Cleveland Museum of Art

Palmettes and Birds from a Tunic or Curtain

Date

500s–600s

Medium

Silk; complementary weft-faced twill weave with inner warps (samite)

Culture

Egypt or Syria, Byzantine or Islamic period

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The symmetrical pattern displays back-to-back green parrots with branches in their beaks and two speckled birds perched on the leaves of a long-stemmed palmette. These elaborate patterns were woven on large, early looms known as drawlooms that automatically repeated designs across the width of the fabric, often in mirror-image symmetry.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.