Page 17 - Chiense TExtiles, MET MUSEUM Pub 1934

CHINESE TEXTILES
jects were transferred from Srinagar to the British Mu-
seum, but a few years ago the greater part of the collec-
tion was sent to the Museum of Indian Ethnography,
Art, and Archaeology _at New Delhi and is now com-
paratively inaccessible to students. The few textile frag-
ments which were given to the British Museum and to
the Victoria and Albert are mostly T'ang and were ex-
cavated in 1907 on the first expedition.
In 1926 more Han textiles came to light in Mongolia
and Chinese Turkestan. These were discovered by Colo-
nel Peter Kozl6v and included besides numerous frag-
ments a complete costume. With the exception of the
embroideries a full description of the Kozl6v textiles,
which are the property of the Hermitage Museum in
Leningrad, has been published only in Russian. As the
embroideries included a great many more stitches than
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the Stein textiles did, it is conceivable that new discov-
eries about weaves will be made when a thorough anal-
ysis of the Kozl6v textiles is possible.
So much for the Han textiles, but a great deal remains
to be said by future historians about these the earliest ex-
amples of silk textiles yet discovered. They precede by
some centuries the silks preserved in the Mediterranean
region, but because many of the present comparative
studies of textiles were published before these fragments
came to light, China has not as yet been acclaimed for
the important part she has played in this art.
Little is known about Chinese textiles in the centuries
4 Symonds and Preece, Needlework through the Ages, p. 8o.
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