Three fragments of plain woven silk and pattern woven silk (warp-faced compound plain weave), excavated in Loulan, China, 200-400

Three fragments; one piece of monochrome plain woven blue silk folded over along one edge and stitched with monochrome cream silk thread, two pieces of polychrome patterned woven silk showing a swirling design in blue, cream, green and brown. One of these has a fragment of monochrome plain woven blue silk attached with stitching. This latter piece has also one, visible, inscriptional Chinese character, wan (萬). Warp-faced compound plain weave, continuous silk fibre with litte or no twist.

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.

Found in or around grave pits of Loulan cemetery

These three textile fragments are of plain and pattern woven silk. Their original use is unclear although they were probably once part of a burial shroud. They were recovered from the Loulan cemetery, which dates from the 3rd to the 4th century AD. Loulan is remarkable for the carved wooden capitals, beams and balustrades that indicate clear affinities with western Classical decoration that filtered through Iran and Northwest India.
The site is part of an area now referred to as 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 their goods from oasis to oasis. The Silk Road was also important for the exchange of ideas – while silk textiles travelled west from China, Buddhism entered China from India in this way.
These fragments were 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 twentieth century. The textiles range in date from the second century BC to the twelfth century AD. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of different animals.

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