hree wrappings, or garments of silk, so suggestive of the artistic
traditions of many nationalities, and the long descent of patterns,
recognizable after the lapse of centuries, that a description of them,
accompanied by illustrations, can hardly fail to be interesting. They
are all now reduced by time to a rich golden brown, though there are
indications that blue, green, and red have been woven into their
fabric, and there are also on one of them traces of gilding. The first
(plate 35) shows Oriental conventional peacocks, double-headed and
collared, framed within circles which slightly intersect each other,
thus giving the opportunity for varying the original motive by
breaking up the rolling arabesqued pattern, and uniting the stems and
flowers contained in the border. The spaces between the circles are
filled in with gryphons in pairs, of the Babylonian stamp, thick
limbed with strongly-marked muscles. There is a border or guimp,
Persian in character, in which are small crosses surmounting
repetitions of the crenelated pattern found in Assyrian ornament.

The second piece of silk contains a large rosace. Scattered about it
are repetitions of the Persian leaf or tree of life, and the border
consists of kneeling hares or fawns between a Persian arabesque and a
corded line. The mixture of Egyptian and Assyrian styles is remarkable
throughout, till we come to the centre of the rosace, where we find a
most incongruous man in armour on horseback with a hawk on his wrist,
giving the Norman stamp of the reigning house and influence in Sicily.
The central subject is exactly repeated on an embroidered twelfth
century chasuble in the treasury of the Cathedral of Bamberg, only
that a royal crown and robes are worn by the horseman (pl. 36).[261]

The third specimen is the most noteworthy (plate 37). There is nothing
of Assyrian here, but it reminds one of Egyptian and Greek art, and at
once suggests Count Roger's Greek slaves at the Sicilian looms, but
the design is probably of a much earlier date, and the subject is
puzzling. A piece of drapery resembling an Egyptian sail with its
fringes[262] (pl. 38) is looped up on each side to the head of a
thyrsus, and above it hangs a large cluster of fruits. The lower part
of the drapery rests upon water, and is somewhat like a boat, with
ducks swimming towards it, and fish disporting themselves in the
rippling waves. Between the circles the ducks are repeated, facing a
shield enriched