These hangings seem either to have had simple figures such as squares with large “gammidae” at the corners worked on them, probably in gold, or they were patterned over with figures, animals, and flowers, woven in the stuff like the elaborate veils of the altar described by the Silentiary. The linen vestments found at Panopolis in Egypt show us that the “gammidae” originated in embroidered shoulder straps, with seal-like ends applied on either side of the neck opening. Fig. 13 shows two of the door veils represented at Ravenna; that on the right is from the mosaic in S. Apollinare Nuovo showing the palace. The gammidae are here exactly of the form found on the early Coptic linen vestments, and it cannot be doubted that they were “applied” in a similar way. The pattern on the left is the door-hanging from the mosaic of S. Vitale; the plain squares are of gold. The designs on the robes in this mosaic are interesting. Justinian’s chlamys is covered with birds in circles, the border of Theodora’s robe displays the three Magi making their offerings; one of her attendants has a robe powdered with swimming ducks and a mantle with four petalled red roses on a gold ground, and another robe has five pointed leaves scattered over its field. Many examples of the figured silks are preserved in museums. There is at South Kensington Museum a piece of pictured silk of this kind, probably of Justinian’s time, which is covered with circles, in each of which is figured a man and a lion. More than a century before the time of Justinian, Asterius, Bishop of Amasius, had made these elaborately figured stuffs a subject of satire: “When men so draped appear in the streets the passers-by regard them like painted walls. Their clothes are pictures which little children trace out with their fingers. There are lions, panthers, and bears, also rocks, woods, and hunters. The most devout carry Christ, His disciples, and His miracles. Here we may see the marriage in Galilee and the pots of wine; there is the paralytic carrying his bed, the penitent woman at the feet of Jesus, or Lazarus come again to life.”[152] [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Door Veils of the Sixth Century: Ravenna Mosaics.]