Pattern woven silk showing an unidentified design in white, green, yellow and blue on red ground

Triangular fragment of polychrome patterned weave made of silk in white, blue, yellow, green and blue on red ground showing an unidentified design.

Dye analysis 1:

Red specimen #6 (LA.IV.ii.0045.b) contained only purpurin, no alizarin. This suggests that something other than the usual madder was used. The only species encountered by researchers that contain purpurin, but no alizarin, are of Relbunium, from South America. Researchers conclude, however, that the dye does not not come from Relbunium, but another Old World plant. (report by Xian Zhang 09/02/2008)

Dye analysis 2:

Color detected: red
Compounds detected: purpurin
Possible dye source: madder root? (no alizarin)

Stein Textile Loan Collection. On loan from the Government of India and the Archaeological Survey of India. Copyright: Government of India.

Textile has previously been stored in a cream envelope which has been labelled 'L.A.VI.ii.0045.b.' and 'Pl.CXI' probably by either or both Marc Aurel Stein and his assistant Miss F M G Lorimer. Attached tofragment is a circular metal-rimmed label showing Stein number possibly in Stein's handwriting or that of his assistant, Miss F M G Lorimer.

Loulan was once an important garrison town which lay between the Pei shan and Taklamakan deserts on the Silk Road. The city was also a centre of Buddhist worship. When Sven Hedin explored the site in 1900, he discovered remains of a stupa, reliefs depicting Buddhas among lotuses, and statues of deities. This strategically important city is mentioned in Chinese records for the first time in 176 BC with the conquest by the Xiongnu, but the area fell under Chinese control around 100 BC. Located in the middle of the Silk Road, Loulan had contacts with many cultures, represented by hundreds of documents in Chinese, Indian Kharosthi, and Sogdian scripts which were unearthed by Hedin and Stein. A woollen cloth, which Stein found in a tomb, depicted the head of Hermes and his caduceus, or staff, in the classical style of western Asia. He also unearthed a number of mummies with feathered felt caps and arrow shafts by their sides; which indicated that a community of herdsmen and hunters had inhabited the region long before various imperial conquests. Loulan flourished until the fourth century AD, when it was abandoned, due to the desiccation of a nearby lake, Lop Nor. The V&A holds, on loan, a large number of textiles from Loulan, including cotton, wool and figured silks, carpet and tapestry fragments.

This small fragment of pattern woven silk in white, blue, yellow, green and blue on red ground was recovered from a refuse heap at the site of Loulan. It is unclear what this textile would have been used for, although is is likely to have had a decorative purpose. The site of Loulan dates from the 3rd to the 4th century AD and is remarkable for the carved wooden capitals, beams and balustrades that show clear affinities with western Classical decoration that filtered through Iran and Northwest India.

The sites are 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 most notable item traded was silk. Camels and horses were used as pack animals and merchants passed the goods from oasis to oasis. The Silk Road was also important for the exchange of ideas. Whilst silk textiles travelled west from China, Buddhism entered China from India in this way.

This textile was brought back from Central Asia by the explorer and archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943). The V&A has around 650 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 different animals.

LOAN:STEIN.231