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A detail of two figures of
Yuezhi embroidered on a piece of a carpet, Noyon Uul, Mongolia, after 120 BC.
A piece of a carpet found in Barrow 31, Noyon Uul, Mongolia, by the expedition of N. V. Polos’mak (Polos’mak et al. 2009): a fabric 192 x 100 cm depicting a collective sacrificial ceremony.
Embroidered in woollen thread on the thin cloth is a procession of Zoroastrian warriors marching towards an altar; one of them, standing at the altar, is holding a mushroom in his hands.
According to the mycologist I.A. Gorbunova (Candidate of Biology, senior researcher with the Inferior Plant Laboratory, Central Siberian Botanical Garden, SB RAS), the mushroom depicted on the carpet belongs to the Strophariaceae family. In some ways—the general habitus, shape of the cap, stitches along the edge of the cap reminding of the radial folding or remnants of the partial veil and dark inclusions on the stipe that can remind of a paleaceous ring, which blackens after the spores are puffed.
Source: “We drank Soma, we became immortal...” @ Science First Hand
