These terms are often used to describe the specific nature of motives
in weaves that apparently do not try to image objects from nature, like
animals, plants, humans etc. We have contradicted the use of these terms at the
above mentioned workshop of the Freundeskreis orientalischer Teppiche und
Textilien in 1991, lining out an alternative explanation opposite to what the
"neolithic theory " of Balpinar/Hirsch/Mellaart (1) claimed.
The
earliest but completely "mature" motives of this "geometric" type appeared as
early as 5500 B.C. on ceramics in the neolithic strata of Anatolia. Whether
they evolved there or elsewhere is not known. In order to claim that these are
"abstract" one would need to find missing links that witness a transition from
the cultures of hunters and gatherers to the neolithic agriculturalists. Such
objects do not exist. Hunter and gatherer cultures displayed admirable cave
paintings of extreme age but did not release at any place in the world
transitional artifacts that could be a kind of bridge to these "geometric"
neolithic motives.
In case the "geometric" material is there
first it cannot be that it is a result of any "abstracization", so it is
not abstract. Dr. Hofmacher and I (M.B.) suggested as a most probable
source of design in the sense of Occam's razor that these motives are
idiographic symbols taken from early cosmology.
If one draws the
position of the Great Bear on the heaven of the Northern Hemisphere at the four
decisive dates of the agriculturalists' year ( March 21, June 21, Sepember 21
and December 21) one directly gets a swastika. Following up this with the
sacred four directions of heaven (an idea which is in vital use till
today in Central and Northern Asia) one automatically creates a self
referential "system" with an own "inner grammar" which, complemented only by
the well known positive-negative of thinking and drawing, is enough to
derive nearly all "geometric" motives that exist in weaves.
It is
unlikely that this system evolved in Anatolia proper. The transition between
the Eastern Toros mountains and the plains of upper Mesopotamia is a more
likely place of origin. But this is speculation. We would not be surprised if
this was invented independently several times in history at places that were
not connected with each other - but we have no idea how this could ever be
witnessed.
All such motives if executed or varied in such a way that
at first or, better, second glance "semi-conscious" associations of zoomorphic
or even anthropomorphic contents are stimulated are much more successful then,
might even create a kind of breath-taking magic. But this a secondary
effect and it is not helpful to claim shamanistic influences or similar things
- until one would give researched evidence for that. If not proven - and this
is exteme difficult - the explanatory value of such suggestions (like "eli
belinde", mother goddess figures etc.) is zero. Occam's razor rules!
In spite of 100 years of tapitolyrics this witness did not materialize yet.
Quite the opposite: displayed in a too attentive way ("mythisches Geraune") it
created a kind of suspicious allergy against all carpet studies in
serious anthopologists. This is the only real reason why museum and scientific
people stay apart from textile research that we can accept.
(1) Just lately Jack Cassin claimed the "spiritus rector" leadership
for this approach in a private e-mail communication which we will not publish
here. We are not referees. The first time when this "neolithic theory" was
introduced into carpet studies (the idea that, starting in Anatolia in the
neolithic period, there had been a progressing stylization of naturalistic
goddess figurines into the well-known "eli belinde" - motif, and that this was
kept by the local autochthonous population until today - with the consequence
that the Turkic population that came later is a kind of epigone which "copied"
these authentic local designs) was, according to the best of our knowledge, at
an ICOC lecture that Dr. Herwig Bartels gave in London. Shortly after this I
heard this "theory" from Bertram Frauenknecht. Within feministic circles and in
the esoteric subcultures it was already in widespread use at that time,
beginning of the eighties.
If Mr. Cassin claims to have pioneered all
this, the best advice for him should be: prove it then. We are amused: normally
people try to claim what has been proven right, not something that could not be
substantiated in the long period from then until today, kind of "old mistakes".