DescriptionTextiles made in Egypt, the Near East, and western Central Asia in the Sasanian era were commonly decorated with a single animal or a confronted pair within a roundel. A particularly angular, geometric stylization of the animals characterized some of the pieces woven in Sogd in western Central Asia. The precious quality of luxurious silks led to the transfer of textile patterns to other media--silver vessels, stone carvings, and ceramics--many of them made centuries after the collapse of Sasanian Iran and the widespread Arab conquests in the Near East.

 

 

Central Asian Textiles

 

These textiles are similar in design and fabric to garments (now preserved in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg) that Russian archaeologists unearthed between 1968 and 1976 in graves at Moshchevaja Balka. This site on the northern rim of the Caucasus Mountains lay on a trade route passing through the Caspian Sea region and linking Central Asia with Byzantium. The most precious commodity traded was silk. Textiles of Syrian, Central Asian, Chinese, and local origin were preserved, as were other locally made wood, skin, and metal objects used from the seventh to the ninth century by traders and merchants in this mountainous area.