The Stein Collection
Fragment
8th century (made)
8th century (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
These three fragments are from a tablet woven border. The upper part shows running horses in pale blue on dark blue ground and below a reddish part with geometrical figures. It is unclear what these fragments would have been used for, although they are likely to have had a decorative purpose. They were reovered from the site of Miran Fort on the eastern verge of the Taklamakan desert. At this site material was discovered in the remains of a fort held by the Tibetans during their domination of the southern Taklamakan in the 8th century AD.
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 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 from the Silk Road by Stein at the beginning of the20th century. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of different animals
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 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 from the Silk Road by Stein at the beginning of the20th century. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of different animals
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | The Stein Collection (named collection) |
| Materials and techniques | Tablet weavin, and stitching |
| Brief description | Fragments of pattern woven polychrome wool with a tablet woven border showing running horses, excavated in Miran fort, 700-800 |
| Physical description | Three fragments of a tablet woven border. The outer edge is made of five tablets turned continuous in the same direction it is app. 0.5 cm wide. The outermost is blue, then light blue and two pink. Then a two coloured patten in double faced 3/1 broken twill showing running animals (horses or goats) of the same appearance and in light and dark blue colour. The animal pattern is app. 20 tablets wide and 2 cm wide. After this a mostly reddish part follows patterned with geometrical figures. These figures are not well defined but look like trials. The reddish pattern consists of stripes of mainly pink and stripes of mainly red bottom weave. The threading of the pink stripes are pink, red, dark blue, light blue. The threading of the red stripes are two red, one white and one blue thread. The width of the red section is at least 7 cm, which will be 70 tablets. The border has at least 95 tablets, The warp is z-spun double threads and the weft is brown z-spun single threads. At the right end of the border the starting point of the border is seen and the twisting of the tablets slowly growing to the pattern (Lisa Raeder Knudsen, August 2008). |
| 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 | Michael Ryder has identified the wool used as yak plied with semi-fine sheep wool. |
| Historical context | The Miran fort lies midway along southern Silk Road, at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains. When Tibetan troops occupied the area in the late eight century AD, they built the fort to guard one of many routes through which they moved into Central Asia. In 1907, Stein excavated rubbish heaps at the fort and found wood slips, dating from the eight to the ninth century AD, which provided early examples of Tibetan writing. He also found fragments of wool rugs in bright colours and pieces of silk. The V&A holds a large number of textiles from the Miran Fort on loan, including spun wool, pattern and plain woven silk and wool, woven and spun hemp, woven horsehair, cords and painted silk. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Association | |
| Summary | These three fragments are from a tablet woven border. The upper part shows running horses in pale blue on dark blue ground and below a reddish part with geometrical figures. It is unclear what these fragments would have been used for, although they are likely to have had a decorative purpose. They were reovered from the site of Miran Fort on the eastern verge of the Taklamakan desert. At this site material was discovered in the remains of a fort held by the Tibetans during their domination of the southern Taklamakan in the 8th century AD. 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 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 from the Silk Road by Stein at the beginning of the20th century. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of different animals |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Other number | M.I.xxvi.002 - Stein number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | LOAN:STEIN.589 |
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| Record created | February 6, 2004 |
| Record URL |
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