Achmim (Egypt), 8^th to 12^th century

A small section in the textile collection is made up of 16 fragments from the early Islamic period. The museum received a large part thereof from Robert Forrer, an art dealer and archaeologist. As curator of the museum in Strasbourg he attended the excavations in Achmim in 1884. Remains of clothes, fabrics and cushions were retrieved from graves there in a partly questionable manner, torn apart and distributed among important collections all over the world.

Whether the figures displayed on the fragment with their large eyes and thin extremities are human or animal representations, is not clear.