148 GARDENS OF THE PLAINS LAHORE 



temporary work of art, a most remarkable garden 

 carpet which has come to light within recent 

 years. From the workmanship and colouring it 

 is judged to be an Armenian production of the 

 first half of the seventeenth century. The 

 Paradise garden of its design suggests that in all 

 probability it was made in the first instance for 

 the Sefari Palace at Ispahan built by Shah Abbas, 

 Shah Jahan's Persian rival. 



The design is of extreme antiquity. Chosroes I., 

 the Sassanian King of Persia (A.D. 531-579), 

 had a famous carpet called " Chosroes' Spring," 

 i.e. garden, which was employed to decorate a 

 hall or, more likely, on account of its great size, 

 an open platform, for the carpet is said to have 

 been four hundred and fifty feet long by ninety 

 feet wide. The Arabs conquered Ctesiphon in the 

 year 637. Nothing astonished them more, so their 

 chroniclers relate, than this wonderful carpet. 

 The plan was that of a royal pleasure-ground, or 

 Paradise, representing beds of spring flowers. 

 There was a broad flower-bed border all around. 

 The ground was worked in gold thread, the 

 leaves and flowers in silk, and crystals and 

 precious stones were employed to represent the 

 fruit and the water. 



