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About five years ago a posted an inquiry on here about this unusual dovetail-woven kilim which I bought in Cambridge. Marla was kind enough to make some very perceptive comments about it as a nightmare project for a kilim-weaver, probably copying a design from another, more suitable medium. The mystery of its design has a kind of interim conclusion which I wanted to report back.
It turns out, after a few years of head scratching and research, that it was a religious artifact, woven in the late 19th/early 20th century in Hakkari or Urmia for the Church of the East. It copies a design (probably made in a more luxurious fabric) which combined Byzantine, Ilkhanate Mongol and Tibetan Buddhist elements. The original, now lost, was made at, or for, the late 13th Century Ilkhanid court of Hulagu Khan at Maragha (south of Tabriz). I have been helped in reaching this conclusion by many knowledgeable people, both rug experts and historians. Clive Rogers put me on to the Buddhist elements, for example. So, it is an oddity of some art historical and church interest, but it doesn’t really fit into any of the known categories in the history of rugs.
I’ve given it back to the Church of the East who will appreciate it most, but from a rug enthusiast point of view I wondered whether the original, unique, one-of-a-kind and time-limited piece of design fusion (the Ilkhans converted to Islam and persecuted Christians from 1300) may have influenced the later rug designers of Heriz/Tabriz and later Ushak, where floral eight-pointed medallions similar to the central motif became common, while most other regions seems to have preferred six-pointed ones
It turns out, after a few years of head scratching and research, that it was a religious artifact, woven in the late 19th/early 20th century in Hakkari or Urmia for the Church of the East. It copies a design (probably made in a more luxurious fabric) which combined Byzantine, Ilkhanate Mongol and Tibetan Buddhist elements. The original, now lost, was made at, or for, the late 13th Century Ilkhanid court of Hulagu Khan at Maragha (south of Tabriz). I have been helped in reaching this conclusion by many knowledgeable people, both rug experts and historians. Clive Rogers put me on to the Buddhist elements, for example. So, it is an oddity of some art historical and church interest, but it doesn’t really fit into any of the known categories in the history of rugs.
I’ve given it back to the Church of the East who will appreciate it most, but from a rug enthusiast point of view I wondered whether the original, unique, one-of-a-kind and time-limited piece of design fusion (the Ilkhans converted to Islam and persecuted Christians from 1300) may have influenced the later rug designers of Heriz/Tabriz and later Ushak, where floral eight-pointed medallions similar to the central motif became common, while most other regions seems to have preferred six-pointed ones
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