Kyokkin Furoshiki: The Prince Who Captured the Lion

This vigorous design of a hero holding a lion in each arm is said to have depicted the legendary Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh who was written in the "Epic of Gilgamesh" recorded in the twelve cuneiform-inscribed clay tablets out of the tens of thousand pieces unearthed from the excavation site of the old Assyrian library. The symmetric pattern drawn in the roundel like this fabric was the typical design of the textiles woven in the Sassanid dynasty, Persia, whereas the design of holding a lion in an arm had been seen in the rel ieves of the palace in the Assyrian era. This design is modeled after an ancient fabric woven in the Middle East approximately in the 10th century AD probably for exporting to the west that we produced into warp-patterned brocade keeping the vigorous atmosphere.