Catalog Number
|
Catalog Number |
CAS 0389-2436 | |
| Category | Textiles | |
| Object Name | Coptic textile fragment | |
| Culture | Coptic Egyptian | |
| Global Region | North Africa | |
| Country | Egypt | |
| State/Prov./Dist. | ||
| County | ||
| Other Geographic Data | Assuit | |
| Maker's Name | Unknown | |
| Date of Manufacture | ca. 900-1000 CE | |
| Collection Name | Rietz Collection of Textiles | |
| Materials | Linen; Wool | |
| Description | “Tunic clavus fragment. The clavus has borders of dark gray and green triangles. Repeated down the center is a symmetrical floral motif woven in tan, light green, dark gray, yellow, light orange, and dark blue on a pink ground. Most of the piece was woven in tapestry, wool and linen weft on grouped linen warps, 8 x 30 [warp : weft per square cm]. Fragments of the surrounding linen textile have a count of 12 x 18 [warp : weft per square cm]. All yarn is S-twist. Tenth century. Remarks: The highly stylized floral motif may refer to one of the trees of paradise. Motifs of this nature are thought to have Persian or Near Eastern origins. [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 # 46, pp. 136, 150-151.] | |
| Dimensions (cm) | Width = 5.0, Length = 17.0 | |