Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 154 ページ（カラー画像）

0154	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

oval or circular face-covers which have furnished us with many and specially interesting pieces
of decorated fabrics, strictly to polychrome figured silks. In the great majority of stuffs of this kind
used for face-covers the designs are, as we shall see farther on, purely 'Sasanian' in type and
execution, and this suffices to establish the fact that they were imported into Turfān from the West.
The custom of using such figured silks of bright colours for face-covers must have been well estab-
lished long before commerce in Chinese industrial products was facilitated by the Chinese annexa-
tion of Turfān in 640 ; for examples of it are found in practically all the groups of tombs that include
burials proved to date from A. D. 608 onwards. This may help to explain why among the poly-
chrome figured silks of face-covers those of purely 'Sasanian' patterns and undoubtedly Western
Asiatic origin greatly preponderate.⁶

Differences The question whether the other polychrome figured silks, recovered from tattered remnants
of weave in of garments, originated from the side of China or from Central Asia and Irān is more difficult to
Chinese
figured determine ; for the floral or geometric patterns most frequent among them do not always afford
silks. a sure criterion.⁷ But there are some among them of which Chinese manufacture is made quite
certain not merely by the design but by that peculiar 'warp-rib' weave with which we have already
had occasion to become familiar, in connexion with the ancient Chinese figured silks from the grave-
pits of Lou-lan.⁸ It may be observed here that, with the exception of these few stuffs, all the figured
silks, whether polychrome or damasks, appear to be worked in that twill weave the absence of which
is so significant a feature among the early Chinese silk remains from Lou-lan.⁹

Damasks The method of monochrome decoration applied to the texture of silk fabrics is represented
and
decorated by a series of damasks and gauzes executed in a variety of designs.¹⁰ Their number is not large
gauzes. in proportion to that of polychrome figured fabrics, and among their patterns, mostly floral or
geometric, there is none distinctly showing the influence of Western Asiatic textile art. On the
other hand, there are at least two damasks which by the affinity of their designs to specimens
recovered on the Tun-huang Limes suggest Chinese manufacture.¹¹

Silk The only specimen of silk tapestry work is the finely woven shoe vi. 4. 01 (Pl. XCIII), which
tapestry and by its design as well as by the Chinese characters inserted in bands is clearly proved to be of Chinese
embroidery.
workmanship. We have embroidery needlework represented by a number of pieces, all showing
floral designs, mostly very stylized and executed in chain-stitch.¹² The absence of naturalistic
treatment and of the satin-stitch common among the embroideries of Ch'ien-fo-tung may, perhaps,
be indications that this embroidery was local work.¹³ Finally mention may be made of patterned
Printed and silks produced by printing or dyeing. The two printed silks i. 7. 01 and x. 1. 04 (Pl. LXXXII)
'resist'-
dyed silks. show well-executed floral patterns from blocks cut under the influence of Chinese art. The silks
dyed by 'resist' process, slightly more numerous, display floral patterns, in one case applied

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