Textile Fragment
7th Century - 8th Century (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Compound woven silk, samite. Possibly Egyptian or Byzantine, ca. AD600-900. The piece has been attached to cardboard. The background is of small cheques in brown and white. Circles (10mm diameter) lie evenly across the fabric and contain either a trefoil/club motif or a geometric motif of a central dot with four arrow heads pointing in towards the dot.
Samite (twill woven silk) was thought to originate from Persia under Sassanian rule (AD224-651). It was commonly decorated with pairs of animals and birds and set in pearled lotus roundels. It is often found in Western burials, within church possessions and along the Silk Road. Byzantine weaving workshops took on the samite technique to make it an essential weave of the period. It was a luxury textile of the Middle Ages brought to Europe when the Crusades opened up direct contact with the East. It was forbidden to the middle classes of France under the sumptuary rules c. 1470.
Samite (twill woven silk) was thought to originate from Persia under Sassanian rule (AD224-651). It was commonly decorated with pairs of animals and birds and set in pearled lotus roundels. It is often found in Western burials, within church possessions and along the Silk Road. Byzantine weaving workshops took on the samite technique to make it an essential weave of the period. It was a luxury textile of the Middle Ages brought to Europe when the Crusades opened up direct contact with the East. It was forbidden to the middle classes of France under the sumptuary rules c. 1470.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Woven silk |
| Brief description | Fragment of a silk samite, Egypt, possibly Akhmim, 7th century |
| Physical description | Compound woven silk, samite. The piece has been attached to cardboard. The background is of small cheques in brown and white. Circles (10mm diameter) lie evenly across the fabric and contain either a trefoil/club motif or a geometric motif of a central dot with four arrow heads pointing in towards the dot. |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Given by Sir C. Purdon Clarke, C.V.O., C.I.E. |
| Association | |
| Summary | Compound woven silk, samite. Possibly Egyptian or Byzantine, ca. AD600-900. The piece has been attached to cardboard. The background is of small cheques in brown and white. Circles (10mm diameter) lie evenly across the fabric and contain either a trefoil/club motif or a geometric motif of a central dot with four arrow heads pointing in towards the dot. Samite (twill woven silk) was thought to originate from Persia under Sassanian rule (AD224-651). It was commonly decorated with pairs of animals and birds and set in pearled lotus roundels. It is often found in Western burials, within church possessions and along the Silk Road. Byzantine weaving workshops took on the samite technique to make it an essential weave of the period. It was a luxury textile of the Middle Ages brought to Europe when the Crusades opened up direct contact with the East. It was forbidden to the middle classes of France under the sumptuary rules c. 1470. |
| Bibliographic reference | A fragment with similar pattern is depicted in R. Forrer, <i>Romische und Byzantinische Seiden-Textilien aus dem Graberfeld von Achmim-Panopolis</i> (Strasbourg, 1891), pl. IX.4.
Fragments of this silk are found in a number of collections - for a study of the group see P. Linscheid, "Textiles from Akhmim-Panopolis", in R. el-Sayed and C. Fluck (eds), The Textile Centre Akhmim-Panopolis (Egypt) in Late Antiquity (Wiesbaden, 2020), 25-6. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 338-1887 |
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| Record created | June 24, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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