The Common Cord: Central Asian Textiles

As early as the second century B.C., the Silk Route brought the wealth of trade to the oasis cities of Central Asia, a land of deserts and steppes that lies between the Tien Shan mountains of western China and the Caspian Sea. Cities along the Silk Route in Central Asia, such as Bukhara, Samarkand,

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Khiva, and Merv, rose as rich centers of Islamic culture from the ninth through the seventeenth centuries. Silk cultivation developed as an important craft, and the Central Asian silkworm, fed on the oasis mulberry tree, gained a reputation within the eastern Islamic world for its excellent filament. By the nineteenth century silk had become the "common cord" of oasis luxury textiles: wrap ikats, velvets, and embroideries.'

(Abstract by Gail Joice)

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