The Tangut Xixia State and the city of Khara-Khoto (Heishuicheng) in modern Inchuan province had been forgotten for centuries: after the Mongol invasion and till the beginning of the 20th century they were covered with sands and not inhabited. In 1907-1909 Russian explorer P.K.Kozlov visited the ruins of the city and excavated the suburgan that was standing aside from the city walls. Kozlov send the found objects to St. Petersburg. And that was the beginning for the new historical and scientific discipline: tangutology. The suburgan happened to be the burial of the Buddhist nun of a noble origin, possibly Chinese, interrened in the 14th century.
Rich artifacts were discovered: collection of icons – tangkas, sculptures, manuscripts and prints, etc. and of course textiles: Buddhist banners, big and small pieces, icons and their fragments. And of course, many tangkas were painted on silk and hemp or cotton. The art treasures including the textiles from 1930s are kept in the Oriental Department of the State Hermitage museum.
Among the textiles different types and various techniques of silk, cotton and hemp were found. The complete silk kesi Green Tara tangka is the most magnificent and rare. Among fragments and banners are some kesi cuts, woven jin or taffeta silks with birds and flowers; embroideries; damask and plain silks, woven combined threads textiles, and others (XX-2744). The most frequent are the silk pieces made in the clamp-resist dying technique. Some banners are made in the very rare way: in appliqué technique and gilded (XX-2753).
The patterns of the textiles include birds, flowers, boys and pomegranates, eight treasures – Buddhist and Daoist, and other traditional ornaments.

Several examples were published and studied: kesi with Green Tara, kesi fragment with boy and pomegranate, some of the banners with embroidered lotus flowers, banners sewn from different technically made pieces. But in general the collection is not published. More of that some of the textiles are still under discussion: what is the material, where and by whom they were made. One of the most mysterious is the textile with roundels with confronting birds and inscription woven in pseudo Arabic script. The collection of textiles needs to be studied published and become known to the world.