| Description |
“Rectangle cut from the upper part of a tunic. The clavi bands have semicircular ends and borders of jewel inlay with epsilon-shaped cells. Each band is ornamented with a haloed figure wearing an elaborate robe and carrying a lyre. The space remaining is occupied by four symmetrical plant motifs. The tapestry bands are worked in dark yellow, dull red, dark blue, light green, and tan. The plain foundation textile is a brownish yellow. The weave of both the ground and the clavi is tapestry, wool warp and weft, 8-10 x 34 [warp : weft per square cm]. The clavi are whip-stitched to the plain tapestry textile. All yarn is S-twist. Seventh century. Related examples: Figures depicted in the same style appear on a piece in Washington, D.C., Textile Museum (Riefstahl 1941:257). See also Kybelova (1967:130, pl. 86). Remarks: From this point onward the human figure becomes increasingly stylized, moving farther and farther away from Greek anatomical canons. [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 # 42, pp. 136-138; color plate, p. 139.] |
