Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 340 ページ（カラー画像）

0340	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

Western
motifs in
tapestry
L.C. v. 02. a.

But of far greater interest than the last few specimens is the design of a carefully worked
tapestry, L.C. v. 02. a (Pl. XXXI, XXXII), which in spite of its ragged condition has well preserved
its fine colours. Its design has been drawn and fully discussed already by Mr. Andrews in his
paper.²¹ The general scheme of the design and most of the decorative motifs betoken Western
inspiration and models. We have evidence of this, in the first place, in the rigid division of the
whole into a broad centre band with three narrower longitudinal bands or ' guards ' repeating on
either side. Two of these show treatment in rainbow shading. The band between these two is
ornamented with a pattern in which a heart-shaped flower or closed palmette alternates with a pair
of shear-shaped leaves resting their base on volutes. Heart-shapes repeating in the same direction
are a motif quite common in late Greek and ' Coptic ' work in Egypt, as illustrated by numerous
textiles from Antinoë and elsewhere,²² as well as in Byzantine and ' Sasanian ' fabrics from the
sixth century onwards.

Chinese
motif of
horse-
legged bird.

Hellenistic influence is recognizable also in details of the broad centre band. Its subject
' is a bird rising from a nest between a pair of confronting horse-legged birds. This is repeated,
but with an interval in which is a symmetrical scroll pattern '. Such details are the acanthus-
shaped ' nest ' from which the breast and head of a bird emerge, and the symmetrical scroll orna-
ment, dividing the repeats, which resembles two anthemions reversed. Very different in origin,
however, is the form of the two horse-legged birds which confront each other on either side of the
nest. Type and pose, as well as the cloud scroll below, indicate the closest connexion with the horse-
legged bird seen galloping over a cloud in the relief sculpture of a Han tomb.²³ As this particular
form of a composite monster is not traceable in any Western design so far known, we may safely
attribute its appearance as a motif in our tapestry pattern to a Chinese origin. On the other hand,
the identity of the technique with that of ' Coptic ' tapestries and the close affinity of the rest of the
decorative details to those found in ' Coptic ' and in late Greek textiles make it appear highly pro-
bable that this piece, like the other tapestry remains from L.C. and two more from other Lou-lan
sites to be mentioned farther on,²⁴ was a product of local craftsmanship, whether in the Lop
region or elsewhere in the Tārim basin.

Chinese art
influence in
Tārim basin.

We are thus justified in recognizing here a definite indication that Chinese art had already
exerted its influence in the Tārim basin during Han times, even though Graeco-Buddhist tradition
was then and remained for centuries the predominant element in the decorative style, as in most
of the civilization and art, of those ' Western regions '. We have ample evidence to show how
powerful that influence of Chinese art had become in T'ang times, and know that it had asserted
itself already long before.²⁵ It is a priori likely that it made itself from the first particularly felt
along the great trade route leading from China into Central Asia, and we can scarcely feel surprise
at coming across the earliest approximately datable evidence of it just by the side of that route
and in the form of a textile product. For decorated textiles have at all periods served as the most
portable means for the transmission of artistic motifs and treatment, and no more convenient tool

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