Posted by Tom Cole on June 28, 1999 at 19:25:35:
In Reply to: Re: Why the difference? posted by Wendel Swan on June 28, 1999 at 17:42:10:
: Yon,
: The simple answer is that we still don't really know how to date tribal rugs very well and our means for doing so are limited. Virtually all of the standards to which you refer in the introduction to the Salon for the dating of rugs are inapplicable to tribal weavings. There is little evidence to corroborate the optimism and speculation that drives most of the time lines.
: While there may have been a few advocates to the contrary, the concept of pre-1700 Turkmen rugs was virtually unheard of just a few years ago. Even if one accepts the C-14 results, applying those results successfully to the dates of other Turkmen rugs doesn't seem to work yet.
: And if the long-collected, much-discussed, much-analyzed abundant Turkmen rugs remain difficult to date, what can we say about the lesser-known tribal weavings?
: Who among us can identify, with a reasonable degree of certainty, a pre-1850 Afshar, Bakhtiyari, Shahsavan, Belouch or Kurdish rug? Michael Wendorf may be able to speak to some documentation on such a Belouch that Jeff Boucher once owned, but hard evidence is generally lacking.
: Not only are we probably ignorant of when many tribal weavings were made, the older they are the less likely we are to know who wove them. Only when relatively large numbers of any particular design and type of rug are woven came we affix a label and tentative dates to them.
: I have a particular interest in Northwest Persian weavings, Shahsavan in particular. But I see a lot of interesting, good material that I can't identify from that region. I've adopted Harold Keshishian's approach: just call it NWP.
: I recently bought a Greek flokati for my daughter. I know when it was made because its label tells me, just like beer.
: Regards,
: Wendel
Wendel- While my own area of expertise does not extend to the Shahsevan and Baktiari, I believe I am in a position to identify a pre-1850 rug from the Afshar and Baluch groups. Regarding the Taimuri rug fragment pictured in HALI 97, Baluch Style, I believe that fragment is pre-1850. I have also seen a couple Afshar weavings I have no hesitation to date to pre-1850. Just looking at a picture of the pieces does not convey all the information necessary. Touching it, examining it closely and living with it for some time while comparing it to other examples of similar types will assist in this mundane process of assigning a date. As I have stated on cloudband, it is a MULTI-FACTORIAL process by which these rugs can be tentatively considered to be earlier than most of what we see.