| Dear All: In Daniel's Salon, he describes his ivory ground "memling"
gul rug as follows: "The hooked memling guls and the secondary guls are
arrayed very much in the classical Turkmen manner. This design, which
followed the great 12th and 13th century Turkmen Oghuz migrations,
appeared in early Anatolian and westerly into the Caucasian Kazak and
Moghan areas in the 17th and 18th centuries." Steve Price commented in the
context of a thread concerning evolutionary issues that: "we probably
agree that a textile with a field consisting of rows and columns of a gul,
or alternating rows and columns of guls, is almost surely Turkmen. Since
it appears in just about every subgroup, we can infer that it predates the
separation of the major tribes." Having chewed on these comments has
caused to wonder just what is being observed as the almost surely Turkmen
or classical Turkmen manner? Is not the design arrangement being described
specifically by Daniel and generally by Steve simply, at its core, a basic
unit of design (the stepped polygon being the specific design unit in this
particular case) repeated throughout the field and given emphasis either
through the use of color juxtaposition creating a positive and negative
design unit or by the insertion of a minor or secondary sub-ornament in
the alternating row? I raise this issue because Christoph Huber has made
the point that in terms of ornaments, it is hard to say which roots of
ornaments are Turkic and which are Iranian or Persian in part because
virtually all carpets we know were made after the arrival of the Turks in
Western Asia. It seems to me that the same is true regarding the array,
arrangement or field orientation of the ornament. Over the past few months
several Salons have discussed the antiquity of weaving, weaving processes
and some of the archeological record of weaving. For example, Christoph
presented his findings from an examination of Bactria-Margiana
Archeological Complex (BMAC). We have also revisited Robert Pinner's
comparison in Hali 5/2 of certain Yomud asmalyks with ashik designs found
on Namaza III pottery (remember pottery probably pre-dating weaving as we
know it). Similar forms to those we have been discussing such as serrated
medallion forms, stepped polygons and others can be found in other areas
including Anatolia and Iran that predate the Turkic migrations by
thousands of years. Marla Mallett for her part has reminded us at least
some knotted pile imagery or ornamentation probably has its roots in
slit-tapestry, brocading and warp pattern weaves and that the weaving
processes dictate the ultimate expression and constrain the ideational
content of a weaving and that many of the forms we see as ornaments in
carpets are simply basic to human expression. I would add that some of
these forms may even pre-date weaving and have their origins in basketry,
pottery and the utiliarian use rigid fibers before wool was of a type that
could be woven. Bob Emry has put it another way in questioning the
relationship in the coptic connection thread by observing that these
shapes therein identified are so general and ubiquitous as to cast doubt
on any significance to their similarity. Although "memling guls" are not
common on Turkmen main carpets, they do appear on bags woven by virtually
every subgroup. Following Steve's theory, the appearance of memling guls
on the bags of these subgroups allows us to infer that its use as an
ornament predates the separation of the major tribes. I would take it
further and suggest that the ornaments and the array or arrangement of
those ornaments we are observing is not so much Turkic or Iranian as they
are weaving or even pre-weaving solutions. In this sense, I am not at all
certain that it can be said that a particular ornament or an array oor
arrangement of ornamentation can described as almost surely or classically
Turkmen. Put another way, paraphrasing the actor Leslie Nielsen: I'm not
Turkmen and don't call me Surely. Thank you, Michael
Wendorf |