How did Greco-Roman artistic forms become incorporated into Islamic tiraz designs?
The seventh-century Arabs who conquered Egypt encountered an indigenous textile industry that had been passed down from as far back as Pharaonic times to the Greco-Roman era, and later, to Coptic weavers (third- to twelfth-century Christians). These Arabs introduced Islamic motifs into the artistic vocabulary of North Africa at this time, such as Arabic calligraphy and certain geometric designs. Some early Islamic textiles exhibit Late Antique and Coptic-style motifs, among them human and animal figures, forms of decoration that were in certain contexts disfavored by Muslim rulers and religious thinkers. Other early examples of tiraz textiles made by Coptic weavers actually pair pre-Islamic motifs with Arabic geometric decoration. Curiously, some of these textiles also include illegible interpretations of the Arabic script, as in Textile Fragment with Figural and Floral Motifs and Inscriptions (57.120.3). • … moreDesign Synthesis in North Africa Alongside the tiraz textiles included
