The Stein Collection
Fragment
300-500 (made)
300-500 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This rectangular fragment is of buff coloured plain weave silk. It show traces of black paint and has six holes placed at regular intervals. The textile was originally used as a background for artificial flowers on wooden pegs, which would have been pushed through the holes in the fabric. It may have represented the lotus lake in the mythical Buddhist region of Sukhavati. It was recovered from the site of Miran on the eastern edge of the Taklamakan desert where a Buddhist shrine was abandoned in the 4rd or 5th century.
The site is part of an area of Central Asia we now call the Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes that crossed Asia from China to Europe. The Silk Road was also important for the exchange of ideas. While silk textiles travelled west from China, Buddhism entered China from India along this route.
These textiles were brought back from Central Asia by the explorer and archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943). The Victoria and Albert Museum has around 700 ancient and medieval textiles recovered by Stein at the beginning of the 20th century. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of animals.
The site is part of an area of Central Asia we now call the Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes that crossed Asia from China to Europe. The Silk Road was also important for the exchange of ideas. While silk textiles travelled west from China, Buddhism entered China from India along this route.
These textiles were brought back from Central Asia by the explorer and archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943). The Victoria and Albert Museum has around 700 ancient and medieval textiles recovered by Stein at the beginning of the 20th century. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of animals.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | The Stein Collection (named collection) |
| Materials and techniques | Plain-woven silk |
| Brief description | Piece of plain woven buff silk with peg-holes |
| Physical description | Rectangular monochrome plain weave buff coloured silk. Traces of black paint are present and there are six holes placed at regular intervals in the fabric. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Credit line | Stein Textile Loan Collection. On loan from the Government of India and the Archaeological Survey of India. Copyright: Government of India |
| Object history | Attached to fragment is a circular metal-rimmed label showing Stein number possibly in Stein's handwriting or that of his assistant, Miss F M G Lorimer. |
| Historical context | Miran lies between Kargilik and kake Lop Nor on the southern Silk Road. Stein excavated an ancient fort and remains of a Buddhist sanctuary there in 1907 and uncovered spectacular Buddhist murals in its temples and stupas. These depicted winged figures with garlands; imagery which he identified with the mythology and style of Persia and Greece. The appearance of the signature "Tita" led Stein to conclude that the paintings were the work of an artist from the eastern Mediterranean. Temple sculpture, including a colossal Buddha head, was rendered in the opulent Gandharan style of northwest India. Stein called this fusion of regional styles Graeco-Buddhist and determined that the site had flourished in the first centuries of the millennium, when trade along the southern Silk Road had thrived. The V&A holds, on loan, from Miran, silk and wool fragments, and a group of lotus flowers made of cotton and silk and fragments of a painted cotton temple hanging. |
| Association | |
| Summary | This rectangular fragment is of buff coloured plain weave silk. It show traces of black paint and has six holes placed at regular intervals. The textile was originally used as a background for artificial flowers on wooden pegs, which would have been pushed through the holes in the fabric. It may have represented the lotus lake in the mythical Buddhist region of Sukhavati. It was recovered from the site of Miran on the eastern edge of the Taklamakan desert where a Buddhist shrine was abandoned in the 4rd or 5th century. The site is part of an area of Central Asia we now call the Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes that crossed Asia from China to Europe. The Silk Road was also important for the exchange of ideas. While silk textiles travelled west from China, Buddhism entered China from India along this route. These textiles were brought back from Central Asia by the explorer and archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943). The Victoria and Albert Museum has around 700 ancient and medieval textiles recovered by Stein at the beginning of the 20th century. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of animals. |
| Associated objects |
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| Bibliographic references |
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| Other number | M.III.0028 - Stein number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | LOAN:STEIN.233 |
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| Record created | December 16, 2003 |
| Record URL |
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