Intertextual Study on continuity of Sassanian motifs in Byzantian and Egyptian woven fabrics in post Sassanid era

 
After the collapse of the Sassanid dynasty, their textiles' designs were still accepted and repeated among other regions. Sometimes, it isn't easy to distinguish the samples of each part. However, there are still some aspects in each place's designs that are helpful to determine the motifs of each region from the Sassanid.
This study's issue is to observe the significant similarities in the Byzantine and Egyptian textiles' patterns whit the Sassanid samples. It is noteworthy that in this period - from about the seventh to the tenth century AD - the Sassanid dynasty has disappeared. However, their pictorial designs were still on other lands' textiles, including the present study areas.
 The purpose is to study the intertextual relations and structural analysis of Sassanid, Byzantine, and Egyptian textile patterns and study the reasons for some differences between them in using the Sassanid patterns as an identical text in their fabrics. The results can help find the affecting factors of stability and acceptance of a template in terms of visual style and structure and applying outcomes in creating new designs.
For investigating this issue, the intertextual approach and Roland Barthes' theories have been used. Thus, by considering Sassanid motifs as a text, it is tried to study and analyze how they are placed in other regions' text. In the designed tables, the selected samples from each field are structurally examined and analyzed. Textiles' motifs composition structure related to the different areas has been studied separately in six thematic subjects and different compositions, including single birds in a medallion, single animals in the medallion, symmetrical double composition, symmetrical composition with a central motif, hunting, and narration. This division is based on the majority of repetitions of a subject among the prototypes of three geographical and historical areas, as well as its generalizability in all of them. The 'form text' and the 'written text' are obtained and presented in the tables by designing a diagram based on the fabric pattern’s structure.
Since the samples belonging to the Sassanid period are considered pre-text in this study, their compositional structure is extracted in the first column of the tables and used as a basis for analyzing samples for other areas.
The results show that different regions have different perceptions of the same "text" based on their previous knowledge and pre-texts. Also, in the reproduction stage of the design, they create a new " opus" in which, despite the similarity to the prototype, traces of features and symbols derived from their own regional identity or, in fact, their own texts are evident.
Comparing to Byzantine, Egypt has retained most of its outstanding features, which can be attributed to its long history in the textile industry, as well as a rich background of cultural, religious, and mythological texts, which allowed them to Have more choices in replacing the designs in a new structure. With the more affluent cultural background and context of a region, the result is not mere imitation. It moves towards creating an original artwork involving a structured text network.