Posted by James Allen on November 22, 1998 at 16:02:26:
It is simply a fact that we have a very poor idea of the day to day utilitarian products of the Turkoman loom. When the Russian's destroyed their cultural milleu in the 1880's the only things that were collected were their prime dowry weavings. There were a large number of them that all entered the worlds' markets en mass. These fabulous piled objects were the proud heirlooms of a nomadic nation and included the masterpieces of generations gone by. We have thus become accustomed to thinking that the rare and wonderful was the common place. This wonderful flatweave is much like a fine mat I just sold on Ebay to a ,what else, Canadian collector. This mat Wendel is showing looks for all the world like any number of Navajo weavings I have seen and in fact the Navajo are from the same genetic stock as the Turkoman. These things were never valued highly and are already very rare and will be more and more valuable as time goes on to those who want to know what nomadic weaving was really like on a day by day basis.