A Boteh a Day Keeps the Covid Away

[Chuck Wagner]

Pat,

That's a nice one.

I have always liked rustic rugs with people and critters sprinkled around.

And space aliens, like the Meshkin runner I showed earlier.

Dr. Weiler likes find-the-boteh rugs, so here's one, with a detail shot proving that there are some...

Regards
Chuck

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afsh1.jpg


http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/afsh4.jpg

[Patrick Weiler]

Chuck,

Hey, I recognize the kitchen floor! But no botehs.
All I can see in that rug is a couple of Af-Sharks. Near the bottom - the black fish with the blue eyes.
:laughing_2:
Patrick Weiler

[Joel Greifinger]

I've always had this little rug figured for Arab Khamseh, but I'm not exactly sure why. :baffled: Since it also has botehs, I thought I'd solicit some opinions.

https://i.postimg.cc/j5kZ6fPr/AK.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/HkGvPbKY/AK-det1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/xd5sChd8/AK-det2.jpg

Joel

[Dinie Gootjes]

Hi Joel,

I usually start with the 'famous' Khamseh squares we talked about a few years ago: http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00136/s136_t7.htm
If another rug looks like one and feels like one, I assume it is one :pie:. The same way you immediately recognize a Baluch: usually it is quite clear from the general look of the rug, though there are always ones that need more thought, and even ones that you are never quite sure about.

For your rug the colours, mixed colour warps, and "Shiraz" design all point in the Arab Khamseh direction. The diamond border is also often found on the squares. It seems to have lost the single cord selvage wrapping that is usual? Is the knotting open left?

Here is one that is similar to yours. Often the larger rugs are less heavy than the squares, though we have a few that have a long, heavy, pelt-like pile, truly an expanded square.

https://i.postimg.cc/c47CJqz0/Shiraz-medallion-001.jpg

[Patrick Weiler]

Joel,

I noticed that one of the major motifs in your rug is a square or rectangle with diamond-tipped appendages. These have a superficial similarity to some Turkmen jewelry, though theirs is triangular. This features as the major motif in my Qashqai gabbeh. Maybe it is supposed to represent a porcupine.
:rolleyes:

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/PAT_W_gabbehfull1.jp g

Patrick Weiler

[Chuck Wagner]

Pat,

Maybe it's not a representation of jewelry.

Looks like it could also be something like a soufreh with tassels.

Regards
Chuck

[Joel Greifinger]

Hi Pat and Chuck,

Since we've already seen it on Khamseh and Qashqa'i pieces, it's not surprising that it also turns up on Afshar weavings, given their shared design vocabularies.

https://i.postimg.cc/9fr9t3cp/Afshar-medallion-bf-copy.jpg

I think we can say with some assurance that it isn't a boteh. :laughing_2:

Joel

[Patrick Weiler]

Joel,

Nice bagface! Great, bright colors. I wonder what that square element with the tassels in each corner is?
:laughing_1:
Unlike the purported Turkmen use of the guls of their defeated rivals, it is not likely that something similar occurred here. The motif is quite uncommon, though as seen here, not exclusive to one tribe or another. This may indicate a shared source. I did some cursory research on regional fields such as sculpture, tilework, jewelry, architectural design, textiles and religious iconography. The results were negative, but with cursory cursing.
:devil:
But, I will keep looking and report back.
:nerd:
Patrick Weiler

[Joel Greifinger]

Over the course of this thread, all of the examples of botehs have been pile woven, with the exception of Chuck's brocaded horse covers. I looked around for tapestry-woven pieces.

The most obvious are the many beautiful Senneh kilims with botehs, many of them in a niche format like this one:

https://i.postimg.cc/SszxRD5L/Senneh-kilim-botehs.jpg

And, not surprisingly, the S. Persian group that produced the largest supply of kilims, the Qashqa'i confederation, worked the motif into their pieces, as well.

https://i.postimg.cc/s2L23tnD/Qashqai-boteh3.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/HkBxhJXM/Qashqai-boteh1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/zfvBZJFc/Qashqai-boteh2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/GtP3cGnK/Qashqa-i-kilim.jpg

Joel

[Andrew Leng]

Here are some wandering boths. The quirky homespun nature of the design and colours of this rug appealed but I failed to win it in an auction. It was listed as Afshar. 115cm x 75 Is it Afshar?

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/andrew24.jpg

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/andrew22.jpg

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/andrew23.jpg

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi Andrew, Joel,

First, Andrew, assuming this is no longer on the market (was it re-listed ?) then I'll just note that it may be a lot of things but I don't think Afshar is one of them.

The frieze on either end is common to Qashqai and Khamseh work.

Joel,

I hadn't looked very hard at what flatweaves we own; only one that I haven't already posted - with a boteh - remains; see below, in the borders, somewhat randomly:

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/ASCs3.jpg


This Bijar kilim raises a question for me, having looked at so many things interpreted as botehs in this thread. Note the hookahs along the sides of the fiels; I have to wonder if some of the quite coarse botehs we see are rudimentary representations of these:

http://www.turkotek.com/show_and_tell/bjk21.jpg

Regards
Chuck

[Steve Price]

Hi All

This thread has been going on for nearly four months now, and appears to me to be little more than a catalog of textiles with little in common beyond what might be boteh forms. It reminds me of the work of Gantzhorn, who saw every pair of intersecting lines as representations of crosses and concluded from the fact that they were so ubiquitous that rug weaving has Christian roots. I never took this seriously, nor do I take most attempts to interpret motifs as anything more than speculation.

I'd like to pose a question to those of you participating in this. Suppose everything you call a boteh really is intended to be one. What do you know about any of the weavings or weaving cultures that you didn't know four months ago?

Steve Price

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

Hi Steve,

So what?
Have you any better idea to keep Turkotek moving in a more brilliant direction?
I suppose you don't have the energy to do that anymore. Neither do I.
So, why not let people having fun?

Filiberto

[Steve Price]

Hi Filiberto

I understand your point.

When the management group took the site over in 1998, we decided what our goals were. We specifically didn't want to become a database of photos of rugs, a function that was being served by at least two other websites at the time. Nor did we want to have more or less random discussions that just helped newcomers to Rugdom identify the rugs they just bought on eBay. The reason for that was that we didn't have enough web space (it was expensive in those days) or the software to easily administer such content. That changed, and we created Virtual Show and Tell despite the fact that opinions varied among us about whether we should.

Today, Facebook and other social media are convenient free venues for unfocused discussions of random topics. I belong to a number of Facebook groups about rugs and about subSaharan African art, but rarely look at what's going on in them.

Turkotek demands a significant (not overwhelming, just significant) amount of my time and energy. I'm happy to donate that to help novices learn without falling prey to the commercial interests present on websites that permit promotions. But I'm not happy to donate my time to Facebook-type discussions. My motives are still what they were 20+ years ago - self education and service to the next generation of ruggies.

Bottom line: Newbies seeking to learn about rugs are 100% welcome, and this can only happen when the rugs belong to them. Free ranging exchanges of photos of rugs are barely tolerated (I mean by me, of course).

Regards,

Steve Price

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi,

Well. It is, a Show & Tell thread, isn't it.

And it did spin off a very interesting thread (which appears to have gone missing, so I hope archived) on bags with piled folded ends which was actually enlightening.

And, with many - if not most - folks spending way more time at home than they would ordinarily choose it has provided a welcome break (for those not in the business of moving images to servers anyway) from a pretty quiet existience.

So as the rug site equivalent of a doctor in the office, Our Moderator has seen a dramatic increase in epidemic-related activity relative to an otherwise fairly quiet previous few months.

Best solved in two ways:
1) Vaccine development
2) Exhaustion of relevant image inventory

I think we're close to (2) with regular members but I'm glad to see some of the new folks popping up.

I have heard that many of our former active members have moved to Facebook; I wish them well but will - never - go there. I have a real problem with their business model and its attendant privacy issues, as well as other issues which I'll just skip for now.

So while I can imagine that the uptick in activity has caused a parallel uptick in someones grumpiness coefficient, I'll make two observations; activity will dial down again as things recover, and, I haven't seen any posts of his stuff with botehs on it yet...:pie:

Cheers
Chuck

[Steve Price]

Hi Chuck

You're right about grumpiness. I'm past my use-by date and have become crotchity with age. What you don't know is that about a year ago I tried to get anyone else in our management group to take over my role. It got one nibble, but the interested party wasn't interested enough to take it on.

If I thought yet another boteh-containing weaving would contribute anything meaningful, I would have looked around mine for it. But, in my opinion, a catalog of rugs whose only common feature is the presence of boteh-like motifs is about as riveting as a catalog of rugs with palmettes or any other ubiquitous motif.

Sorry.

Steve Price

Addendum: Sorry, I didn't answer your inquiry about the Bumper bottoms ... thread. Like this one, it had some interesting and even potentially useful information in it. Also like this one, that information would be virtually unretrievable. I deleted it for that reason. The best a search engine could do is link to the first page of a thread with 150+ posts in it, and the person making the inquiry would have to read each post until he/she got to the material of interest. That's the problem with amorphous, lengthy threads.

[Filiberto Boncompagni]

OK Steve, no problem.
When you are busy or unwilling to upload images for a "Facebook-like" discussion, feel free to forward them to me.

Chuck, I HATE social media so I fully agree with you on Facebook.

As for the deleted "Bumper" discussion, there is a workaround and it works because I experimented it already: I uploaded my copies to a temporary folder on Turkotek and a couple of our members downloaded them from the links I sent them.
Then I deleted the folder but I can repeat the operation again if necessary.
Are you interested?

Filiberto

[Patrick Weiler]

One might relate this issue to agriculture. Without crop rotation, a field loses its nutrients. Without nutrients, the field is no longer viable, it gets shut down and real estate developers put condos and parking lots on it. An analogy could be that the "social media" pages are mostly the crowded, rowdy condos and Turkotek could become the deserted parking lot. The solution is either fertilizer or a cover crop. One may consider random posts without a specific "teachable moment" or "learning experience" to be distracting, meaningless or deleterious to the mission. However, it does seem to me that much relevant and useful information has been shared on these recent threads, even though they have meandered and traveled randomly like a scourge of moths on a long-stored carpet. Have the last few months been a tidy, well-maintained cover crop, or merely odoriferous, organic sludge? If the result is the same, then it has been successful in maintaining interest and contributions while we are awaiting the next educational, inspiring and elucidating post or in-depth Salon. Any suggestions? Perhaps a particular weaving area - for example, Shirvan -could be explored, with standard examples from our hoards, as well as sub-topics such as age and dyes and different types from the region like kilims, bags, rugs etc.

Patrick Weiler

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi all,

Filiberto - yes, I'm interested. You have my email I believe so let me know what to do, and when.

Pat, Steve, et al.,

To my mind, some of the most trivial conversations we engage in have some lasting and public value, if only because we and our comrades put some thought into attributions, and there are many visual examples provided along with the discussion, which are caught by the great cosmic Hoovering done by Google (Resistance Is Futile).

Thus as an attribution resource, even the goofy stuff has some value, because it may be goofy but it's also often credible - or getting there anyway.

Regards
Chuck

[Joel Greifinger]

Hi all,

One practical way to avoid having to ask Steve to upload images to the Turkotek server for meandering threads that he loathes is to use one of the apps that will provide a free permanent web address. I use Postimage.org and you don't need to join to use the service. You just drop in the picture files and, if you haven't resized them yourself, you can choose the size and the site will do it for you.

https://i.postimg.cc/026scq6f/Screen-Shot-2020-08-10-at-2-38-36-PM.png

Then you just copy the "direct links" it provides into your Turkotek post, adding before and after each direct link address.

This way, those of us who find such lighter fare fun and sociable don't have to impose our frivolous proclivities on the admins.

Joel