Based in present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the Sogdian people, an ancient culture that is known primarily by its language, were master traders along the Silk Road from the sixth to the eighth century C.E., establishing bases in China and elsewhere. Sogdian textiles often share compositions and designs—such as confronted animals—with those produced in nearby centers in Iran that were under Sasanian control, and it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. However, the carbon dating and the detailing in the rendering of the animals’ bodies on this fragment point to the period just after the fall of the Sasanians in 641 C.E., when similar works were no longer valued in Iran.