January

India's textiles date back to her ancient trade links which stretched from China in the Far East to Egypt, Greece and Rome in the West. The silver jar in this artwork, complete with a fragment of red-dyed, cotton fabric, represents the one excavated in the 1920's from the site of the 5000 year old Harappan Civilisation of Punjab - a province of North West India (now partly in Pakistan) which was the birthplace of Sikhism.

The fragment, which to date remains the oldest example of woven cloth ever found, denotes how India's historical textile industry (spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing) originates from Punjab. The mythology surrounding cotton, amongst early European historians and travellers to India (some of whom are named in the background), is represented by the 'lamb tree' as described in the 14th century Book of Marvels and Travels of Sir John Mandeville.

Sir Mandeville is shown seated under the tree. The belief that cotton came from lambs growing on trees arose from accounts of "wool-bearing trees with fruits of downy fleece" and "vegetable wool" made by Europeans who, encountering India's cotton plant for the first time, confused it's fluffy, white buds with wool.