As usual, I'm distracted a little by language.

After reading the instances Yon proposes, it seems to me that we are not usually talking about some species of "internal elem" but rather a broader category of things that might be entitled "Design Irregularities: What Do We Know About Why They Occur?

And I have two thoughts, neither of them proofs of anything regarding this question.

The first is something I've said before. There was a time when I was a fairly serious maker of macrame knots. In that craft, the notion that one must provide for error deliberately to prevent the more likely occurence of a perfect piece is laughable. Mistakes will occur and they don't need to be provided for. I suspect the weaver is in a similar position.

Jon Thompson gave a lecture at the Metropolitan showing that the actual knotting on the Ardebil carpets, pretty certainly woven in reference to a knot by knot carton, has variations from the cartoon everywhere in it.

It may be that weavers sometimes ritualistically insert erroneous knots in pieces to comply with the dictum that there must be inperfections but if they did it is a species of ritual not a necessity. (I have an Ersari torba with eight pink silk knots widely placed in four locations and almost invisible. Irregularities? Yes. Mistakes? Evil eye distractions? I don't know.) Mistakes will happen without planning in a craft project such as any oriental rug.

And, of course, the true accidents are going to puzzle us most of all, since they likely follow no steady pattern. In this sense Yon's indication that irregularities of various sorts appear to happen in a given area of the weavings he examined is the most hopeful indication I see of his thesis.

Regards,

R. John Howe

I was always fascinated by the irregularities in oriental weavings, but I am really intrigued by the ones I’m going to show here.

These are close up of my Kazak - a rug I already posted on Show and Tell a few months ago.

The first picture of the lower left corner, speaks by itself:

The second picture shows a row of green knots (cm. 4.5) on the red main field.

The third shows a variety of other irregularities:

- “invasion” of green on the blue border (arrow1)

- line of black knots with one red in the middle (arrow2)

- line of red of different tone (arrow 3)

- red and white isolated knots on the blue field (arrow4)

Those irregularities are not errors, they made on purpose - this is the only possible explanation. But why?

My feeling is that “to satisfy the adage that only Allah is perfect” is one good possibility.

Another good one is for protection against the Evil Eye.

If this is the case the weaver of my rug was, indeed, a VERY superstitious one.

Regards,

Filiberto Boncompagni

You wrote, ...the weaver of my rug was, indeed, a VERY superstitious one.

I think every weaver of every rug was very supersititious. So is everyone who isn't a weaver. Even you and me (well, maybe not me). It's just that our superstitions are different than those of the weaver, so we think hers are odd and ours are reasonable.

Regards,

Steve Price

You wrote:
I think every weaver of every rug was very "supersititious."
Is this a deliberate mistake? An Internal Elem?

Regards,
Filiberto

I don't think "supersititious" is a verbal internal elem. The extra "i" is right in the middle of the word, not near the end.

And shame on me for not using the nifty Spell Check utility in our new software!

Steve Price