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Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales
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Peithynen
Peithynen in the form of a fire screen, composed of 23 four-sided staves bearing bardic script, supported on lion's paw feet, surmounted by carvings of two lions.
During conservation, a bright pink silk fabric was found in-between the backboard and the lettered staves. The silk is attached to the wooden backboard using nails. It consists of two pieces of roughly equal size which are joined together with a horizontal hand-stitched seam. The thicker yarns, which run in the vertical direction, are silk, but the thinner yarns have a very different appearance under the microscope. All the same, further material analysis (FTIR) indicates that it is indeed silk. The horizontal yarns are possibly bundles of silk held together with an adhesive or gummy substance.