Pattern woven buff wool (taquete) with bands of dark blue rosettes and pink lozenges, from Loulan, China, 200-400

Polychrome patterned weave (taquete) made of wool showing bands of decoration: dark blue circular rosettes, triangles of dark blue and yellow, double lined lozenges in pink on buff ground. One selvedge intact and remains of stitching.

Dye Analysis:

A yellow/orange specimen , #2 (L.A.IV.v.002) contained lucidin primeveroside and ruberthic acid, which are the glycosidic precursors to the red dye, alizarin. The presence of glycosides suggests that the plant material was fresh when used. Madder is usually allowed to "ferment" for some time before the dyes are extracted, a process that allows glycosidases within the plant to convert the glycosides to alizarin and other dyes. The specimen allso contained a yellow dye consisting mostly of luteolin 7-glucoside and smaller amounts of other flavonoid glycosides. Superficially this suggests weld, which was used widely in Europe, but there are small differences. The yellow resembles one researchers found in 3000-year-old textile samples from Cherchen, which is not far from Loulan [see Zhang et al., J. Arch. Sci. 35 (2008) 1095-1103]. It is possible that this yellow came from a plant that grows (or grew) on the eastern and southern border regions of the Taklamakan Desert. It is not certain that weld ever grew in Xinjiang Province (or any part of China), at least in ancient times. (report by Xian Zhang 09/02/2008)

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

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 woollen fragment shows bands in dark blue circular rosettes, triangles of dark blue and yellow, double lined lozenges in pink on buff ground. It is unclear what it would have been used for, although it is likely to have had a decorative purpose as well as a utilitarian function. It was recovered from the site of Loulan which dates from the 3rd to the 4th century AD. The site of Loulan 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 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 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.229