Abstract
This lecture discusses the often-labeled Sasanian or Sogdian silk textiles featuring beaded roundels enclosing animals which became very popular across Eurasia for the entire Middle Ages. Although some animals, such as the duck, ram, or flying horse, might be attributed to the Iranians, others began to appear during the first Turkic Khaganate in the6th century. The Chinese did not wear these textiles but produced them in the western regions where the majority were discovered in the last century. Such textiles were eventually traded to Byzantium, which established its silk production. Erroneously classified as zandanījī by Walter Henning in 1959, those that survive today are mainly datable to the early Islamic period, and strongly influenced Eurasian art and architecture.
