These fragments come from an extremely finely woven carpet with a design of trees and flowers. The velvety appearance of the pile comes from the use of pashmina - the fine hair from the underbelly of the Kashmir goat, from which Kashmir shawls are made. This was used for pile carpets in preference to silk by carpet-weavers of the Mughal empire in the 17th and 18th centuries. Silk thread was used for the warps and wefts that form the underlying structure of the carpet. A large portion of the carpet from which these fragments came is today in the Frick Collection in New York, but it too is formed of a patchwork of fragments.