1 The effect that your assertions here will have on the respectability you enjoy (?) among rug collectors is about as much as the Fed lowering interest rates has had on the economy .

2 You should see an Allergy specialist about your Epistemology problem.

3 Arguing that structure is not as important as (or is based upon) the layout, motifs and palette is like removing one leg from a four legged table. One can probably determine the attribution of a rug with any 3 of these features. Just as not knowing any one of these features could stymie the correct attribution. That is why all of them have become so important in identification accuracy. This would mean that each is as important as the others.

I suppose you could produce a game show on TV called "Name That Rug". The contestant who could "Name That Rug" using the fewest of one, two, three or four of these features of the rug would win!

All of these features carry differing amounts of "weight" depending upon the rug. A Jaff Kurd bagface could be identified from the back using the structural feature of offset knotting, even if the piece of weaving that one was allowed to see was black-and-white and the design was not obvious. Some rugs can be identified just by the colors, others can be identified by the layout and others by the motifs alone. When one feature is not enough, another of these features can be used. The amount of "weight" each feature has in identifying a rug is different for each rug or type. The greater emphasis you are placing on the Layout, Motifs and Palette is due to the simple fact that, when viewing a rug, these features are the most obvious from "a few feet away".

It could be suggested that identifying a rug is like focusing on it with a telescope. The first thing visible from a distance is the layout. Getting closer one can see the palette. I once made out an Afghan main carpet from a block away that was hanging over a balcony for airing out. Closer still, one can make out the motifs. Closer still, one can see the structure. We will probably be using an even closer approach than this in "the future" using techniques not available (or cost effective) today. Your great granddaughter will be hosting the Salon entitled "Epistemology based upon Scanning-Tunneling Microscopy" using the ubiquitous hand-held laser powered Multi-Meter!

Anxiously yours,

Patrick Weiler

I have no quarrel with the assertion that we use everything we can when we make attributions. We do.

The issue I raised is the origin of certain criteria - those related to structure and weave - and what implications that might have when we are faced with contradictory information.
Fortunately, most of the time the various criteria we apply lead to the same result, so we don't have to worry about which one to lean on most heavily.

Regards,

Steve Price

I hate it when you are right!
The origin of using the structural characteristics of a rug as an attribution factor absolutely derived from the more obvious features of a rug. Only a blind man would use structure first to determine the origin of a rug.
Structural characteristics have only recently been more widely used as determining factors in weavings that are superficially similar (the Turkmen problem) and since there have been books written showing how to distinguish them. (i.e. Woven Structures by Marla Mallett, etc)
The differentiation and better categorization and classification of rugs is an ongoing process that seems to advance in fits and starts. It is a process that adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of collecting and looking at rugs and weavings. The occaisional debunking of a favored theory, the public humiliation of respected figures, the ostracization of incompetents; it all adds up to a most fascinating soap opera being played out amongst us.
And you, Steve "Don Pardo" Price, are the moderator!

Patrick Weiler

And be honest, folks, how many of you can watch a movie without hitting the pause button to check out the rugs in the spooky mansion? (I'm sure none of our esteemed contributors would have had a similar experience while viewing a porn flick. Yup, they'd think, finally a good use for a Pakistani Bokhara.)

Cordially,

-Jerry-

Open left, open right.
I'm right handed. While restoring a rug I have to look at the direction of the pile, in order to get my right hand above the rug and my left hand under the rug. But after five/six hours, my backs starts to protest. So next day I'll be at the other side off the table, so my left hand will be above etc.
When knotting a rug, think the same body-problems can dedide if a rug is open to the left, or to the right. But because this is a very simple explanation, it will be disregarded by the authorities.
Only, when we think lefthanded rugs are more beautifull and therefore more unique and more expensive, authorities will investigate this.
Did you ever see anyone adressing this question? Why....open left......open right?

Why warp depression? Symmetric knots open left, open right depends on the warp depression direction when in front off the loom. Symmetric no warp depression, pile is pulled down. If I was knotting rugs, I'm sure I would like to change my working conditions now and then. The only tools I have are my musles, so I take good care of them.

So, I think this open left, open right, warp despression etc. is a more labour quality related item, and has no boundries.
Only when the Turkman, Caucasian Mr. "Ford" came around, it became a feature by coincidence.

Best regards,
Vincent

Your observation is a very interesting one, and may very well account for the existence of more than one variety of knot in the same rug.

However, it doesn't seem to to get us very far into the issue of why, for instance, most Yomud and Saryk stuff is symmetrically knotted, most Ersari, Tekke and Chodor is asymmetric open right, most Salor is asymmetric open left, nearly all Turkish and Caucasian products are symmetric knotted, etc. I get the impression from your post that you think otherwise. If so, would you expand on the subject, please?

Regards,

Steve Price

It's the word "some"
"Some" tends to create a new standard for 20%? Can there be a standard for 20% out of 100%?
If 50% out of this 20% is the work of people like me....where's the standard?
Think it's more easy for a worker, artist to slightly change the production method, (gaining muslepower), in a certain enviorment then the design. Changing the design will set her apart from the mainstream. I sure wouldn't do that in a hostile male enviorment.
Open right or open left, doesn't gain Oooh..! and Aaah...! from the audience, so what is there to gain? Girlpower!

Best regards,
Vincent

Your observation that the construction of a rug was not an issue until Western researchers made it one does show how ethnocentric we Westerners are. The weavers merely wove rugs the way they had been taught. There were obviously experimenters, as Marla Mallett has suggested, ("We should not be surprised to find unusual pile constructions occasionally. Weavers experiment." Woven Structures, p40)
For the most part weavers made rugs the same way every time. It is a habitual thing. The women spun the wool on their spindles while performing other tasks. They wove the designs passed down to them from their foremothers. Women used weaving as a social event, comparing, chatting and supporting each other within their culture.

It has only been recently that structural differences have been used to separate the various weaves. Some of the tribal attributions applied to different weave structures within a body of weavings with otherwise similar visual characteristics may not be accurate. We may likely never know for sure who wove some of these variations on a theme. Our Western nomenclature is even often not used within the actual weaving culture. I would liken it to Americans referring to people living in Germany as Germans, but the Germans call themselves Deutsch. If there were no Germans left to explain their language, we would be left to speculate wildly about their verbal predilections.

Speculatively yours,

Patrick Weiler

Thanks for joining me in my speculation.
Steve asked me to explain symmetric and a-symmetric religions. I can not. Religion can not be explained. That's what religion is all about.
Explaining open-right and open-left knots however, is a subject of discussion now and then, and maybe it can be explained. The subject raised my attention from the moment my daughter wanted to help me restore a rug. She was 8 years old and....left handed. I'm right handed. This caused her some problems in copying my movements.
If the knotting of rugs is transferd from mother to daughter and so on, It doesn't surprise me at all that most rugs are open-right and some are open-left. Some are left handed.

They (the world) call me Dutch and I'm from The Netherlands! I'm a Lowlander, a Neanderthaler, low forehead, big ears and all. So the world around me, needs to be explained in a very basic way or I will be lost.

The speculation about different clans, using different knot direction is obscure and can't be tested. Left/right handed can be tested.
Is it the whole truth? Until someone else comes up with a better experiment.......

Best regards,
Vincent

I didn't ask you to explain the origin of different knot types, and I don't see their uses as religious practices. You offered an explanation spontaneously - back fatigue when working with one type leads you to change what you do every few days. I said I thought that might account for the presence of more than one kind of knot on the same rug, but I didn't understand how that contributed to understanding why one big piece of the weaving world uses symmetric knots almost exclusively, another region (or tribe) uses asymmetric left almost exclusively, another uses asymmetric right almost exclusively.

Your last post suggests, that right and left handedness may explain the use of asymmetric knots opening to one side or the other. That's plausible, and if someone knew that Salor and Tekke Turkmen differed in handedness it would support this line of speculation.

Neolithically yours,

Steve Price

Religion? Tell a symmetriholic you like a-symmetric better. You'll experience religion. People used to burn each other for thinking different. (I'aint the only Neaderthaler on this planet)

"Lefthanded Salor". That's not what I said. Turkmen girl's are left- and righthanded. Did the open left version lead to Salor? Or did the design lead to Salor? Consequently we will find Salor open to the right if nature has it's natural course. Most Salor are open to the left? Can be the case, but this doesn't imply a Salor to the right is from a different tribe, clan.

Looks as if design is the dominant factor, does it not?

I'm getting back in my cave now,
because in dreamland...............

Best regards,
Vincent

Have you done an in depth study of those Pornographic Pakistanis for open-left or open-right?

Vincent's muscle pains come from trying to repair a rug, not make one. Would it not be easier to repeat the same knot weaving process that you were taught, rather than change it for ease of weaving? I think most rugs with different types of knots are asymmetrically woven with symmetric knots at the edges. Open left just means that the weaver enclosed the warp on the right with the yarn, leaving the warp on the left "open", or not encircled. Is it any more difficult to loop the pile yarn over the left warp of a pair than the right warp of a pair if you are left handed? I suspect the handedness of the knot is unrelated to the handedness of the weaver. We may never know why one group used open left instead of open right. It is one of the mysteries of the universe. As Steve has suggested in his essay, the structural differences are descriptive rather than attributive.

Mysteriously,

Patrick Weiler