e fingers of one hand. The men's single, close-fitting Sogdian tunics resemble garments depicted in paintings of the Buddhist temples of Bamiyan and eastern Turkistan, notably at Kizil and Kuca. The style and, in some cases, the subject matter of these Sogdian scenes must have influenced the illuminators of such Islāmic Persian works as the Shāh-nāmeh. Another set of murals is unusual in that it was executed in high relief and then coloured. It shows human beings, sea monsters, and fish, with the waves of the sea rendered in lower relief than the figures. Yet another mural depicts a feast against a black background: a king and several priests sit cross-legged under a canopy; a woman harpist, some musicians and dice players, and a procession of elephants complete the scene. By placing light figures against dark or vivid backgrounds, Sogdian artists evolved a distinct form of perspective.A study of the religious paintings shows that Central Asian Zoroastrianism retained elements from the earlier indigenous cult of the Sun and Moon. Some of the scenes in the secular works are linked by their subject matter (but not their style) to a small group of older Siberian gold and bronze B-shaped buckles and to the Siberian and Ordos plaques that are thought to illustrate local epics. Other secular scenes give full expression to Sogdian interest in the splendour of contemporary court life and prowess in hunting and warfare. The love of overall decoration and of animal motifs is as prevalent as in nomadic art. Details incorporated in Sogdian paintings proclaim the eclecticism of the society they depict and for which they were created. Sāsānian (Sāsānian dynasty) influence from Persia is seen in crowns trimmed with ribbons, veils, and bells; in the styling and trimming of hair and beards; and in many of their vessel shapes. The helmets worn by the warriors in the Pendzhikent libation scene resemble those depicted in the murals of eastern Turkistan. The clothes follow local fashions, and certain horse trappings display disks the shapes of which recall nomadic types.Sogdian textiles (decorative art) are known to have been in great demand among their neighbours. Sāsānian motifs must have reached Sogdian weavers by way of imports from Persia, indirectly routed through Parthia, and also from Zoroastrians seeking protection in Sogdiana from Persian persecution. These motifs often figure both on surviving textiles and on those recorded in the paintings. The murals at Varakhsha, for example, include motifs taken from textiles, and a 5th-century mural from Balalyk Tepe displays the head of a tusked, boarlike animal set in a roundel that is almost identical to that on a Sāsānian fabric found at Astana in eastern Turkistan.Between the 5th and 7th centuries, the Sogdians made dried-brick caskets shaped like rectangular rooms to contain ossuaries, or urns for the bones of the dead. The sides and lids of the ossuaries were decorated. The ornamentation on an ossuary from Bia Naiman (State Hermitage Museum) has so many points in common with the decorations on a series of silver vessels that were, until recently, assigned to Bactria that the latter have come to be accepted as Sogdian. Several ewers have niches containing nude women rendered in a markedly Indian style, thereby recalling many a carved ivory plaque from Bagrām. Very similar niches adorn the Bia Naiman ossuary, but these contain crowned figures. In both cases the niches owe their form to Western influence, but those on the ossuary are formed of columns surmounted by capitals upholding pearl-studded arches, while on the ewers the Central Asian rosette replaces the capitals and the pearls.Sculpture, both in relief and in the round, was widely produced in Sogdiana. Much of the earlier work takes the form of panels or friezes made of alabaster, stucco, and wood. Rosettes, roundels, disks, and vegetation provide the chief motifs. Audience chambers and large reception rooms often contained statues in the round. Even the statues attached to the wall had the appearance of being worked in the round