Answer:
In the first century CE, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, silk had become a big problem. The luxury fabric, imported at great cost from China, had become a symbol of decadence and excess among Romans. In order to make their supply of silk last longer, merchants unraveled and re-wove their fabric into thinner, sheer garments. This practice had a side-effect of making the garments nearly transparent.
The scientific scholars that are described by the details present in the question provided would be the political anthropologists. By definition, a political anthropologist is a scientist that mainly do his research in the field of analysing the history and the processes of politics as well as how it impact the society.