Fragment of a wood-block print on linen

The Indian technique of patterning a textile by printing with wooden blocks came to the Mamluk world as a result of trade with India. At Fustat, outside of Cairo, numerous fragments of Indian and Mamluk printed textiles have been found. Fish, repeated to form the entire design of this textile, were an indigenous Egyptian motif. The break in the bodies of two of the fish reveals that two blocks were used to print each fish.