Dated Heybe?

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

My wife and I picked this up the other day in Kaş, Türkiye. Beautiful Turkish Saddlebag/Heybe with some writing on it that I can’t really translate at the moment. We will spend more time on it later but if anyone has a guess on a date or word, please respond. We picked up other pieces we will post later.

[Steve Price Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Steve Price]

Hi Joe

Cute bag. I can't read the inscription, but it doesn't look like any of it is a date.

Steve Price

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

I have been told that some inscriptions were made by illiterate weavers to look like writing because literate weavers were higher-status (?), which explains some bizarre dates that turn up on rugs, sometimes in mirror image somewhere else on the piece.

Paul

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Steve and Paul, thank you for your input. It was gibberish for me but wanted to see if anyone else saw anything.

[Joel Greifinger Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Joel Greifinger]

Hi Joe,

Do you know what group the heybe is from? I combed through Steiner and Pinkwart's Bergama Heybe ve Torba, which is based on their extensive field work from 1979-2007, but couldn't find any other heybes with either that field design or knotted middle section design. The closest seem to be some 'cross medallion' designs from the Yüntdag area.

Joel Greifinger

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Hello Joel. The Heybe is from Sivas, Türkiye and a fairly common design. There is not a lot out there for a totality of info on Turkish Heybe’s. Specifics for Sivas and the Anatolian regions are the leather bindings and fasteners to include the middle section being knotted. The leather can be replaced if needed and some remove it all together showing a Heybe that is hard to tell it had leather at all since it was added after the fact. Thus far we bought three which I will show if anyone is interested in about 4 weeks upon the end of our holiday.

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

I’m still trying to figure this one out. Thus far I can only see 1155 which translates to 1742. A little far fetched to be legit. I even showed this in Turkey to a relative that is fluent in Ottoman Turkish and he to said 1155. I also believe the other writing are words or a name. To hard to tell though.

Also the Bergama Heybe book only focuses on heybes from that region, not Anatolia. Thank you Joel for the reference and I have since bought the book.

Any help would be appreciated.