| Description |
“Decorated roundel from a tunic. The dark pink ground of this piece is slightly faded (the reverse is darker than the front). The design is worked in linen that has darkened with time and dirt. The main motif is a starlike (sic), linear floral interlace with a small, spirited lion occupying the center. Around the edge is a row of small crosses attached by their bases to the narrow band that encircles the roundel. The roundel is woven on two-ply Z-twist linen warp, with S-twist wool and linen weft, 11 x 76 [warp : weft per square cm]. The technique is tapestry, worked with curving wefts that follow the line of the design. There are long weft floats on the back. Like so many of the extant textiles, this roundel was cut from another, probably worn-out, garment and reused. The edges were turned under and the piece was attached to the new garment by rather long, judging from the spacing of the needle holes, running stitches. All yarn is S-twist. Eleventh century. Remarks: Lions, as mentioned previously [CAS 0389-2431], have protective attributes. [Regarding textiles in this group, DL Carroll # 41-72 (CAS 0389-2382, -2384, -2389, -2390, -2391, -2392, -2393, -2396, -2399, -2401, -2405, -2409, -2410, -2411, -2414, -2415, -2416, -2417, -2419, -2420, -2422, -2423, -2424, -2427, -2434, -2435, -2436, -2453, -2454, -2457, -2579, -2580, -2581, -2582, -2599):] After the Arab conquest in the mid-seventh century, Coptic textile design changed its character, moving ever more distant from its classical Roman and Greek sources. In part, this was a reaction against Byzantine culture, associated in the Coptic mind with oppression. Contributing to the change may have been Islamic prohibitions against depicting human and animal figures. Such figures when they appear in Coptic textiles of the later periods become increasingly abstract to the point of being virtually unrecognizable.†[From Looms and Textiles of the Copts by Diane Lee Carroll (San Francisco, CA: Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, No. 11, 1988); Catalog # 69, pp. 136, 180-181.] |
