The Stein Collection
Textile
100-300 (made)
100-300 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
These textile fragments are of wool yarn, wool felt and plain woven wool. Their original use is unclear although they are likely to have had a utilitarian function. They were 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 is part of an area of Central Asia 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.
The site is part of an area of Central Asia 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.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | The Stein Collection (named collection) |
| Materials and techniques | Plain woven wool and felt |
| Brief description | Various wool fragments including red and yellow plain woven pieces, brown and cream felt, and yellow yarn. |
| Physical description | Various wool fragments including monochrome plain weave red and yellow wool, brown and cream wool felt and yellow wool yarn. |
| 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 | Fragments have previously been housed in a fabric bag. |
| Historical context | Niya includes a group of towns in the southern region of the Taklamakan Desert, at the foot of the Kunlun mountains. Once a military post under the Kingdom of Khotan, Niya became an important oasis along the southern Silk Road. Stein excavated several groups of dwellings there and found hundreds of wedge-shaped wooden tablets, some laced together in pairs with string and affixed with clay seals. The appearance of Pallas Athena, Eros and other Greek deities on some seals showed the impact of western classical art on Khotan. The tablets were inscribed with Kharoshthi, an ancient script of northwest India. Stein identified some as Buddhist prayers and others as administrative documents and he dated them to the period of the Kushan empire, which thrived in the first three centuries AD. Among ruins of dwellings and orchards, Stein found numerous textile fragments, Roman coins, wooden furniture with elaborate carving, pottery, Chinese basketry and lacquer, and documents in Chinese script which he dated to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). The V&A holds, on loan, a large number of textiles from Niya, including leather, wool yarn, appliquéd and stitched wool felt, and braided animal hair. |
| Association | |
| Summary | These textile fragments are of wool yarn, wool felt and plain woven wool. Their original use is unclear although they are likely to have had a utilitarian function. They were 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 is part of an area of Central Asia 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. |
| Bibliographic reference | Stein, Aurel, Serindia: Detailed Report of Exploration in Central Asia and Westernmost China Carried Out and Described Under the Orders of H.M Indian Government , 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), vol. I, p.251. |
| Other number | N.XIV.iii.007.a - Stein number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | LOAN:STEIN.173 |
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| Record created | April 2, 2004 |
| Record URL |
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