Abstract

A unique cloth of silk and gold with Arabic inscriptions praising the Ilkhan Abū Saʽīd “Būsaʽīd”), Mongol ruler of Iran (1316-35), survives in three pieces used for the burial garment of Rudolph IV at Vienna (d. 1365). Presenting some of the findings from a new study of this
textile, this article reconstructs the original cloth, draws attention to a specific type of striped design and discusses its context of use. In the reconstructed cloth, bold inscriptions in broad golden letters, alternating with a delicate repeat pattern, ran lengthwise from both short sides in opposite reading directions. Meeting at some point in the cloth, they divided it into two parts, raising questions about its use. While striped designs are well-known, this monumental type with large inscriptions may have been a new form, relating to Iranian textile traditions and ṭirāz inscriptions in Islamic art; contemporaneous Chinese art seems to have had no particular bearing on the motifs. In the cloth as a medium of representation, monumental inscriptions and gold may have visually communicated an identity, both Islamic and Mongol, of the Ilkhanid ruler.