In 1915, Aurel Stein found two pieces of wooden figurines in the tomb Ast.vi.4 in Astana Turfan, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The figurines are well preserved. One in collected in the British Museum and the other in the National Museum in New Delhi.
The colors on the figurines are still vivid. They have black hair with hairstyles with buns. Their facial features are similar: flat faces, short noses and dark brown almondshaped eyes, all of which are general characters of the Mongoloid. Both of them wearing black jackets w ith o verlapping collars, s kirts w ith s trips in red and green alternately. There are two kinds of patterns on the clothes: one is diamond and the other is floret. The diamonds imitate the pattern of tie dyeing, while the florets imitate the pattern of wax resist dyeing. The origin of dyed silk in China could date to West Jin dynasty (265-316 A D) in northwest China. The original meaning of Chinese character xie was tie dyeing. The diamonds were got by binding method: wrapping the fabric and then binding it tightly with threads. If the binding areas are small enough, the pattern will result in tiny rhombuses. Wax resist dyeing did not originate in China. This technique was probably introduced into northwest China along the Silk Road between the 3rd and 5th century. The wax resist dyed pattern on silk began from dots. Several single dots were arranged to form a floret. Similar patterns are commonly seen on dyed silks during the 3rd to 5th centuries. Compared with other archaeological findings and according to the style and patterns painted on these two wooden figurines, the tomb Ast.vi.4 was dated to the Sixteen Kingdoms (4th CE).