Central Asian fragment

Hi all,

First, I am pleased to hear that Patrick has survived his NYC ordeal, more or less intact. Patrick, I'm surprised that the NYC Tourism Bureau hasn't snapped you up as a spokesman...

I have recently developed some interest some of the "Central Asian" weavings that don't come from the traditional Turkmen "gul-oriented" design tradition. I am not referring to the floral designs (Herati and Mina Khani), but rather to the other "quasi-tribal" designs that seem distinct from other design traditions. Some writers have suggested that these arose out of long-standing local design traditions, which can be seen on artifacts from 2000+ years ago. Others have indicated that many of these designs are derived from other weaving types, most notably ikat-dying.

Though I can't pretend to know enough about this topic, I find the idea that a long-standing local design tradition is represented in weavings from some eastern regions through the 19th century to be rather persuasive. To what extent do we see these designs emerging in Turkmen weaving?

Here is the wonderful and intriguing piece from the "Timbuktu to Tibet" exhibition that stimulated my musings....

James.

Those Qausi Tribes

James,

The piece you show is described in the catalog as a rug fragment, Central Asia, 18th or 19th century, 48" x 15" (122x38cm) from the Harold M. Keshishian collection. It is suggested that it is about half of an end border from a large carpet. No tribal attribution is given, although the text suggests that more Yomut old carpets exist today due to the fact that the Russians settled them first and their carpets came on the market first.
It could be likely that some older iconography remained in the Turkmen lexicon until commercial pressures overwhelmed the design vocabulary. This piece may have been woven before that time.
You said "I'm surprised that the NYC Tourism Bureau hasn't snapped you up as a spokesman."
I think they are looking for me, though probably not as a spokesman..........

Patrick Weiler

Thanks for the additional information, Patrick.

Whatever the source, those main design elements certainly look intriguing and unfamiliar, at least to my uneducated view. I wonder if anyone can point to some analogies, either in the Turkmen or non-Turkmen design lexicon.

Here is a picture from Hans Konig's article on Ersari weavings that shows an ancient clay pot and its design similarity to a familiar Yomut woven design.



James.

P.S. Maybe the NYC authorities aren't overly en-chanteh-ed with bleary-eyed strangers with a penchant for looking at people's old pillows...

Hi Pat and James

The main motifs in that piece remind me of the sort of thing that I associate with pile decorated Turkmen tentbands. The fragment itself puzzles me. It looks like a fragment of a main carpet's skirt, but appears to have a border on all sides.

Steve Price

Steve,

There does not appear to be a border on the right side, but the lower edge has what looks like "dice".
One issue I have with the book Timbuktu to Tibet is that the most extensive structural analysis of the pieces is that they have "Wool pile".
Considering that several pieces have only an extremely general tribal designation, such as Central Asian, a bit of structural analysis would have given those who are interested something to chew on and ponder. Otherwise, all we are left with is the pictures.
At the exhibition we were admonished by posted notices not to touch the textiles. I was sorely tempted to turn a corner on some of them with my program - "See, I am not touching it!" - just to get an idea of the construction.
The preface to the book notes that they "trust that this exhibition and publication will help to reveal something of the beauty of the rugs and textiles that interest us, and at the same time promote an interest in the culture of others with whom we share this planet."
Nothing about revealing the structural characteristics of the pieces. And, frankly, the idea of promoting "an interest in the culture of others with whom we share this planet" is rather dubious considering that the culture of the makers of these pieces has long been relegated to history.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Pat

The right side has obviously been lost. I'm assuming that the vertical direction of the image is the direction of the warps. If that's the case, there must have been a side border wherever the field ended on the right before it was cut.

I'm having a hard time visualizing what this was, originally. In its fragmentary state, it's 4 feet wide. It could be a torba or juval, although I've never seen either of those with a field that looked anything like this. The end of a main carpet or the elem of an ensi wouln't be expected to be surrounded by borders. I'm accustomed to seeing things like the small secondary motifs, but not in the regular array that they're in on this piece.

I'd be curious to know what this fragment says to those who are spoken to by tribal weavings.

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

I can't pretend to be "spoken to" by tribal weavings, but I find this one rather marvelous indeed. Wow!!!

Beyond its great aesthetic appeal, those elegant "combs amulets", or whatever one might call them, suggest to me a real investment of meaning by the weaver.

James

Hi James

My reaction as well. But another piece of my brain looks at it more analytically and wonders whether the aura that it seems to project had any existence in the weaver's mind. Part of the beauty of the fragment is its austerity and the dominating scale of those mysterious major motifs. But, depending on what the piece was originally, this section may not have even been very prominent.

Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

You might well be right about that. It could have been a minor element on a much larger weaving. Still, the layout and drawing of these elements seem quite studied and create a dynamic visual effect.

James.

Hi Folks,

Is there any chance that one or more of the skinny borders was pieced onto the fragment, giving the false impression of an edge? I agree that with the borders considered original, it is hard to make out what the thing was intact. It certainly feels like Yomud work, or something close. A thing of beauty.

As far as design is concerned, the little comb-like things are certainly the familiar Turkoman amulet/ jewelry devices. The main designs, definitely pineapples. Ergo, the classic Hawaiian/Turkoman marriage.

__________________
Rich Larkin

An emotive beauty

G'day all,

Many thanks to Patrick for presenting to us the scene surrounding celebrations for the 75 years Anniversary. Your photos of New York streets are as evocative and colourful as the rugs we love.

The kilims belonging to the Wolfs are surely well able to conjour the emotion their beauty has expressed in Marilyn Wolfs picture as she stands beside them.

My own pieced together rug, made from the borders of an ancient Heriz contains the outer, central and inner borders, and cut so the corner turns remain, quite different from how the above piece looks.

As Steve indicates of this piece extracted by James, the fine inner barber pole lines seem to delineate a narrow section which is disjointed somehow from what one would expect a major border piece to show. The left hand outer is different to the upper minor outer, and the barber pole small of the left side rises up into and seems to cross over the upper broad section.

It really is difficult to see just where the section would fit within the whole of a big carpet. At first I thought it may be somehow like an elem section of a large carpet, but that thin left barber line going thru up top cancels that out.

The design and colours of it fill me with much pleasure. Those beautiful and graceful major elements appear bursting with life, whether they be floral from bush or vase, insective or crustaceous I cant tell, only that I like them very much.

As an aside, but relative, I was given a copy of Haji Baba when I was a boy, to go with my Burtons interpretation of the Arabian Nights. (Not sure about pre destination, but love for the mystery and art of the region was being developed while very young).

Thanks and regards,
Marty.

Hi People

There is further information on this piece on Barry O'Connell's home page at http://www.spongobongo.com/ Since the content on that page changes often, I'm reproducing an excerpt in addition to the link. I don't think Barry will object, but I will remove this if he prefers that we not post it here.

... Dr. James Blanchard the rug collector from Bangalore India posted praise of a piece catalogued as "Turkmen Fragment, Central Asia, 18th or 19th Century (Harold Keshishian)". ... Harold he told me the rest of the story. In the late 70s Harold was visiting ... New York City. In a 4 foot high pile of fragments Harold found this and two other fragments of a very old very worn Turkmen Main Carpet. ... Harold could not find the other half of his elim. So when he left who should Harold run in to but the great German Rug Scholar and friend Dr. Ulrich Schurmann. ... After seeing Harold's find Schurmann returned to the shop and ... located the other half of the elim which is published in Werner Loges, Turkmen Tribal Rugs, plate 48, 1980.

At a later date ... they had a chance to look at this piece again. Starting early in the morning with a stack of rugs and a fifth of vodka Schurmann began his studies. A few hours into the process Dr. Ulrich Schurmann declared with all possible Teutonic authoritative certainty that these designs were of "worm dangling from the mouth of a bird". Harold has admitted to me that he has never been able to make out either the birds or the worms and he has no intention of imbibing enough vodka to make it possible.

This piece is one piece and the borders as they were in the carpet. It is about half of an elim of a Drynak Gul carpet that was about 8 foot across.

I found this interesting, and I think many others will as well.

Steve Price

Added note: Barry O'Connell contacted me privately, and graciously gave his OK to our posting this excerpt.

Hi Patrick, et al,

Barry O'Connell mentions in the link that another piece of this fragment is published in Werner Loges, Turkoman Tribal Rugs. I have the book, and a scanner as well (just lately); but, unfortunately, I'm chagrined to report that I haven't hooked it up yet. Too intimidating.

Loges places it in the Yomud (Yomut) chapter (Plate 48) and says it is symmetrically knotted (no other structural details). In fact, he bases his attribution on the knotting and coloration. His fragment includes the full width of the main field from guard stripe to guard stripe. It shows six full renderings of the "bird dangling worm while sitting on pineapple" motif with half a one on each end at the top row, and seven full ones along the next row. Thus, Patrick's image would have three more towards the right along the bottom edge.

Loges' example also has just a hint of the remaining border outside the left hand guard stripe, indicating that it is (as one would expect) the same border of repeating stepped diamonds as runs horizontally along the top of Patrick's image. Another lovely feature of Loges' is a preserved horizontal main border along the top edge showing ashiks within white hexagonal lozenges formed by hourglass-like motives separating the ashiks. It is rendered with the same precise elegance of the rest of the piece. Loges also states that the fragment was "allegedly" part of a main carpet of dyrnak guls. One wonders how he came upon that information. In any case, it tends to support the proposition that both fragments are skirts from a main carpet, accounting for the five-spot edge along the bottom of the fragment Patrick posted.

It is hard to beat these really old Turkoman weavings.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi Rich

The writeup on Barry O'Connell's site says that Harold Keshishian and/or Ulrich Schurmann found several fragments of the same carpet in the stack in which they found the two end fragments. It also mentions that the ends came from a Dyrnak gul main carpet, so at least one of the fragments in the pile must have included part of the field. Most likely, Loges got the Dyrnak gul information from Schurmann. He probably knew that the motif was birds with worms dangling from their beaks, too, but failed to include that information.

Regards

Steve Price

Can anybody hear me out there...?!

Hi Steve,

Right! I overlooked the part about the pieces of the field in Barry's report. I will confess that, among various Yomud field motives, I have sometimes found the dyrnak gul slightly boring, relatively speaking. However, under the control of the very capable weaver of this piece, the result would surely be different. If by chance a holder of one of those fragments from the field of this rug is out there, and tuning in, let's see what you've got.

As the late Judge Magruder said, in a different context, "There's no harm in asking."

Re: Can anybody hear me out there...?!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard Larkin
As the late Judge Magruder said, in a different context, "There's no harm in asking."

---

Hi Steve,

nice yarn, but I can't quite see how both pieces should fit in with one another; slight differences suggest that the pieces belong to different carpets. This is the Loges piece:



(1700 kpdm², V56 x H 31, sy, pile clipped short, warps light wool, wefts white cotton and dark strands (of what?)


Horst

Hi Horst,

What are the small differences that seem to make them separate carpets? Have you seen this particular elem elsewhere?

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hello Richard,

(1) the piece from the Harold M. Keshishian collection as figures given by Patrick is 38 x 122 cm, the Loges piece is 44 x 186 cm as stated in the book. Horizontally, the Keshishian piece takes four supposed 'birds sitting on pineapples with worms dangling from their beaks', the Loges piece seven. This gives those motives an average space of 32,1 cm (Keshishian) vs. 26,6 cm (Loges).

(2) those motives occur in four principle colours: white, red, light blue and dark blue. Take the light blue ones: in the Keshishian piece the extremities carry four small rhombes or crosses on either side, in the Loges piece only two.

(3) left and right angles of the pinneaples on the horizontal axis of the Keshishian piece are just below 90°; in the Loges piece they are just below 80°. This may indicate a different V/H ratio of the knotting.

(4) how many elems can the rug have? If you bring both pieces on equal scale, how could they sensibly fit together - let alone that they would have to fit on a l l variables, not just on one or two ?

Perhaps I've learned from my children, they are not much out of puzzle age.

Horst

Hello Steve,

blimey - can you help? Where did my response to Richard go - is it still on the server?

Horst


p.s. o.k. it has come around I just realise - do traffic jams happen in the internet?

Hi Horst

The two elem fragments presumably are from opposite ends of a very large carpet. I think the kind of variation you notice is within the range that occurs in such situations. A carpet that large probably involved several weavers, and the elem woven first may not even have been visible to those weaving the elem at the other end. The fact that the elem design is so unusual and that both fragments were found together along with some fragments of the field also suggests that they are from the same carpet.

The delay in your previous message showing up on your monitor is most likely explained by your browser loading a cached copy of the page rather than the most recent version. Some browsers do this to speed things up.

Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

its not a very large carpet. The Loges fragment runs full width except for its missing borders; this makes it 186 cm plus borders approximately 200 cm wide and 300 cm long by usual ratio, which is pretty standard for a main rug.

The differences are significant; the colour sequences in the longitudional minor border also are different. If all this should occur within a standard size rug, it would be an extreme example. If you look at both fragments as in their own right, each seems precisely enough executed.

I remain doubtful.

Thanks for the explanation on browser technology.

Horst

Hi Horst,

I pretty much spotted your points (1), (2) and (3) [but I didn't calculate the average space...]. My thought was Steve's, that these two were from opposite ends of the same rug. Your comments are interesting, though, and astute.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hello all

I hope this won't set the cat amongst the chicken - but even if it does, everything is more bearable than this 'bird with a worm in its beak on a pineapple' explanation:



Image of an Avar kelim posted by Filiberto some time ago.

What do you make of it?

Horst

Hi Horst,

You don't like pineapple?

Are you suggesting a connection between the motif on the elem and the motif on the Avar kelim? If so, presumably because of the common features of the lateral elements drooping at the ends. I would find the connection tenuous, but if I were to entertain the thought, I would just as readily bring in the familiar "shrub" motif found on many Kurdish rugs.

Perhaps I'm not taking your point.

__________________
Rich Larkin

fragments

In my opinion, fragment 1 is a lively spontaneous sampler made to work out proportioning, etc., problems, to be used in making a rug. That rug ended up, in part, as fragment 2, a Stepfordized, let's face it, version. They probably ended up in the same pile of fragments because the person who owned them both died. Sue

Hi People

The debate about whether the elem fragments (the one in Loges and the one belonging to Keshishian) have enough in common to plausibly be from the same rug finally prompted me to get off my butt and look at some photos of Yomud main carpets. Not many have pile skirts, but here are three that do. I put them on sideways so you can see both ends without scrolling.







The first one is Plate 1 from Wie Blumen ..., the others are Plates 65 and 66 from Turkmen.

I think it's easy to see that the differences between the two fragments are well within the range of variations between the ends of single Yomud main carpets. We don't have first hand reports of why Schurmann and Keshishian thought the fragments came from the same dyrnak gul main carpet, but they're both credible sources with lots of experience and I'd be a little suprised if they reached that conclusion without evidence (even if Schurmann's reading of the motifs was serious, which I doubt). Such evidence might have included similar warp yarns and warp density of the two fragments and of some fragments of the field, some field fragments including small parts of the ends, etc.

My bottom line: I continue to think it likely that the fragments are from the same carpet and I reject the arguments against it that are based on differences in dimensions and spacing of design elements. The notion that one of them is a vagireh of which the other is a poor copy that was made much later is interesting, but without foundation.

Steve Price

Hi Steve

I am a little surprised to see you so determined to smooth over obvious discrepancies. It wouldn't make those fragments any less attractive if they were from two different rugs. Twin rugs or near identical rugs from the same workshop do occur and that both fragments come from the same stack is not conclusive of them belonging to the same rug. The story you were relating is good entertainment, but one has to be aware that sometimes things are added whilst other aspects are left away in order to create a good yarn. Only direct comparison of the fragments could bring about clarity. But perhaps all this is not terribly important.

Richard, although one probably could find more than one historical link between the Avar and the Yomut, this is not what I had in mind. Simply, the image was the best I had at hand to demonstrate that the motifs in the fragment in my opinion are a variant of the widespread bud-and-leaves theme, more precisely, the motif in this case I think, is an emblem of a pommegranate. But I don't mind if somebody imagines a bird sitting on top of it picking out a worm.


Horst

Hi Horst

I agree that direct, in-the-hand comparison of the two fragments would make it much easier to be confident that they are (or are not) fragments of the same carpet. There are two people who reportedly did that comparison, Keshishian and Schurmann. I know Harold well enough to find it plausible that he embellished his account of the history to add entertainment value, but I don't think he fabricated the basics of the events. To make a long story short, if Harold says that he and Schurmann each handled and examined the pieces and both concluded that they are from the same carpet, I believe him and think it likely that both are from the same carpet.

If you are arguing that they can't both be fragments of the same elem, I agree. But the differences you note seem much less extreme than those between opposite elems on any of the first three Yomud main carpets I found that had pile elems. Indeed, if someone found elem fragments from both ends of any one of them there would be little design-based reason to think that they were fragments of the same carpet unless physical examination showed the same structural details.

Regards

Steve Price

I don't drink but have noticed sometimes, in those who do, that the bottle can get between what is said and what is meant.
My preferred guess is that Dr.Shurmann's comment wasn't really about the motif, but burst forth due to a left unstated realization, after spending more time with Mr. Keshishian's superior fragment, of the type I have stated, but his bottle got in the way.
I prefer to think Dr. Shurmann was consequently struck, simultaneously, by two blows -- remembering the old saying ''The early bird catches the worm'' and remembering who got to the rug store first. Sue

Hi all,

I agree with Steve on this. Apart from the entertaining aspects of the Schurmann story, there would be no point in fudging the common source issue regarding the two fragments. Harold Keshishian collaborating with Ulrich Schurmann on the scene is about as authoritative as it is apt to get in making the judgment. I don't find the distinctions pointed out by Horst to be convincing to the contrary.

The wagireh idea seems very far-fetched to me. A more plausible concept, if one were to go with Horst's side of the matter, would be that the original owner of the collection of fragments picked up the extra elem fragment (originally from a different rug) just for its similarity; and from there, they stayed together, all the way to the New York dealer.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi Anyone

Wondering whether the first three pile-elem Yomud rugs I ran into on my bookshelf were anomalous, I looked for more in Carpets from Franconia and From the Black Desert ... and found another half dozen or so. Elems with very different designs are not the exception, but the rule. I'm almost (but not quite) tempted to agree that these two fragments are probably from different carpets. Not because of their differences, but because they are so similar.



Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

that last statement is hilarious and great rhetoric. I notice a potential for story telling.

Horst

Incidentally, Horst, I wondered where you got the structural data on the fragment in the Loges book. I had forgotten that it is in the tables at the back. That is a nice book, and one of the more underrated ones on the Turkoman subject, in my opinion.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Also nicely phrased, Sue. I am not sure I would put one of the fragments ahead of the other. Both seem exquisite. The image of the Loges piece I posted is not doing it justice - a camera shot only, not a direct scan.

Richard, I got the Loges book antiquarian a few years ago and am glad I have it, looks good, feels good, superb plates and structural data to all of them. This may interest the others who do not have the book: Loges speaks of an hitherto unknown ornament (with regard to the fragment) and its perfect execution. This actually is what set me off, both pieces looking perfect in their own right and apparently slightly different in aspects.

Bye for now,

Horst

I am having a really hard time taking in that people honestly believe the same hands wove both of these fragments. As an artist, it scares me. I can only hope I don't get nightmares from it. I'm serious. Sue

Hi Sue

Both ends of a main carpet can be the work of different weavers. In fact, the right and left sides may be the work of different weavers.

I hope this helps relieve your terror. Sleep well.

Steve Price

I was aware of that, Steve. But thanks anyway. Sue

Hi all,

Although I agree with Steve that we should not be quick to dismiss the views of experienced folks that have handled the rugs, when I look at these two fragments they appear to have very different drawing. Below I have juxtaposed the two trying to keep the size ratio about the same. If we assume that the original pictures did not have much vertical or horizontal proportion, then this comparison shows some considerable differences in the scale, spacing and vertical compression of the main design elements, not to mention the minor borders. If you just showed me these two pictures I would conclude that they likely come from the same weaving group, but from different weavers, and quite possibly from a different generation. But that is only based on my rather uneducated viewpoint.

Regardless, I would prefer to own the top fragment, despite its smaller size. Do others have a preference?

James.

P.S. Although I am reluctant to comment on colours based on digital images, my impression is that the fragments were not only produced by different weavers, but based solely on colours it appears that they were using different lots of dyed wool.

Hi James

The colors on the two images aren't just digital images, they're digital images made different ways. The first one (Keshishian's) is almost certainly a JPG reduced from a high resolution photograph taken in a studio by a professional photographer (Don Tuttle) who specializes in doing rug photos for publication. The other image is a photo (not a scan) of a page in a book.

Referring back to the three Yomud main carpets I posted earlier in this thread, do you see these two fragments as differing from each other more drastically than the two ends of any of those? I don't, but I wonder whether I'm just not seeing things that are obvious to others.

Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

The short answer is "I don't know". For one thing, I can't see those images as clearly so it is more difficult to make a direct comparison of the drawing. Moreover, in at least one of the examples the elems have an entirely different design, so it is comparing apples to oranges.

Having said that, I suppose that one possible explanation for altered drawing in opposite elems is purely practical. If one is running out of loom it might encourage some compression of the design. But that is pure conjecture. Whatever the case might be, if these two fragments do come from the same carpet, then I would have to confirm myself as a skeptic of those who say that they can date Turkmen weaving based on the design/drawing degeneration.

Regarding the colours, there doesn't appear to be anything in the second fragment that is a counterpart for the "green-blue" seen in the lower row of the main motifs of the first one. But you are right that this is a thin reed considering the vagaries of digital reproduction of pictures.

James.

Hi James,

It's a small point, but look at the abrashed red in the lower part of the bottom left hand device in the lower photo. It seems much like the mid red in the upper photo, belying the otherwise apparent variation in dye lots for the two pieces.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi All

Sue, avert your eyes. Looking at this post could be dangerous to you.

James, here are the ends of two Yomud main carpets, Plates 33 and 34 in From the Black Desert .... The motifs in both ends of Plate 33 are nominally the same, likewise for both ends of Plate 34.









Using the same criteria being applied to the two fragments, and ignoring the fact that we already know that each pair is from a single carpet, are the upper and lower elems of Plate 33 within the range you'd expect for a single Yomud carpet? Same question for the upper and lower elems of Plate 34.

Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

You are the man! I think maybe even the bottom border and elem elements of the lower pair are more squashed than the upper. Right? Maybe I'm only wishing it.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi Steve,

I certainly agree that the two sets of elem panels do differ in some of the same ways as the discussion fragments. In particular, the differences in the spacing and the vertical compression are quite apparent in both sets.

Could anyone comment on whether there is a consistent pattern whereby one end (i.e. "bottom" or "top") tends to have a more compressed design?

James.

Hi James and Rich

My impression from the photos I've looked at is that not only the elem, but the border and field elements are often more compressed at one end than at the other. If both fragments are from the same carpet, the same was probably true of it.

It's supposedly customary for photos of rugs in books to be presented with the end woven first at the bottom. The two carpet ends in my last post are in the orientation they had in From the Black Desert .... Vincent Keers gave a lot of thought to the matter, and a search of our archive will probably turn up some of his writing about it. I'll try to find time to look for it later today.

Regards

Steve Price

Hello everyone,

towards the end of a rug still on the loom, additional wefts need beating down against the spring of the material already there. This might result in a somewhat lower knot density and accentuation of shapes along the vertical axis.

After James' post I checked the Keshishian fragment here and on the exhibition website with the printed plate in the Loges book under varying light conditions and on two good monitors; under all conditions and combinations the Keshishian sample is recognizably more purplish. Deviation of size, shape, spacing, colour, number of weft shoots etc. is well know and this seems to occur frequently on Kurdish produce, less on Turkmen. The significance here rests in the observation that those deviations occur on most variables simultanously - this is somewhat atypical

Steve, nothing in the story you relate is actually indicating that Schürmann and Keshishian ever looked at both fragments laying side-by-side on the same table or floor or whatever.

Horst

Hi Horst

One small correction. You wrote, in comparing the colors of the two fragments,
under all conditions and combinations the Keshishian sample is recognizably more purplish.
You didn't have anything to compare except the digital image of Keshishian's and a printed plate made from a photo of the other fragment. Color changes could have arisen in the photography or in the printing, probably in both. And color differences between elems of the same rug aren't impossible, either. In this example, Plate 1 from Wie Blumen ..., there is even an obvious color change within one of the elems.



Regarding the simultaneous variation of a number of factors at opposite ends of the same rug, that is pretty unusual in most Turkmen genres. It seems to be common, though, for Yomud main carpets with pile elems. My rough survey of published examples puts it at more than 50%, with many instances in which the elems differ much more than these two fragments do.

You are correct, the story related on Barry O'Connell's site doesn't actually say that Schurmann and Keshishian put the two pieces side by side and examined them under those conditions. What we actually have is hearsay evidence (Barry O'Connell's account) that Keshishian said that he and Schurmann agreed that the two elem fragments that he says they found in the same pile of fragments were from the same dyrnak gul Yomud main carpet. Hearsay is not recognized as evidence in a court of law in the USA. In an open discussion like this one, we are each free to assign such weight to it as we think appropriate. Obviously, you and I disagree on how much weight to give it, but I doubt that this will seriously impact the future of civilization.

Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

"... but I doubt that this will seriously impact the future of civilization."

That's good news!

Horst

Comparison

G'day all,

In reply to James asking of our preference then the first image would get my vote hands down.

When it was first presented the image struck me as a superior piece - the completeness of its whole, the guls, borders and even colour appear just right and is just so much better compared to the second piece which is drawn finer and with less perfection and pizzaz and containing poorer contrast in the inner portions of the guls compared to the better weighted guls of the first one, even if the colours are digitally different by transmission method.

Regardless of the manner in which the two pictures are presented to us, the distinct differences between them are sufficient for me choose as James has.

Personally, they dont seem to be from the same carpet.

Regards,
Marty.

quote:

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Originally posted by Horst Nitz
Hi Steve,

"... but I doubt that this will seriously impact the future of civilization."

That's good news!

Horst

---

Hi All

It occurred to me while reading this thread over that it doesn't include images of the two fragments displayed in sizes proportion to their actual sizes (48" x 15" for the Keshishian fragment; 73" x 17" for the one in Loges). Here, as a public service, are images of the two fragments adjusted to the same scale to make comparison easier.





Regards

Steve Price

Added note: Personally, I find the border on the Loges fragment distracting. Here it is with the border cropped off

Pondering -

Hmmm. Not so sure now.

Marty.

Well anyway, on the ''glass half full'' side of this exercises of comparatives, as we approach it sans the net of structural analysis, it illuminates quite well the problems early nonweaving researchers were confronted with before they discovered that structural analysis was crucial to learn. That's something.

I think it's easily understandable why they would prefer to keep the intricacies such treasure map info to themselves. I understand it. However, if I might ask, what do you think the chances are that nobody knows whether or not King Cotton resides in fragment 1? I can't be the only one who recognizes the importance of that. Can I? Sue

Hi Sue

The fact that nobody has published structural information about Keshishian's fragment doesn't mean that nobody's looked at it.

When you have a point to make, why present it as a riddle? Nobody should have to figure out why you think the presence of cotton in the Keshishian fragment would be significant. It's easy to just say it outright: Loges' fragment has cotton wefts, if the Keshishian fragment came off the same carpet, it should have cotton wefts, too. If it doesn't, it's probably not a piece of the same carpet.

Steve Price

Per Steve's request--Does anybody know if there is cotton in fragment 1? Sue

Does anyone know if there is Angora mohair in the pile knots of these fragments?