Textile with Horned Animals in a Pearl Roundel

China (Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Central Asia)

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This piece, showing two confronted animals, likely bulls, is a composite of roundels from different parts of the same length of cloth. This category of textile moved with Sogdian merchants along overland trade routes that linked Central Asia with territories farther west. The tradition of setting animals in pearl roundels has its origins in the late Sasanian period and remained popular in Central Asia for many centuries.

Textile with Horned Animals in a Pearl Roundel, Woven silk, China (Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Central Asia)

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