as those of the present day, with dragons, phoenixes, mystical
bird forms, flowers and fruits.[1] At that time even Egypt,
Assyria or Babylonia, Greece and Rome, seem to have been only
learning of the fact that there was such a material as silk.[2]
Their shuttle-weaving had been and was then concerned with
spun wool and flax and possibly some cotton, whilst the ornamentation
of their textiles, although sparkling on occasion with
golden threads, was done apparently not by shuttle-weaving but
by either embroidery or a sort of compromise between darning
and weaving from which tapestry weaving descended (see
Tapestry). The range of their colours was limited, reds, purples
and yellows being the chief, and their shuttle-weaving was
principally concerned with plain stuffs, and in a much smaller
degree with striped, spotted and chequered fabrics. Remains
of these, whether made by Egyptians thousands of years B.C.,
by Scandinavians of the early Bronze Age, by lake dwellers,
by Aztecs or Peruvians long before the Spanish Conquest,
display little if any technical difference when compared with
those woven by nomads in Asia, hill tribes in India and natives
in Central Africa and islands of the Pacific. Such ornamental
effect as is seen in them depends upon the repetition of stripes
or very simple crossing forms, still this principle of repetition
is 3 prominent factor in more intricate designs which are shuttle-woven
in broad looms and lengths of stuff.
The world's apparent indebtedness to the Chinese for knowledge of figured shuttle-weaving leads to some consideration of their early overland commerce westwards. About 200 B.C. during the Han Dynasty Chinese trade had extended beyond inner Asia to the confines of the Graeco-Parthian empire, then at its zenith, and the protection of the route by which the Seres (Chinese) sent their merchandise was fully recognized as a matter of importance. Seventy years later the emperor of China sent a certain Chang Kien on a mission to the Indo-Scythians; and according to his records the people as far west as Bactria (adjacent to the Graeco-Parthian territory) were knowing traders, and amongst other things understood the preparation of silk. Chinese weavings had for some time been coming into Persia, and doubtless instigated the more skilled weavers there to adapt their shuttle looms in course of time to the weaving of stuffs with greater variety of effects than had been hitherto obtained by them; and into Persian designs were introduced details taken not only from Chinese textiles, but also from sculptured, embroidered and other ornament of Graeco-Parthian and earlier Babylonian styles. In A.D. 97 Chinese enterprise in still furthering their trade relations with the Far West is at least suggested by the fact that envoys from the emperor of China to Rome actually reached the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, but turned back frightened by the Parthian accounts of the terrors of the sea voyage.
Early in the 3rd century A.D. Heliogabalus is reputed to have been amongst the first of the Roman emperors to wear garments entirely of silk (holosericum), which, if figured (as is not unlikely), were probably of Syrian or Persian manufacture. Sidonius Apollinaris (5th century) writes of Persian patterned stuffs,—“Bring forth brilliant cushions and stuffs on which, produced by a miracle of art, we behold the fierce Parthian with his head turned back on a prancing steed; now escaping, now returning to hurl his spear, by turns fleeing from and putting to flight wild animals whom he pursues”—a description quite appropriate to such silk weaving as that in fig. 33 . A number of kindred pieces have been recovered of late years from Egyptian burial-places of the Roman period. The Persians of the Sassanian dynasty (3rd to 7th century) traded in silks with Romans and Byzantines; King Chosroes (about 570) encouraged the trade, and ornamental weaving seems to have been an industry of some standing at Bagdad and other towns north, east and south, e.g. Hamadan, Kazvin Kashan, Yezd Persepolis, &c. To the north-west of Persia and north of Syria lay the Byzantine region of Anatolia (now Asia Minor), some towns in which became noted for their fine weavings: the mass of the population there was well off in the 6th century, the country highly cultivated and prosperous, and justice fairly administered,[3] thus affording favourable conditions for an industry like ornamental weaving, which had been and was prospering in neighbouring Syrian districts.
Between the 1st and 6th centuries A.D., then, knowledge of silk and Its value in fine weaving was spreading itself, not only in the further western regions of Southern Asia, but also in Egypt, where Greek and Roman taste influenced the works of Copts or those
Fig 33—Syrian or Persian Silk Weaving of the 5th Century
natives who maintained old Egyptian traditions in technical handicrafts. Of peculiar interest in this connexion are fragments of flax (yellow and brown) woven with a comparatively elaborate texture, as well as in patterns (see fig. 34) which suggest an ordinary type of Roman pavement designs (3rd century and earlier), the basis of which is roundels linked together. Stuffs in which the style of
Fig 34—Syrian and Coptic Flax Weaving of the 5th or 6th Century
patterns, though comparatively simple, is rather more Oriental, are of flax and wool, and the official robes of Roman consuls seem to have been of this character, and amongst other goods may have been made with small technical difference at Rome[4] or at Fostat (Cairo)
- ↑ See Chinese Art, by Stephen W. Bushell, C.M.G., B.Sc., M.D. (London, 1906), vol. II p. 95.
- ↑ Aristotle describes the silk-worm and its cocoon. Virgil-Martial and late Roman writers (including Pliny) throw scarcely more light upon the use of silken stuffs than that they were of rarity and greatly prized by opulent Romans. Propertius (19 B.C.) writes of silken garments of varied tissue, “and of Cynthia that” perchance she glistens in Arabian Silk.
- ↑ W. M . Ramsay, Studies in the History and Art of the Roman Empire (University of Aberdeen, 1906).
- ↑ In 369 by order of the emperors Valens and Valentinian the making of textiles in which gold and silken threads were introduced was limited to women's workrooms or gynecia (see Codex of Theodosius, lib. x. tit. 21, lex 1). In the 5th century the weaving of silken, tunics and mantles was prohibited (Codex Theodosius, lib. x . tit. 21, lex 3).
