[1][2] The caftan is reconstructed from garment fragments excavated from a burial ground near Moshchevaja Balka (located by the Bolshaya Laba River in Karachay-Cherkessia, on the Pontic–Caspian steppe).

The main site is a burial ground at Moshchevaja Balka ("Ravine of the Mummies or Relics"), in a densely wooded area about 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) above sea level.

[6] Anna A. Ierusalimskaja, curator of the North Caucasian antiquities in the Hermitage, has written extensively on the finds (in Russian and in German), but Elfriede R. Knauer concludes that "neither the age and places of manufacture of the majority of Chinese silks nor of those from the eastern Mediterranean recovered at the North Caucasian sites can as yet be defined with absolute certainty.

The garment is secured with three sets of frogs, fabric-covered buttons and twisted loops of cording made of bias-cut strips of linen.

The caftan is made from linen cloth woven as a bolt of fabric and cut using a "semistraight" structure, with triangles and trapezoids—some of them pieced from smaller fragments of cloth—assembled to shape the garment.

[11][3][12] The lower sleeves and upper neckline of the caftan have not survived, and it is unknown whether a collar or cuffs were part of the garment.

The pieces are sewn with linen thread in neat flat-felled seams, and the upper body and skirts were assembled and trimmed separately before being joined at the waist.

[13] "Overall, the high quality of the linen cloth, garment design, cutting, assembling, and sewing demonstrated remarkable professional coordination in comparison with ontemporaneous examples from other cultures, attesting to this region's elevated standards in artistic and technical achievements regarding textile culture and perhaps even social decorum.

'[10] The caftan's borders, each about 8 centimetres (3.1 in) wide, are made of two different designs of polychrome samite (weft-faced compound twill weave) patterned silks.