Catalog Number
|
Catalog Number |
CAS 0389-2419 | |
| 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. 970-1035 CE | |
| Collection Name | Rietz Collection of Textiles | |
| Materials | Wool | |
| Description | “Fragment of a curtain with a false kufic inscription. In the center of the fragment is a polychrome insert band. It is surrounded by a dark blue area ornamented by rows of meaningless kufic letters in yellow and pink. The insert has pearl borders and contains roundels alternating with quatrefoils that may represent jeweled ornaments. The roundels contain, respectively, a bird motif, a six-pointed star, a second, different bird motif, an animal head, a building (?) (sic), a floral motif, and another star. The motifs are woven in red, medium green, yellow, light blue, pinkish white, and black. Woven entirely in wool, the ground is tabby, 12 x 12 [warp : weft per square cm], the insert band, tapestry, 12 x 42 [warp : weft per square cm]. The quality of the weaving is excellent. All yarn is S-twist. Late tenth or early eleventh century. Related examples: A wool textile with similar motifs and inscription is in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (Dimand 1931:89, fig. 2). Remarks: Textiles with real inscriptions were a feature of Arabic weaving from about the tenth century on. Some very fine ones were made in Egypt in the eleventh century and later. This example and a number of related pieces may represent early attempts by Coptic weavers to conform to Muslim taste (sic). [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 # 64, pp. 136, 172-173; color plate, p. 142.] | |
| Dimensions (cm) | Width = 41.0, Length = 18.0 | |