Silk links faraway worlds

"By sheer luck, these fragments eventually came to rest in the same museum — a fortune many historical textiles never share," Zhao says.

"That is one of the impulses behind our project: to reconnect precious pieces that history has scattered."

The reunited group — five fragments in all — shares the same color, texture and boys-in-floral-scrolls motif, and is believed to have been produced in China. They were originally discovered at Rayy, just south of modern-day Tehran, one of Iran's oldest continuously inhabited cities. The fragments date to the 12th and 13th centuries, corresponding to China's Song Dynasty (960-1279), when this decorative theme flourished and Chinese silk traveled widely along the Maritime Silk Road, reaching the Indian Ocean regions and the Persian Gulf. Porcelain from the same period — likewise exported through these sea routes — has also been found at Rayy.

"Even more remarkable is the discovery of the Greco-Roman origin of the floral scrolls," Zhao says.

"The motif — an ivy scroll pattern (Hedera in Latin) — has deep roots in the visual culture of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, where it was closely associated with Dionysus, the god of wine and festivity, and his Roman counterpart Bacchus."

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, he explains, this decorative language spread eastward through Hellenistic artistic networks across Central Asia and Gandhara, entering the broader Silk Road world and gradually becoming part of a shared Eurasian ornamental vocabulary.

"More often than not, tracing the cultural journeys of Chinese silk means rediscovering a shared historical narrative," Zhao says.