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Daniel, You have constructed a
masterful salon. It is filled with curiosities and leads to
numerous questions. One question I have is: Why are there so
many selvage wefts interlaced with the ground wefts? Often, as
has been noted by Marla Mallett in Woven Structures, page 46,
weavers with warp tension problems add "extra" wefts to
correct a rug that is starting to become uneven. These wefts,
however, are in addition to the ground wefts. It appears that
in your rug the selvage wefts only replace the ground wefts
which otherwise would extend all the way to the selvage. Some
rugs, and so far I have noted this in Anatolian rugs, use
wefts the same color as, or a similar color to, the field pile
in certain areas. This has been found in prayer rugs where the
mihrab will have a different weft color than the rest of the
field. I suppose that the weaver knew that, in time, the pile
would become low and the weft color would show through. This
does not seem to be the case here, as the border has a more
brown appearance rather than the blue of the selvage wefts.
These wefts are also often inserted to strengthen the selvage
attachment, as in Talish rugs, but here, too, the insertion of
the selvage wefts seems to have been deliberate and without
structural motives. As you have noted, another rug of similar
design (LeFevre) also uses this odd and time consuming
curiosity. Another interesting feature is the offset knotting,
which is found in as widely separated areas as Western
Anatolia and as far east as China. If both unusual techniques
used in this rug, the offset knotting and the selvage wefts,
could be found elsewhere, a convincing explanation may be
possible for the reasons this rug was made this way. As you
have pointed out, many of the design characteristics of this
rug derive from the flatwoven origins of these designs.
Perhaps the case could be made that these rugs were made by
women who traditionally wove flatweaves for personal use and
wove pile carpets for commercial sale. Patrick
Weiler
