| Dear Daniel: Your Salon depicts several carpets with versions of a
"four C" or "four naldaq" motif. You write: "This motif is common to
Caucasian and Anatolian rugs. Its origin maybe Turkmen." First, perhaps
you mean to say its origin may be "Turkic" rather than "Turkmen?" More
importantly, I do not know what the basis for this motif having a Turkic
or Turkmen origin would be. It seems very generally Islamic, but may have
roots that predate Islam and almost certainly the Turkic period making an
attribution to Turks or Turkmen (as opposed to, for example, Iranian or
other origins) difficult and perhaps beside the point. Your Salon also
makes reference to plate 23 in Burns' Tradition in Weaving. The Shirvan
carpet there depicted has the four C motif in boxes within the field. You
quote Burns who says this motif when enclosed in boxes only appears in old
carpets and ask whether anyone else has made the same observation. Jim
Burns is a very astute observer and I cannot recall seeing the motif in
later production, but I do not really draw any conclusions from this. I
find it unlikely that the four C motif had any origins placed in a box. It
seems more likely that such a motif is more likely to have origins more on
a diagonal orientation. I have not looked but we could probably find
related devices in very old textiles from a variety of areas. I do wish to
add that im my experience this four C or four naldaq motif seems to occur
more frequently in borders and in several styles. Among these styles is a
Kurdish version. An example of this type is found in Hali 62, April 1992,
on page 61. This carpet, which was exhibited last year by the Near Eastern
Art Research Center exhibit on Traditional Kurdish Rugs, probably dates to
the mid-19th century and was identified by William Eagleton as an east
Anatolian Kurdish tribal rug as opposed to east Anatolian Yuruks. The
distinction is an important one. The Yuruk, a Turkish people, are now
located in central and western Anatolia and apparently entered Anatolia
with the Turkmen tribes. The Kurds have lived in western Iran, eastern
Anatolia and northeastern Iraq since antiquity according to Eagleton and
others. The Yuruk speak Turkish while the Kurds speak a one of several
Kurdish languages, which are Iranian in origin. You will observe that the
Kurdsih style of this motif is to enclose the four Cs in a diagonal
element woven using offset knotting. Perhaps some can scan an image of
this rug from their Hali or transfer it from the NEARC exhibit web page?
Daniel, thank you for the provocative Salon, I have been challenged and
learned a great deal over the last two weeks. Best,
Michael |