



The «divine mushroom» embroidered on the carpet resembles well-known psychoactive species Psilocybe cubensis. In the center of the composition to the left of the altar is the king (priest), who is holding a mushroom over the fire. Its pattern was the ancient Zoroastrian ceremony, of which the principal personage was …a mushroom. Of greatest surprise though was the unique embroidery made from wool. How it made its way to the grave of a person it was not meant for will long, if not forever, remain a mystery. It was made someplace in Syria or Palestine, embroidered, probably, in north-western India and found in Mongolia.įinding it two thousand years later is a pure chance its amazingly good condition is almost a miracle. The time-worn cloth found on the floor covered with blue clay of the Xiongnu burial chamber and brought back to life by restorers has a long and complicated story. The fragments of the textile found were parts of a carpet composed of several cloths of dark-red woolen fabric. Inside a deep Xiongnu grave hidden in the thickly wooded Sudzuktè pass, on the bottom of the burial chamber, archaeologists, participants of the Russian-Mongolian expedition, found what they had long been searching for: a layer of clay revealing the outline of textile relics.
