belt hook

File:Eastern Han shield-shaped belt hook.jpg

The earliest archaeological evidence of belt hooks date to the 7th century BCE, in East Asia.{{cite book |last=Kipfer |first=Barbara Ann |date=30 April 2000 |page=64 |title=Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-306-46158-3}} Belt hooks were made with bronze, iron, gold, and jade. Texts from Warring States period China claim that the belt hook originates from Central Asian nomads, although belt hooks have been found in China predating the Warring States.{{cite book |last=Wagner |first=Donald B. |year=1993 |page=169 |title=Iron and Steel in Ancient China |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-09632-5}} The equestrian tradition, initially foreign to China, was tightly related to wearing belted pants, thus belt hooks became one of the features of "barbaric" exoticism. As such, the hooks became an object of aesthetic contemplation. For example, Qu Yuan ({{circa|340-278 BCE}}) compares beautiful women to the belt hooks {{Transliteration|zh|xianbei}} ({{lang|zh|鮮卑}}).{{cite encyclopedia |last=Mair |first=Victor H. |year=2006 |title=Kinesis versus Stasis, Interaction versus Independent Invention |editor1-last=Mair |editor1-first=Victor H. |pages=1–2 |editor2-last=Bentley |editor2-first=Jerry H. |editor3-last=Yang |editor3-first=Anand A. |encyclopedia=Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World |publisher=University of Hawai‘i Press |url=http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/books/mair-contact-intro.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304054625/http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/books/mair-contact-intro.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016}}

Belt hooks have also been found in Celtic archaeological sites.{{cite book |last=Harding |first=D. W. |date=18 June 2007 |page=124 |title=Archaeology of Celtic Art |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-35177-5 |author-link=Dennis Harding}}

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Category:Belts (clothing)

Category:Belt buckles

Category:Chinese inventions

Category:Textile closures

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