These two strips of felted wool fragments, of which one is buff coloured and one blue, are stitched together with red silk thread in a decorative manner. There is a narrow strip of plain woven green silk close to the middle of the fragment. It is unclear what this object would have been used for, although it is likely to have had a decorative purpose. It was recovered from the site of Niya, which dates from the 2rd to the 3rd century AD. Niya was probably the capital city of the kingdom of Shanshan whose people were of Indian origin. The site of Niya is remarkable for the carved wooden capitals, beams and balustrades that show similarities to the western classical decoration that filtered through Iran and Northwest India.

The site is also 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.

This textile was 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.