An internship at the China National Silk Museum in 2016 played a big role in my professional development as a textile restorer. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the director of the museum, Mr. Zhao Feng, the head of the restoration studio Ms.WangShujan and all the employees with whom we worked for two months and who shared their skills and experience with me. The main result and skill obtained during this work was the sewing technique used by Chinese colleagues, and which I also use in my practice. This method of fastening fabrics to a textile base is best suited
for attaching archaeological textiles, does not deform the edges of the fabric and promotes a uniform distribution of the load throughout the product.
My experience shows that work should be better started with fastening to the gas base of small parts of the object, when reconstructing the lost area of the textile, focus on the color and structure of small fragments, use a more transparent duplicate material in comparison with the main archaeological textile, reconstruct the lost structural seams using a thin silk ribbon.
After the work done, it began to restore the design and patterns of the robe first of all, the overall dimensions of the robe were determined. According to the surviving fragments, the length of the sleeve from the collar to the cuff, the length and width of the cuff, the width of the collar and the dimensions of the side wedges on the hem of the robe were traced. On this basis, the length of the robe, the width of the bottom, and the width of the collar on the back, were hypothetically established, the original dimensions of which are not amenable to recovery because of the extreme destruction of the robe. Shape of the robe was drawn in a proportion of 1: 4 to the original dimensions, on which the models of the surviving fragments of the product were placed binding to the main constructive lines as well as with the indicated their previous location.

Fixation of archaeological textile to the duplicating material began with small parts of the robe: cuffs and collar, in order to avoid further excessive mechanical stress on the fabric of the main parts. The basic details of the collar as well as small fragments are preserved in separate sections of the left and right shelf. The rest of the chaotically scattered fragments of the collar were made of different types of textiles, which complicated its reconstruction. These fragments were selected and placed on the object on the basis of their natural location, then the similarity of their color range,
ornamentation and also the degree of preservation.
The remaining large parts of the right and left shelf, back of the robe and side wedges of the hem are attached to the base of silk gas along the main design lines. The loss of the fabric on the basic details was necessary to be filled with the surviving small fragments of textiles. These fragments did not carry a constructive load, but their location on the loss sites largely contributed to the restoration of the integrity of the object and its attractiveness when exhibited in the museum exposition. The remaining small fragments of textile were placed on the object in accordance with the indicated place of their finding in the burial: "textile around the femur of the left leg," "textile from the hip bone of the left leg," "chest" and just "legs." However, there were preserved packages with textile fragments without indicating their place in the burial, on which there was only one inscription: "cloth". The position of these fragments on the pattern was determined by the correspondence of the color and quality of the fabric to other details.
Experience shows that textile on the buried, in most cases, have similar losses, pollution, deformation and also changes in color in the chest area and especially on the back of the object. The surviving fragment of the back of the robe was strikingly different from the rest of the fragments. The cloth in this place was very dry, especially polluted and had a dark brown color. Fragments from other parts of the robe were redorange, beige-orange, red-brown and black-brown.
When selecting and placing small fragments of the robe, special attention was paid to the quality and safety of the textile. The main fabric of this robe has a variety of seals, both in the warp threads and in the weft. The density of threads varies from medium to high in different sections of textile. Marriage threads and weaving are individual, which allow to place small fragments in groups on areas adjacent to large fragments with similar defects.
On the sleeves, the upper back and shelves, as well as on the hem of the robe was woven a golden ornament (tabby with supplementary weft), which at the moment, unfortunately, almost lost. Due to the loss of gold threads on ornamental areas, the textile is severely rarefied. This characteristic feature of the robe was also taken into account when determining the place of small fragments on the pattern. It is important to note that on some small fragments the joints have been preserved. The allowances on all the joints are individual, so their width, as well as the presence or absence of the edge, are specific markers for locating small fragments in places where tissue is lost.

As a result, small fragments were grouped according to the similarity of color scale, tissue density and characteristic features of preservation, and based on the identity of these features with the signs of large fragments, are placed on the parts of the object, which, when the robe was extremely destroyed, allowed the restoration of a considerable area of the original textile.

The work performed shows that attention should be focused even on the smallest details.