The Stein Collection

Artificial flowers cut from plain woven natural and dyed cotton and silk (Central Asia, 300-400 AD. Approximately 6.5 cm in diameter), cleverly fashioned with wooden pegs representing stalks to push through the flower, and tufts of silk thread representing stamens. These flowers would've perhaps been fastened to the floor, walls or ceiling as votive offerings of worshippers at the shrine of Miran.

Victoria & Albert Museums are the custodian of these delicate artifacts which are part of The Stein Collection of textile fragments, ceramic and Buddhist art objects - Rare things dated between 200 BC and 1200 AD, brought to England from the Silk Road region by Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) at the beginning of the twentieth century. The collection now rightly belongs to the Government of India.