2-739-663 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Samite roundels with hunters, 800s. These textiles are woven with floral roundels that enclose horsemen hunting lions. The theme of horsemen hunting with lances, the floral frames of the roundels, and the costumes of the hunters were all inspired by silks from the Byzantine world. The stiff, abstracted style, however, is characteristic of Sogdian silks. Silks woven in Sogdiana were often traded to distant markets. These fragments were preserved in an Egyptian grave where they were found sewn as ornaments onto a tunic.