2-587-325 - © CM Dixon/Heritage Images

Detail of Chinese silk found in the tomb of a Scythian chief at Pazyryk, Altai, Russia. This is the earliest known Chinese silk surviving in good condition. It is embroidered with phoenixes and partridges in chain-stitch on a silk tussore with a linen weave and approximately fifty threads per centimetre. In the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.