Two questions relating to Turkmen customs that might produce red-tinged wool:

(1) Did any or all of the Tekke, Yomut, Ersari, Salor, Saryk, Chodor, Kizilayak, Arabaci and any others I might have missed regularly mark their sheep with red dye for identification or ceremonial purposes?

(I know that in the wilds of Anatolia one would see sheep with red identification marks on them. At Kurban Bayrami --The Sacrifice Eid-- the bodies of the sacrificial sheep were often decorated with elaborate red patterns. I don’t know how permanent that dye was, but it looked as though it would permanently tinge the wool in the event that the wool was ever used.)

(2) Was there any merit attached to using wool from sheep intended for or used in a holy sacrifice? In other words, would a reddish tinge add special merit -- lost to us now -- to a piece? Could what we see as an accident actually be an intended result for talismanic purposes?

(In parts of the Middle East, red, as the symbol of life, attracts good luck, just as blue channels the evil eye away from the owner of an object. Hence all the red and coral stones that one finds along with the blue nazarliks.)

Best regards, Ken Thompson

Not only in the wilds of Anatolia but in Istanbul in the city center you can see the sheep and rams that are for sale to be sacrificed, but I think the real problem with the dye runs on any rug (whether it is Turkman or Persian ) is the aniline dyes and or natural dyes not being fixed properly. Every Turkmen rug is not woven by a master weaver just because it is old, and
every Turkmen rug is not dyed by master dyer.

Sincerely,

Mesut Ulusoy

p.s. Maybe the dyers were experimenting with the newly introduced aniline dyes and mixing them with natural dyes!?!

I think it's fairly common for people who do dye analysis of old Turkmen rugs to find that some reds are natural, some are synthetic, and some are a mixture of natural and synthetic, and any combination of these can be found on the same rug.

Steve Price