Catalog Number
|
Catalog Number |
CAS 0389-2392 | |
| Category | Textiles | |
| Object Name | Coptic textile fragment | |
| Culture | Coptic Egyptian | |
| Global Region | North Africa | |
| Country | Egypt | |
| State/Prov./Dist. | ||
| County | ||
| Other Geographic Data | unknown | |
| Maker's Name | Unknown | |
| Date of Manufacture | ca. 700-800 CE | |
| Collection Name | Rietz Collection of Textiles | |
| Materials | Wool | |
| Description | “Fragment of a tunic sleeve. The sleeve is decorated with brown bands and figures on a cream-colored ground. The design is composed of two bands filled with figures and separated by a narrow band with a simple cable pattern. The outer border bands are edged with a reverse scallop, each point terminating with a vine leaf. (One border band is missing, but presumably it matched the other.) In the center of the figured bands are ovals, each containing the figure of a hare. Flanking the ovals are pairs of lozenges with vine scrolls at the corner, containing, respectively, a smaller lozenge with vine leaves, a pair of fish, a single fish, and a standing bird (a guineafowl? (sic)). The sleeve is tapestry, woven on paired warps with wool warp and weft, 16 x 24 [warp : weft per square cm]. There are many short slits left open. All yarn is S-twist. Eighth century. Remarks: The figured elements suggest a heraldic or zodiacal symbolism with possible significance to the original owner or the textile. [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 # 50, pp. 136, 154-155.] | |
| Dimensions (cm) | Width = 27.0, Length = 15.5 | |