Page 201 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

The talismanic shirt (cam'e-yi eth), designed to
f
protect the wearer in battle, appears to have been
in use in the sultanates of northern India in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Such shirts may
have been in widespread use in later Muslim cul-
tures, but the best known examples are Ottoman
Turkish, from the later fifteenth century and
onward. Many talismanic shirts are preserved in
the Topkapi Saray, some of them, like this one,
with the hole for the neck uncut. This shows that
the shirts must have been presents that were
never used.
This shirt is almost sleeveless, without an open-
ing at the neck. It is dedicated in two places to
§ehzade Cem (1459-1495), brother of Bayazid n.
At the bottom right of the shirt is a short Persian
horoscope in two columns stating that this victory
garment (came-yi feth} was begun on 14 Dhu'l-
Hijja 881 (30 March 1476), in the fifty-seventh
minute of the fourth hour when the sun was in
the nineteenth degree, and that it was completed
on 16 Muharram 885 (29 March 1480), on the
thirty-sixth minute of the twelfth hour when the
sun was also in the nineteenth degree. This is a
valuable indication of the time it took to make the
shirt, but the name of the craftsman-astrologer
is not given.
On the chest is a large panel of sixteen magic
squares framed by the Surat al-Fath (Koran
XLVIII), the so-called Victory chapter of the Koran.
Other Koranic verses used on the shirt are from
Suras ni-v, vn, ix, xiv, XLVIII, LIV, LXI, ex, and
cxn, as well as various of the "Ninety-nine"
names of God. On the right shoulder is a large
blue circle with silver at the center surrounded by
eight asymmetrical gold hexagons with their
points inward, each forming a compartment con-
taining numbers. The upper inscription from
Koran XLVIII, i, reads, "Verily, we have granted
thee a manifest victory" in fine gold thuluth. The
lower inscription reads, "Prince Cem, may God
prolong his good fortune and support his terri-
tory." A similar inscription appears on the square
panel immediately to the right of the neck, with
an asymmetrical six-pointed star. The back is a
single, enormous magic square composed of 100 x
100 boxes with thin borders of columns of figures.
Numerous digits have been erased and rewritten
in gold, suggesting that the squares were checked
and in some cases the numbers were found to be
erroneous.
Though this talismanic shirt, like many others,
was intended to bring victory to the wearer, a
protective effect must also have been attributed to
it. Thus Hurrem Sultan, the wife of Siileyman the
Magnificent, in a letter to him accompanying the
gift of a talismanic shirt, asks him to wear it for
her sake, stating that it is inscribed with figures
and will keep away bullets. j. M . R .

200 CIRCA 1492