Description

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Celebrates the earliest history of the Islamic world’s great textile traditions through fifty beautiful carpets and fragments

The fourth volume in Thames & Hudson's celebrated series cataloguing the al-Sabah collection, this book features a unique collection of carpets and textile fragments from the pre-Islamic and early Islamic world. The Sasanian fragments fill a substantial gap in the early history of pile carpets, dating from the second to the eighth century AD, and make a valuable contribution of the understanding of local artistic traditions.



The second half of the book is devoted to post-Sasanian and Sogdian silks dating from the sixth to the tenth century. A wave of these beautiful textiles has reached the West since the turn of the 21st century, and here they are divided into variants featuring birds, mammals and mythological creatures, which retain their glowing colors and lively charm.

About the Author

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Friedrich Spuhler, formerly a curator at the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, is the author of numerous books on Islamic textiles and carpets, including Carpets from Islamic Lands.

Praise For…

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Describes
(though text and beautiful illustrations) nearly fifty of the oldest and most
important surviving
artifacts found in the al-Sabah collection.
— ProtoView

The Sasanian fragments fill a substantial gap in the early history of pile carpets, dating from the 2nd to the 8th century CE.
— Islamic Horizons

A crucial reference for anyone interest in the earliest surviving pile carpets. . . . Primarily a resource for scholars, this volume is nonetheless full of beautiful works of exceptional historical interest. . . . Highly recommended.
— Choice