the hat is what you're probably looking at first. It seems most people do (And it's super fun, and I love it).
The shoes is the least documentable part of my entire kit. I needed a pair of shoes which would work in looking period-esque and Mongolian. A few years back there was a vendor at Birka who's not been back since, named NYC Mongol. They carry hand made goods imported from Mongolia.
The slippers are hand made and they are incredibly comfortable and warm. I enjoy them, but until I get to make some gutal, they will do for now. It's a stop gap, but beats the inauthenticity of wearing my steel toed boots or sneakers.
The pants are where I've been struggling the most with construction. There are a few different patterns I've found on Pinterest.
A couple things to note from the image. First, the man in the center is hunched over, which gives some false length, so the man in white is a better show there. The man is white does appear to be moving, however, thus the wrinkles.
The collar appears to be sewn into the body of the deel to create a standing collar that travels the length of the enter seam of the neck area. This appears to be common across social class and location. I've seen it in Persian miniature, Chinese landscapes and Chinese portraiture.
I constructed it by experimenting a little over a couple different overcoats I have made. I found that making a double-wide strip, sewing that to the body of the deel, then folding over the "right" side to reinforce the seam and make a tube.
Now the hat. I love that hat. I can't take full credit for making it as I'm in no way a milliner. Iulia Agricola had constructed it for me for Birka 2014 when out household theme was "unusual but documentable".
It is based on this:
It is a hunting scene. I've not been able to directly attribute it to any on collection, sadly, but I can tell it's most likely Yuan and depicts a royal hunting party, probably for Kublai Khan, but that last part is pure conjecture.
You can see that there are two men wearing hats made of snow leopard, center left and center right. At some point, I do want to make the hat for center right with the "pouf" on top. That was not in the cards for me last year, but I do have enough of the faux fur to make another hat on my own.
I did base my hat off of center left. I substituted the black for brown as I can't tell if it was brown in the original and aged into black, or if the fur was black when created. Brown also was cheaper when I went to the fabric store and so it won as brown fur is common on all continents and it's plausible.
And, there you have it! The head-to-toe breakdown of my garb from Birka 2015.
There I am holding the clip board after collecting entries to the fashion show. I have no idea why it is I'm making that face, to be honest.
So, let's break things down, shall we? I think it's best to start at the bottom and work to the top, since the hat is what you're probably looking at first. It seems most people do (And it's super fun, and I love it).
The shoes is the least documentable part of my entire kit. I needed a pair of shoes which would work in looking period-esque and Mongolian. A few years back there was a vendor at Birka who's not been back since, named NYC Mongol. They carry hand made goods imported from Mongolia.
The slippers are hand made and they are incredibly comfortable and warm. I enjoy them, but until I get to make some gutal, they will do for now. It's a stop gap, but beats the inauthenticity of wearing my steel toed boots or sneakers.
The pants are where I've been struggling the most with construction. There are a few different patterns I've found on Pinterest.
These are the two best examples (direct link in alt text for attribution). The top is directly traceable to Mongols and the bottom pre-date the Golden Age by a couple centuries, dating to the 7th-8th century in Sogdiana.
The black pants are modeled after the lower pair of trousers and the construction is simpler and the detailing is hidden. They are similar to the Thorsberg Trouser and modern pyjama pants, so there is bountiful resource when I was making my very first pair, which busted in the crotch due to poor allowances for my not being waifish. The Sogdian trousers above has crotch gussets, which I did also put in.
I do, eventually, want to make what appear to be the overall style pants, but I haven't gotten up the courage yet. I'm a handsewer and I don't know if my skills are up to the task yet. I'm especially concerned about the ballooning I'm seeing out from the waist.
The jacket, I have to say, I am the most proud of in certain regards, but is not completely where I would like it to be.
It's based off of what I have found out of China for Mongols during the Yuan dynasty. The length is derived from it as is the cut to the opening at the top. Here is a good example from the Met:
The collar appears to be sewn into the body of the deel to create a standing collar that travels the length of the enter seam of the neck area. This appears to be common across social class and location. I've seen it in Persian miniature, Chinese landscapes and Chinese portraiture.
I constructed it by experimenting a little over a couple different overcoats I have made. I found that making a double-wide strip, sewing that to the body of the deel, then folding over the "right" side to reinforce the seam and make a tube.
Now the hat. I love that hat. I can't take full credit for making it as I'm in no way a milliner. Iulia Agricola had constructed it for me for Birka 2014 when out household theme was "unusual but documentable".
It is based on this:
You can see that there are two men wearing hats made of snow leopard, center left and center right. At some point, I do want to make the hat for center right with the "pouf" on top. That was not in the cards for me last year, but I do have enough of the faux fur to make another hat on my own.
I did base my hat off of center left. I substituted the black for brown as I can't tell if it was brown in the original and aged into black, or if the fur was black when created. Brown also was cheaper when I went to the fabric store and so it won as brown fur is common on all continents and it's plausible.
And, there you have it! The head-to-toe breakdown of my garb from Birka 2015.
Slight Change in Course
So, quick hit here.
I've decided that it would be most productive to me to also do the "what am I doing now?" with projects related to my persona. It does all tie in together, but may mean there would be more that's not on the specifics of deciphering the manuscripts.
So, this'll be both a strict research and an experimental archaeology blog from here on out.
Hope to keep you along for the ride!
-E
I've decided that it would be most productive to me to also do the "what am I doing now?" with projects related to my persona. It does all tie in together, but may mean there would be more that's not on the specifics of deciphering the manuscripts.
So, this'll be both a strict research and an experimental archaeology blog from here on out.
Hope to keep you along for the ride!
-E
26 January 2015
Long Awaited Update
I fell off the blogging bandwagon for a while. It's more of my picking up and putting down research and less of progressing research with no update. My mundane life has taken a turn for the busy and, as a result, my research has suffered a bit.
That doesn't mean I've not doing anything.
I took a break from the class breakdown in Persian art and moved over to the Chinese manuscripts. I had been finding that the non-acculturated Mongol's in Persia is difficult to find in the resources I've been able to recover from the public domain, as I'm a hobbyist and not a traditional academic. My BPL card has also expired unexpectedly, which causes another bump in the road.
In China, though, it's easier for me to discern what I'm looking at. Generally, I'm more familiar with the artistic styles of the Chinese through out time and have a greater understanding of the social structures and cultural nuance from my days before the SCA.
They paintings are more abundant because of cultural frictions intermixed with a stubborn lack of intercultural exchange in the upper echelons of Chinese Imperial society during the Yuan period. Instead of working in tandem, like in Persia, the Chinese were ruled by the Mongols who did not "go local" but did learn the philosophies.
I've been able to become confident in nailing down that the fanciness of any given figure's fabric pattern/weave. It does answer a fundamental question I came into this project seeking to answer. Seeing that it is consistent between China and Persia suggests that it was a Mongol social status rank marker and it is less likely that it is a convention of the respective cultures to derank certain positions over others.
At this point, I need to revisit the common themes and motifs documented in academic resources so I can begin to up my personal game futher.
That doesn't mean I've not doing anything.
I took a break from the class breakdown in Persian art and moved over to the Chinese manuscripts. I had been finding that the non-acculturated Mongol's in Persia is difficult to find in the resources I've been able to recover from the public domain, as I'm a hobbyist and not a traditional academic. My BPL card has also expired unexpectedly, which causes another bump in the road.
In China, though, it's easier for me to discern what I'm looking at. Generally, I'm more familiar with the artistic styles of the Chinese through out time and have a greater understanding of the social structures and cultural nuance from my days before the SCA.
They paintings are more abundant because of cultural frictions intermixed with a stubborn lack of intercultural exchange in the upper echelons of Chinese Imperial society during the Yuan period. Instead of working in tandem, like in Persia, the Chinese were ruled by the Mongols who did not "go local" but did learn the philosophies.
I've been able to become confident in nailing down that the fanciness of any given figure's fabric pattern/weave. It does answer a fundamental question I came into this project seeking to answer. Seeing that it is consistent between China and Persia suggests that it was a Mongol social status rank marker and it is less likely that it is a convention of the respective cultures to derank certain positions over others.
At this point, I need to revisit the common themes and motifs documented in academic resources so I can begin to up my personal game futher.
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