DescriptionCatalan Atlas, Flag of Cathay (Chinese Empire).png
English: Catalan Atlas, Flag of Cathay (Chinese Empire)
Eastern Mongol flags in the Catalan Atlas
STUDY OF THE FLAG by Yuka Kadoi, Faculty Member, University of Vienna ( (2010). "On the Timurid flag". Beiträge zur islamischen Kunst und Archäologie2: 148.):
Yuka Kadoi studied the possibility that the "brown or originally silver flag with three circles or balls" in the Catalan Atlas could be associated with the "earlier dominions of the Timurid Empire", specifically referencing a flag shown over the city is camull (Khamil) in Xinjiang. She also quotes Ruy González de Clavijo (d. 1412), a Spanish ambassador who visited the Timurid court in 1404, who describes a a relevant emblematic design adopted by Timur:
"The special armorial bearing of Timur is the three circlets set thus to shape a triangle, which same it is said signifies that he Timur is lord of all three quarters of the world. This device Timur has ordered to be set on the coins that he has stuck, and on all buildings that he has erected (…) These three circlets which, as said, are like the letter O thrice repeated to form a triangle, further are the imprint of Timur’s seal, and again by his special order are added so as to be seen patent on all the coins stuck by those princes who are become tributary to his government."
She also notes the existence of Timur umbrella detail with three-dots decorative motif.
Some contemporary coins from Samarkand also have the three dots as a motif. [1]
Beyond this, scant confirmation.
The flag referenced by Kadoi would actually be this one: , the flag with the three red crescent moons which is seen all over eastern Asian in the Catalan Atlas, and which is simply the flag of the Empire of the Great Khan (Yuan China) ((in English) (28 October 2013) The World Beyond Europe in the Romance Epics of Boiardo and Ariosto, University of Toronto Press, p. 32 ISBN: 978-1-4426-6667-2. )
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