Part of a larger study, this paper analyzes the transmission of textile techniques and motifs comprised in the Sino-Sogdian artistic repertoire through former Tibetan areas. It explores the later development of early Islamic Central Asian textile production, and its adaptation into Buddhist context.

A recognized Central Asian textile iconography spread from the Tarim to The Mediterranean Basin. Not only was it reproduced at the borders of great empires but was preserved and secularized in time by nomadic and semi-nomadic people of Turko-Mongol origin.

A group of textiles held in the China National Silk Museum, possibly from Qinghai, analyzed and catalogued during  a long period of research in Asia, will be presented. Still unpublished, some of these textiles, which are comparable to wall-painted costumes along the Silk Road network, have, indeed, provided evidence of a common fashion in vogue in Trans-Himalayan areas before the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century.