In 1271 A.D., Marco Polo set out his journey to the Orient. His records provided a glimpse of the Mongol royal lifestyle, during the seasonal migration of Khubilai Khan, a grand palanquin was dedicated for the Khan: “it was a great wooden castle, very well arranged on four elephants all covered with leather, and above were cloths of silk and gold.” William of Rubruck, the Flemish Franciscan traveler to East Asia, had an audience with Möngke Khan in a camp outside the capital Qara Qorum, there was a huge tent of felt which “was completely covered inside with cloth of silk and gold". In addition, the Arabized Berber scholar Ibn Battuta, who had traveled across Eurasia, also documented the “tent cart” drawn by the horses and decorated with cloths of silk and gold. Nowadays, several panels of the Mongol gold brocades, named nasīj, are conserved in the museums, such as the David Collection and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. The decorative motifs of the nasīj demonstrated a co-existence of several different cultural traditions: Iranian, Chinese and Islamic. Therefore, this essay aims to clairify how the gold brocades were used in the architectural context, namely the construction of Mongol royal tents (ordo ger) ot the cart-tents (ordo ger tergen). These sumptuous "soft palaces" are remarkable in the Mongol Empire, as they symbolised the supremacy of imperial power.
The Chronicles of Han Dynasty had documented that the gold brocade was originally from Ancient Persia. The importation of this luxury textile to China could be dated back to the 2nd century A.D. In Tang Empire, given the rarity, the gold brocade from Persia or Central Asia was higly admired by the Chinese emperors. It was not until the Mongol Times (13th–14th century) that the gold brocades were produced on an unprecedented scale and were used in the architectural context. Maurice Lombard has proposed the term "textile civilisation" in the Medieval Islamic world, emphasizing the important roles that textiles played in the social life. The Mongols in the Middle Ages had a similar "textile ideology", as the precious textiles were often considered as architecture or furniture elements by the nomadic peoples. Even after the settlement of the Mongol elite in China and Iran, the sovereigns maintained the tradition of seasonal migration. Based on written sources, I would like to clarify how the Mongol sovereigns organized the production of this luxury fabric during the different periods of their reign in the multicultural context. The supplies of gold and silk, the settlement of Central Asian craftsmen in the North of China, the cooperation of Chinese and Muslim craftsmen, and the establishment of official workshops, which were all carried out by military and political power. The adoption of the lampas technique under the Mongol Times is also noticeable, as this sophisticated weaving technique were diffused by Muslim craftsmen around 10th–12th century under diverse Central Asian regimes: the Seljuk, the Kara-Khanid and the Qocho Uyghur Kingdom.
Key Words: Mongol Times, soft architecture, nasīj, multicultural context
Selected Bibliography
Primary Sources:
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- Rashid al-Din, trans. by, John Andrew Boyle, The successors of Gengis Khan, New York, Columbia University Press, 1971.
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Ruibo Yu is a PhD Candidate majoring in Medieval Islamic Art History at The School of Art History and Archaeology, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Ruibo is affiliated to the laboratory UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée, Équipe Islam Médiéval within the CNRS (https://www.orient-mediterranee.com/member/yu/). He holds BA in Art History from Department of Art history, Tsinghua University (Beijing), and MA in Islamic Art History from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He specializes in the cultural and artistic exchanges between China and the Islamic world during the Medieval Times, focusing on the precious textiles which were dedicated to the ruling elite under the 13th and 14th century within the Pax Mongolica.
This essay aims to clarify how the gold brocades (nasij) were used in the architectural context under the Mongol Empire, namely the royal tents (ordo ger) or the cart-tents (ordo ger tergen). These sumptuous "soft palaces" symbolized the supremacy of imperial power, they also witnessed the co-existence of the nomadic traditions and the artistic influences from the Islamic world. According to the Chinese and Persian sources, by using the political and military powers, the Mongol regimes played an essential role in the productions and the utilizations of this luxury fabric in the multicultural context.