Lampas-woven textile, silk

With its colorful and sumptuously complex geometric and calligraphic patterns, this Andalusian silk can basically be reduced to a striped textile. The main pattern – with its interlacing ornament, star shapes, arcs, etc. – is so complicated that it is nearly impossible to describe it.

What looks like an intricately interwoven Kufi inscription cannot be read and should be considered pure ornamentation of a calligraphic nature, or pseudo-calligraphy. This phenomenon is found on many contemporary borders on rugs, but also within other groups of materials.

Very large Spanish textiles with related ornamentation have been preserved; they were used as curtains.