Sino-Iranian Textile Patterns in Trans-Himalayan Areas
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SINO-IRANIAN TEXTILE PATTERNS IN TRANS-HIMALAYAN AREAS Mariachiara Gasparini Santa Clara University, California etween the 7th and 14th centuries, a recognized These textiles are generally recorded in Chinese B Central Asian textile iconography spread from the sources under different names that seem to designate Tarim to the Mediterranean Basin. Mainly developed textiles distinguished by patterns from the western on complex structures, compositions of roundels regions (Zhao and Wang 2013, pp. 369-73). Indeed, (beaded or lobed) enclosing animals were woven in WH[WLOHVVLPLODUWRWKHRQHÀUVWLGHQWLÀHGDV]DQGDQūMū weft-faced compounds [Fig. 1]. A subset of textiles (from a fragment found in Belgium), have been with such motifs and woven in that technique has discovered in large quantities in what is now the come to be called ]DQGDQūMū, even though, as we now Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region. There is good know, the term is a misnomer.1 Always referred as reason to hypothesize that many were manufactured a cotton textile, the original ]DQGDQūMū was produced there, where there were local communities of in Zandana near Bukhara, one of the centers where Sogdians (cf. Zhao 1999, p. 99; see also Sheng 1998). this compound was mainly produced and traded The weaving technique of the weft-faced compound, DO1DUVKDNūSS 1RWPXFKLQIRUPDWLRQ its pattern woven horizontally in the weft direction, has been gathered to date about the material and originated in the West and came into China only in structure of this original textile. Nonetheless, given )LJ'HWDLOIURPPXUDOLQWKH+DOORI$PEDVVDGRUV$IUœVL\œE6D- the proximity to China and the well-documented marqand, Uzbekistan. Reconstruction by Al’baum, after: <http://www. WUDGHLQVLONDVDUDZRUÀQLVKHGPDWHULDOLWLVSRVVLEOH LUDQLFDRQOLQHRUJDUWLFOHVDIUDVLDELLZDOOSDLQWLQJV! that the cotton structure at some point was replicated wholly or partially in silk. Pictorial evidence of the exchange in fabrics can been seen in the “Hall of WKH $PEDVVDGRUµ LQ $IUœVL\œE SUHVHQW 6DPDUNDQG where, on the northern wall in a painting dating to the middle of the 7th century, Chinese people carry bolts of textiles and what may be silk cocoons (or possibly balls) as gifts for the local Sogdian ruler [Fig. 2]. The Sogdians undoubedly played a key role in the manufacture and distribution of the so-called ]DQGDQūMū textiles and ones closely related to them (Compareti 2003; de la Vaissière 2004, 2005). Fig. 1. Silk fragments with roundel designs, from Tang-period burials in the Astana Cemetery in Turfan. The second of the pieces has the “Sasanian duck” design. Collection of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Museum, Urumqi, photographed in the Gansu Provincial Museum by Daniel Waugh. The Silk Road 14 (2016): 84–96 84 Copyright © 2016 Mariachiara Gasparini Copyright © 2016 The Silkroad Foundation Figs. 3 and 4. Diagrams of warp- and weft-faced com- pounds. Reconstruction by author. the 8th century, where it replaced the indigenous ↕䖷മ) attributed to the Chinese painter Yan Liben 䯫 tradition of vertical, warp-faced compound textiles. ・ᵜ (600-673) (the extant version may be a later Song [Figs. 3, 4]. Within the group of weft-faced textiles, Dynasty copy) [Fig. 5]. The scroll depicts the audience a further distinction between those made within or granted the Tibetan envoy by Tang Emperor Taizong. outside China is whether the warp threads have a left In the painting, the only character who wears a (S) or right (Z) twist, the latter characteristic for the patterned robe, which clearly distinguishes him from Central Asian weaves. The migration of motifs and the others, is the Tibetan ambassador. He is dressed in techniques over time complicates any effort to specify “Turkic style,” with a narrowly cut caftan and boots. the provenance of any particular example. The motif of roundels on the garment Our aim in this paper, which is part of a each framing a standing bird (a duck??) larger study, is to determine to what extent suggests the fabric likely was of Central the technique and motifs of the so-called Asian origin, possibly manufactured in ]DQGDQūMū textiles and their close relatives the area that stretched from Sogdiana to penetrated the Tibetan cultural region and the Gansu Province of China and where, in th to suggest how they might have arrived the 7 century, Tibetan and Turkic forces there and been transformed. Of particular cooperated against China. Among the silk importance is the evidence of the silks fragments found in Turfan are ones with 2 excavated at Dulan in Qinghai Province such imagery. Of course, we cannot be (northeastern Tibet) and a group of yet certain whether he really dressed that way, unpublished textiles studied by the author or whether the depiction was a deliberate in the collection of the China National Silk effort by the painter either to show him Museum, which most likely came from the attired in a rich gift from the Emperor or same area. Detailed analysis of the latter at very least garbed distinctively simply to group is the larger project for which this make a statement about his “foreignness.” article provides some context. The material Other evidence, examined below, attests documents how widespread was the vogue )LJ %XQLDQ 'X ↕䕖െ to such textiles having been known in for these textiles, ranging across Asia from [Emperor Taizong giving audi- Tibet, although whether prior to the HQFHWRDQDPEDVVDGRURI7LEHW@ establishment of contacts with Tang China the Trans-Himalaya to the Mediterranean, (detail), attributed to Yan Li- well before the rise of the Mongol Empire ben 䯫・ᵜ ² $IWHU LVGLIÀFXOWWRVD\ in the 13th century. <https://upload.wikimedia.org/ ZLNLSHGLDFRPPRQVG(P- There is a substantial scholarship on the :KLOHWKHHDUO\KLVWRU\RI7LEHWLVGLIÀFXOW peror_Taizong_gives_an_audi- history of the pearl roudel motif, although to reconstruct due to the paucity of sources ence_to_the_ambassador_of_Ti- ÀQGLQJÀUPO\GDWHGHYLGHQFHWRGUDZXSD and the opacity of those which we have EHWMSJ! careful chronology of its spread across Asia (Beckwith 1987), we nonetheless have FDQ EH GLIÀFXOW VHH HVSHFLDOO\ &RPSDUHWL one striking and tantalizing image that may offer 2003). Murals in the Northern Qi े啺 tomb of Xu the earliest concretely datable evidence of a Tibetan Xianxiu ᗀᱮ⿰ (d. 571 CE) at Taiyuan, Shanxi, depict interest in our group of textiles. As the Tibetan robes decorated with pearl roundels that contain kingdom consolidated and was expanding in the confronted animals, a vegetal pattern, and in one 7th century, it came into contact with its vigorously instance, unusual imagery of a human head [Fig. 6, expanding neighbor to the north, Tang Dynasty China. next page] in a frontal pose. As Kate Lingley (2014, Military confrontations and diplomatic missions p. 9) has suggested, the source for this latter imagery ensued, perhaps the most famous of the latter in 640 may well be Buddhist iconography, an example of or 641 commemorated in a scroll Emperor Taizong which is a stucco relief of Bodhisattva head in a pearl Gives an Audience to the Ambassador of Tibet (Buniantu roundel found by Aurel Stein at Shorchuk and dating 85 Other evidence from paintings attests to the popularity of the pearl roundel motif. Several of the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang even allow for a tentative chronology of how the iconography employing it evolved, the Sui Dynasty (581-617) seeming to mark a transition period in which the depictions of animals within the pearl borders gave way by the subsequent Tang Dynasty )LJ:DOOSDLQWLQJ GHWDLO ;X;LDQ[LXᗀᱮ⿰ tomb. WR WKHLU UHSODFHPHQW ZLWK ÁRUDO Northern Qi े啺 ² 7DL\XDQ6KDQ[L&KLQD PRWLIV LQWKHÀUVWLQVWDQFHORWXV After: <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/com- blossoms).4 The Bodhisattvas in PRQVEE3DLQWLQJVBLQB;XB;LDQ[LXB7RPEBMSJ! Cave 427 (possibly as early as the )LJ 6WXFFR UHOLHI ZLWK %RGKLVDWWYD KHDG IURP 6LON 580s) are dressed in a dazzling Road site of Shorchuk, Xinjiang, Collection of the array of textiles. Phoenixes are %ULWLVK0XVHXP2$0$6 shown within pearl-bordered Photo courtesy of Daniel C. Waugh. rhomboids, whereas the to the 6th or 7th century [Fig. 7]. There are, however, pearl roundels contain lotus blossoms. Roughly no extant textiles with such a design.3 An intriguing contemporary (approximately mid-Sui, no precise alternative hypothesis is the possibility that this and date known) is Cave 420, where the dhotis of the other pearl roundel designs were developed under %RGGKLVDWWWYD VWDWXHV KDYH ZKDW :KLWÀHOG KDV the inspiration of the ruler images on Western coins described as “Sasanian-type” pearl roundels, (Gasparini 2014, pp. 142-43; Melikian-Chirvani 1991), containing, it appears, a mounted hunter spearing as suggested in some Islamic sources and about which a feline. Another of the Sui caves, No. 277, has pearl Chinese travelers remarked because they were so roundels with confronted winged horses [Figs. 9a, b, different from the standard Chinese coinage [Fig. 8]. next page]. By the early Tang though, both in Cave Byzantine coins and bracteates imitating them, with 57 and in Cave 220 (built in 641 CE), the fabrics with front-facing ruler images, have been found in a good SHDUOURXQGHOVFRQWDLQEORVVRPV :KLWÀHOGSS many tombs associated with Sogdians or others in 57, 78, 179, 241, 242, 296; Dunhuang 1981-1987, Vol. China who clearly had foreign cultural tastes and 2, Figs. 62, 63, 120). This did not mean the end of contacts. Often such rarities were pierced so they interest in roundels with animal motifs, witness the could be sewn as decorations on garments. Sasanian fabrics depicted on the pillow under the