Pillow cover with Arabic inscription

This rare complete Egyptian pillow cover is a masterpiece of contrasting colors. Crimson and blue-green wool alternate in the ground and bird-inhabited roundels, supported by mustard-colored wool and undyed linen woven in tapestry weave. When folded down the center, based on examples from Egyptian burials, four birds form a unit on each side and are appropriately ascending in flight. <br><br>Above, an Arabic text written in angular Kufic script reads, "In the name of God. Blessing from God to its owner. Of what was made in the tiraz." The word <em>tiraz</em> means factory or an Arabic-inscribed textile. This was probably made in al-Bahnasa, the city renowned for colorful wool textiles with figures, as they claimed, from a "gnat to the elephant."