Posted by Wendel Swan on August 11, 1999 at 13:48:29:
In Reply to: Re: rug 3 posted by Michael Wendorf on August 11, 1999 at 13:13:15:
Dear Michael,
I did not mean to suggest that the Kagizmans are "versions" of the Karachovs, as if they had been copied from Karachovs. I should have been clearer to say that the Kagizmans are one version of the 2-1-2 and the Karachovs are another.
You and I have both said that the two types are distinct and consistent. However they may have separated on the evolutionary chain, their common Holbein 2-1-2 heritage is evident.
For that reason, I don't see interpret any part of the Kagizman design to landscape features.
We'll probably never know why the Kagizmans and the Karachovs so resemble one another in the fields and yet differ so significantly in other ways. I have always seen the Karachovs as simply another design in the Kustar repertoire, however stunning and attractive they may be.
The much rarer Kagizman version of the 2-1-2 may well have been adapted as a result of the commercial explosion, but that is not to say that they were woven for commercial purposes.
There are other examples of the adaptation of designs by different groups that parallel what may have happened with Kagizmans and Karachovs. The Lesghi star is found in Caucasian rugs and Shahsavan sumak bags (plus in a few Turkish rugs) but not elsewhere. The cruciform medallion is also found in Shahsavan sumak bags and in some Turkish pile rugs, but not elsewhere.
All of these are within the broad Turkic tradition that traces back to the Holbein carpets and beyond, but each pairing seems to have surfaced almost simultaneously and yet with very distinctive characteristics.
Wendel