Encyclopaedia of Embroidery from Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and South Asia
The TRC has embarked on a new large-scale and very exciting project. Following the publication in February 2016 of the 688-pageEncyclopedia of Embroidery from the Arab World, a new contract was signed with Bloomsbury Academic in London to publish an equally beautifully illustrated and highly informative successor volume, namely an encyclopaedia of embroidery from Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau (Iran and Afghanistan) and the Indian Subcontinent. The volume is edited by Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, director of the TRC, and Willem Vogelsang, dept. director of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden. Use is made of the extensive TRC collection of textiles and garments from that part of the world. In December 2018 the manuscript of the Encyclopaedia was submitted to Bloomsbury and the book is due to be published by the end of 2020.
Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian subcontinent have throughout history been in close contact. For millennia, people from Central Asia have migrated from the north towards what is now known as Iran and Afghanistan, and hence they often moved either west, towards modern Turkey, or east towards the Indian subcontinent. Others, be they nomads, pilgrims, tradesmen or soldiers, moved directly from east to west and from west to east. This is the story of the Indo-Iranians, the Scythians, the Turks, the Uzbeks, Sufi saints and itinerant craftsmen. In addition, all of this part of the world has in recent centuries felt the pressures from further away, from Russia, Europe, China.