floor covering in Mongolia, estimated to date between 100 BC and 200 AD. In Europe, quilting has been part of the needlework tradition from about the fifth century, with early objects containing Egyptian cotton, which may indicate that Egyptian and Mediterranean trade provided a conduit for the technique. However, quilted objects were relatively rare in Europe until approximately the twelfth century, when quilted bedding and other items appeared after the return of the Crusaders from the Middle East. The medieval quilted gambeson, aketon and arming doublet were garments worn under or instead of armor of maille or plate armor. These developed into the later quilted doublet worn as part of fashionable European male clothing from the fourteenth to seventeenth century. The earliest known surviving European bed quilt is from late-fourteenth-century Sicily: the Tristan quilt made of linen and padded with wool. The blocks across the center are scenes from the legend of Tristan. The quilt is and is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The word quilt comes from the Latin culcita meaning a stuffed sack, but it came into the English language from the French word cuilte. American quilts In American Colonial times, quilts were predominantly whole-cloth quilts—a single piece of fabric layered with batting and backing held together with fine needlework quilting. Broderie perse quilts were popular during this time and the majority of pierced or appliqued quilts made during the 1770–1800 period were medallion-style quilts (quilts with a central ornamental panel and one or more borders). Patchwork quilting in America dates to the 1770s, the decade the United States gained its independence from England. These late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century patchwork quilts often mixed wool, silk, linen, and cotton in the same piece, as well as mixing large-scale (often chintz) and small-scale (often calico) patterns. Some antique quilts made in North America have worn-out blankets or older quilts as the internal batting layer, quilted between new layers of fabric and thereby extending the usefulness of old material. During American pioneer days, foundation piecing became popular. Paper was cut into shapes and used as a pattern; each individual piece of cut fabric was basted around the paper pattern. Paper was a scarce commodity in the early American west so women would save letters from home, postcards, newspaper clippings, and catalogs to use as patterns. The paper not only served as a pattern but as an insulator. The paper