More Museum Rugs

Here are a few more rugs from the Tokat Vakif museum which we visited on one of the pre-ICOC tours.
These are all flatweaves. I will post a few more images in the next few days. These are not extremely old, but would certainly rate a second glance if found at your local rug store.



I believe these next two are grain bag faces.



This one is a cicim with a design that was discussed at length here on Turkotek some time ago.



This one is rather unusual, so I also took a close-up.





The central medallion on this piece seems out of scale. It looks sofreh-like, but I do not know if it had a particular use other than as a rug.



Patrick Weiler

Hi Pat,

Except for the first one, all seem to be brocade or brocade and kilim. Do you have a close up of #1 or do you recall its structure?

Wendel

Orange anyone?

Wendel,

That first piece above was slit weave tapestry. I do not have a close up, but the original photo is quite large - I reduced it in size as much as my software allows and Steve may have made it even smaller for Turkotek. I took a close-up look at it and it is definitely slit weave, with some eccentric wefting and the designs in the white stripes are outlined with black lines so they stand out well.

Here are a few more from the same museum. The majority of them have a delightful variety of orange colors which might make some of us suspicious if seen in a rug at our local rug store. Orange was so ubiquitous that it was eagerly used when synthetic orange became available, leaving thousands of rugs in collector limbo.



The pink highlights in this piece are delectable - another color which, in more recent rugs, would cause concern among collectors.





This one has what appears to be cochineal red in the two-legged rocket ship at the middle of the piece. I wonder if cochineal was used in combination with other dyes to make an orange color, too.







Patrick Weiler

Good stuff, Patrick. Having regard to the piece of which you also showed a close-up, I note that the device in the field is very similar to a common field design in Baluch pile rugs. Another intriguing connection between Anatolian and Baluchi weaving, or could that brocade be Baluchi too?

Hi

Please overwrite the word unregistered (in the user name field)with your name when you post.

Thanks

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

Sorry about that. New computer, I forgot to enter the registration.

Regards.

Baluch are people, too

Hey Patrick,

If I had seen that vicious slur aimed at the Baluch in the other thread (showing the Boteh-Tribe fragment your friend bought), I wouldn't have brought up the question of the brocade on this thread. There does seem to be a matrix of designs well known among the Baluch that hearken back to Anatolian sources, though.

Space Case???

Richard,

At first glance at your Unregistered post, I assumed you wanted to remain an anonymous Balunatic/Baluchophile due to the disregard for their material in the rug world.

(Are them fighin' words, Dude? )

But no, your true intention was to indicate a relationship between Baluch designs and others from the rug weaving world. One might take that relationship another step back to their shared Turkmen heritage (as described by Jack Williams in a Show and Tell thread on the Windsor Charlton "?Baluch?" bag face - and to the fact that they live in the area of the "Silk Road", a veritable alphabet soup of design traditions stretching from the very farthest East to the edge-of-the-world West during pre-Columbus days.
And, of course they all originated from Outer Space as evidenced by the realistic version of a Rocket Ship - as seen in one of the kilims in this thread - that is the true origin of all "prayer rug" designs - which pre-date the advent of modern, organized religions by millenia. You probably did not know that the Caspian Sea was created by a nuclear explosion from a visiting space ship of just such archaic design, generating the reverence of the fire-religion in that very area!!


Oh, back to your comment, can you show us a rug or two with that design in it? It would be interesting to see how it looks in a Baluch weaving.

Thanks,

Patrick Weiler

Well, Patrick, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but you've forced my hand, and I now have to expose you as the closet Baluchophile I know you are. I have strongly suspected it for some time, and my fears were confirmed when you showed up with that Boteh-Tribe bagface you got at the ICOC. It's definitely the kind of thing a Baluch maniac would buy when surrounded with rugs for sale, but none of them were Baluch. And be assured, if I knew how to do it, I'd have a pair of those litle dueling Johnnies on this page in a heartbeat.

As far as the brocade design on Baluch pile merchandise is concerned, I have a little bagface that I will try to post up in a day or two. I'll give you a cite for another example in Black & Loveless, too, because I know you must have that volume hidden away somewhere.

BTW, your comments about the great design melting pot and the Silk Road and all that stuff are OK as far as they go, but I think the connections between old Baluch designs and certain Anatolian parallels are too particularized to be explained adequately by that.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi Rich -

"Particularized?????"

Oh my god, you mean this Balouch shit is going to infect our discussion of entirely innocent Anatolian weavings as well?

I just bought a coir rain cape from southwest China.

It is dark colored, but I'm hoping the Balouchies will not follow me there, Jerry Anderson and his snakes (did he drink?) included.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi John,

Evidence is what it is. I think your rain cape is safe, though.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi Rich -

You're right, of course.

I look forward (I think) both to the particular similarities to be cited and to evidence of direction of flow. (I think estimated age will disadvantage most of the Balouch material we have in the broader argument in this latter regard. Are there any published Balouch pieces with an estimated age before the 18th century?)

Although there is some revision in process, Anatolian and Mamluk pile weavings have been seen to offer the older examples. "Persian" examples before the 16th century still seem rare.

Reconceptualization of existing attributions could change that.

What would be needed for more recent things would be evidence of Balouch, or related Khorasan groups, migrating into Turkey (this did happen) and then the springing up of designs or technical usages, not traditionally Anatolian, in the areas where they settled (I know of two Anatolian examples of the latter, but they seem to point to Turkmen weavers and to Turkmen-like structures not to those of the Balouch).

But it is a little tiresome to hear (not from you) a constant drumbeat suggesting that nearly everything turns out to be sourced in Balouch design usages. Even if there are plausible similarities to be noted, correlation is not causation. I don't fancy design evolution analysis at all, but if I did my money would be on most Balouch usages being derivative.

I do feel pretty safe with this Chinese piece. There isn't any design at all. It's like a shaggy plant-sourced "bear rug."

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi John,

Like you, I would prefer a more constrained approach to the invocation of a Baluch attribution, but perhaps for different reasons than you. For me, Baluch weavings from a century or more ago have recognizable design and aesthetic characteristics which are perhaps more particular than some Persian weaving groups. Adding a bunch of other designs and types seems to be unnecessary dilution of the Baluch repertoire.

In terms of Baluch weavings, I personally prefer to characterize their approach as assimilative rather than derivative. Unlike some other weaving groups that seemed to incorporate others' designs directly, the Baluch always seemed to put their own particular spin on things to make the final product fit within a characteristic aesthetic. As I have mentioned in other threads, I think this might be related to their particular social structure which is said to be much more conducive to incorporating other peoples into their tribal organization, but this is a rather fanciful theory.

Also, I have come to believe that Baluch weaving has a somewhat longer history than has been suggested by some. Rugs from the mid- to late 19th century exhibit a very stable and characteristic set of designs, colours, etc. that are very different from the putative sources of their designs. For example, early renditions the Baluch mina khani design is quite different than the Persian versions, and quite stable. To me that suggests that the origin was perhaps a few or several generations old. Again, this is just speculation on my part.

Cheers,

James.

No need.

John,

Jeremy Wood Anderson cannot follow anyone, because he is dead, and yes he drank…copiously. However, the breath of his ideas and knowledge may now be beginning to be appreciated. I cannot see what effect his profession (herpetology) or drinking had on the validity of his ideas about rugs or history…and incidentally, those ideas extended far beyond Baluch. Personally, I don’t care much for Anatolian weavings. But I haven’t seen the need to worry about those carpets or the people who find them fascinating. Perhaps I will learn to appreciate the genre someday.

It wouldn’t hurt to understand a bit about the origin of any weaving culture, and the difference between a culture and a political confederacy. It seems to me that Baluch designs remained open, tribal, nomadic, and individually unique when every Turkmen tribe from the Bosporus to the Altai Mountains had adopted the Tekke gul

Regardless of one’s personal preconceptions, unfortunate logic is something we all should avoid don’t you think?…such as a non sequitur argument. An example, “since we have not identified any 17th C. Baluch rugs, there weren’t any.” Or, “because x group uses a boteh, they copied it from someone.” Neither of those statements can stand scrutiny. In my view, neither can blaming Jerry Anderson for other people thinking about design development through time.

If I want to look only at the artistic composition of a rug...I'd rather go to the local college art school fire sale. I've had my say, and will feel no need to further elaborate. I suspect I've misunderstood the written word. If so, I apologize.

Regards,
ack Williams

Hi Jack -

Well, since we're talking about it, let's actually talk about "it."

I have no quarrel with those that admire Balouch weaving. Wendel Swan once owned a Balouch rug with a mina khani design that I think is one of the best things of any sort I have ever had in my hands. Steve Price owns a couple of Balouch pieces that are, in my view, "to kill for."

The complaint is that if everything has to lead in one or two posts to a conjecture (and it seems usually to be mostly that, as in your recent effort to connect the Pazyryk rug) to the Balouch, then conversation here about anything else is effectively barred.

I think this is the case even if, in some instances, the suggestion is in jest. The move is one that diverts, sets up tangents, and basically moves to reshape any conversation so that other things (I suspect that you will agree that there ARE other things worthy of discussion) cannot effectively be discussed.

My own suggestion would be that the Balouch admirers here post threads about their interest, but that they refrain from derailing other threads that are clearly focused on other interests. Now that doesn't bar an occasional pointing out of some similarity between some design and a Baluch usage that is pretty clear. But if everything posted has to come in a couple of posts to a discussion of the Balouch then its becomes difficult to discuss anything else.

Some experienced folks make a related complaint in which I do not fully join them. It is that far too many electrons are expended here on Turkotek in seemingly endless discussion of rather recent, not particularly remarkable, Turkmen and Balouch pieces. I do not think that such conversations are producing anything particularly profound, but I am not one of those uninterested in more recent material and Turkotek is primarily a forum in which those interested in rugs are encouraged to share their interests.

I think extended discussion of more recent and rather ordinary material is not something about which we can complain, except perhaps, unless the participants think they are doing something more serious than sharing their own thoughts and enjoyments of such material. And new posters and less experienced folks get a special license in this regard.

A footnote about Jerry Anderson. I do not know what part of his assertions are correct. It seems clear that he spent a lot of time "on the ground" so to speak, in Balouch country. But I think it does him no service to invoke him in conversations here as if he is an unanswerable god. He may well have known a great deal, but he did not choose to share his knowledge in a mode that can be examined and critiqued. I especially object to insertions of Anderson's sneers at the work of George O'Bannon, who did repeatedly subject himself to the discipline of moving to print and who opened himself repeatedly to the potential criticism that can result from that move.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about this "Balouch" issue, the related "newer material" issue, and about Mr. Anderson.

Others may well have different takes.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Baluch spinoff

Hi John:

I hope with this post to show a small bagface image that uses in pile a repeating decorative device very similar to the one repeateded in the brocaded item shown in the fourth and fifth images above.



The motif in my piece should very familiar to anyone conversant with Baluch pile weaving, and there are many other examples published (several in Black and Loveless, a couple in the 1974 Christmas Exhibition catalog of the Hajji Baba Club, Griffin Lewis [1911], etc.). I found the similarity remarkable only because I assumed Patrick's images from the Tokat Vakif museum were of Anatolian brocades. The mystery would be substantially dispelled should the brocade itself be Baluch, or of some other provenance much more closely associated with the Baluch. I lack the expertise to pronounce on that point. If the brocade is in fact Anatolian, I believe pointing out the connection to be reasonable and within the spirit of the thread.

Referring to your comments, I am intrigued by certain connections I feel I have observed between Anatolian weaving and Baluch weaving for many years. I would assume absent compelling evidence to the contrary that the direction of flow would have been Eastward from Anatolia. The only reason it seems remarkable is that such a connection doesn't seem very likely, in contrast to the many other obvious connections between Baluch weaving and Afshar, Turkoman, Kurd, Southwest Persian tribal, Persian village, etc., etc. I believe the incidents I have observed to go beyond the mere vague migration of decorative devices, e. g., the Memling gul. If I had to speculate about the reason for the connection (I'm reduced to speculation for the most part, being an indifferent scholar), I would guess at one or more defined ethnic groups steeped in certain Anatolian weaving traditions having moved, voluntarily or otherwise, into proximity or alliance with Baluch groups. In any event, I see the question as a real one and it intrigues me.

Regarding your obvious pique at the bumptiousness of the average Baluchophile on TurkoTek, I can well imagine it is irritating to have certain persons (no names mentioned) bleating "Baluch" at every turn. I've bleated myself a few times, I suppose, maybe too often. Nevertheless, I think you overstate the case, or the problem (if it's a problem), in terms of such comments rendering other discussion effectively impossible.

I have a footnote on Jerry Anderson, too. I think the greatest part of knowledge and/or lore that is abroad in the land about rugs and their related weavings is a mass of data (true and false) compiled or generated by people like him, including dealers and others active in a non-scholarly way in the field. My own "formation" in the field, apart from hanging about in bazaars, came from dealers. They had huge amounts of information, but in looking back on things, every one of them also had bad information. For the most part, they weren't scholars. It's been the curse and the blessing of the field all through the years. I don't doubt that Anderson had enormous knowledge about weaving in the area of his activity and interest, and it won't be recovered by scholars. He also had some large canards in his repertoire. I can tell that from reading the comments of my friend, Gene. Nevertheless, I would always want to know what the likes of a Jerry Anderson had to say about any Baluch rug of merit.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Baluchify the Pazyryk, or Pazyrykofy the Baluch

John,

We all have long suspected how you feel about Baluch-o-tek nation...it isn't a surprise. However, this piece about Jerry and the Baluch seems a little over the top. Re: "It seems clear that he spent a lot of time "on the ground" so to speak, in Balouch country." None of those numerous qualifying phrases are necessary. Jerry was born, lived his entire life, and died there, not insulated within an isolated European community either.

Despite his AADD, alcohol, poverty, and the paltry academic resources available (where could you find a good library card catalog?), he was sought out by every collector and researcher who journeyed to the area, and about a lot more than just rugs.. His voluminous correspondence with McCoy Jones, Boucher, et. al. running to hundreds of pages could have played a big role in establishing much conventional wisdom about Afghanistan.

If Gene ever gets around to writing his remembrances, perhaps it will help understanding the man, including his wilder flights of ethnography fancy.

But...you obviously have some issues.. So do I.

(a) Would you care to expand on your comment, "I especially object to insertions of Anderson's sneers at the work of George O'Bannon..."?

Just when did Anderson sneer at George O’Bannon, and in what context? Who is inserting "Anderson's sneers at Mr. O'Bannon" into their comments? I seem to have missed sneers at George O’Bannon, but have seen several at Jerry, that I thought were gratuitous and unnecessary. Yours is one of them. Why? Did something happen 10-20 years ago that we are unaware of? Help me…

(b) This particular line was not started by you, and the principal posters in this line were the ones lightheartedly tossing Baluch bombs at each other... What caused your sudden interjection and then that shot at someone you know little about… followed by veiled references and innuendos about Baluchsters hyjacking lines? Reminds me a little of what happened to Lad Duraine. In this line, your Baluch comments looked diversionary, not everyone else’s.

(c) Like you, I don't care for some of the newer, street vendor rugs posted here. They often can’t even lead into sociology because they don’t have much sociology woven into them. But I also didn't care that much for a lot of the more ragged, marginal textiles in a flood of posts from Anatolia either. No problem, I looked at them all, I learned quite a bit, noticed what resonated artistically or intellectually, and went back to the lines that that I felt I could contribute to.

(d.) I really would like to know your source of the badam border and "stacked guls equals Afghanistan” attribution…and what you think “Afghan” means in a Turkmen rug context? But that’s a question for another line. My point...sociology is a part of rugs. Many of us like it and study it deeply. It isn't going away, especially with millions of volumes available on the internet.

If you wish, you may email me direct if you feel we need to work something out. By the way, you win the prize for publicly recognizing this fragment (below). No one else commented, so I thought I had gotton away with Baluchifying the Pazyryk carpet.... Your powers of observation are pretty good.



Regards, Jack

Jack -

I tried to reply off board since our exchange is likely to bore some on Turkotek, but I got an error message from the aspect of our Turkotek software that permits us to send emails So I'm posting a response here after all. My apologies to the bored and especially to Pat Weiler for what I have done to his thread.

I've copied your last post into this email so that I can respond to it systematically. I am going to put my responses below entirely in capital letters to distinguish them, but I am not shouting.

You began:

We all have long suspected how you feel about Baluch-o-tek nation...it isn't a surprise.

A SMALL CORRECTION: I AM MYSELF PRIMARILY A TURKMEN-CENTRAL ASIAN COLLECTOR AND SO AM NOT ADVERSE, INSTINCTIVELY, TO BALOUCH MATERIAL.

However, this piece about Jerry and the Baluch seems a little over the top. Re: "It seems clear that he spent a lot of time "on the ground" so to speak, in Balouch country." None of those numerous qualifying phrases are necessary. Jerry was born, lived his entire life, and died there, not insulated within an isolated European community either.

I DO NOT, IN FACT, KNOW MUCH ABOUT JERRY ANDERSON, EXCEPTING WHAT WAS CONVEYED IN THE TOM COLE INTERVIEW OF HIM IN HALI A FEW YEARS AGO. I WAS MERELY TRYING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT HE CLEARLY HAD AN EXPERIENTIAL BASIS FOR HIS VIEWS. THE SEEMING QUALIFICATION IS ONLY A SCHOLARLY AFFECTATION.

Despite his AADD, alcohol, poverty, and the paltry academic resources available (where could you find a good library card catalog?), he was sought out by every collector and researcher who journeyed to the area, and about a lot more than just rugs.. His voluminous correspondence with McCoy Jones, Boucher, et. al. running to hundreds of pages could have played a big role in establishing much conventional wisdom about Afghanistan.

IT DOES SEEM THAT A LOT OF SERIOUS PEOPLE HAVE TREATED ANDERSON SERIOUSLY. IF THERE ARE "HUNDREDS" OF PAGES OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH SUCH FOLKS, THE BEST USE OF IT WOULD BE TO GO THROUGH IT AND MAKE THE BEST OF IT AVAILABLE PUBLICLY. SOME OF THAT COULD BE DONE HERE ON TURKOTEK.

If Gene ever gets around to writing his remembrances, perhaps it will help understanding the man, including his wilder flights of ethnography fancy.

I THINK THAT WOULD BE POTENTIALLY USEFUL, TOO.

But...you obviously have some issues.. So do I.

(a) Would you care to expand on your comment, "I especially object to insertions of Anderson's sneers at the work of George O'Bannon..."?

Just when did Anderson sneer at George O’Bannon, and in what context? Who is inserting "Anderson's sneers at Mr. O'Bannon" into their comments? I seem to have missed sneers at George O’Bannon, but have seen several at Jerry, that I thought were gratuitous and unnecessary. Yours is one of them. Why? Did something happen 10-20 years ago that we are unaware of? Help me…

MY COMMENT AND OBJECTION ARE ROOTED IN A COUPLE OF POSTS GENE MADE IN WHICH HE SAID "APPROXIMATELY" THAT ANDERSON "LAUGHED" AT INDICATIONS O'BANNON MADE IN HIS BOOK "THE TURKOMAN CARPET." NOW O'BANNON MADE MISTAKES AND SOME OF HIS WORK IS BEING CORRECTED BY OTHER SCHOLARS (ANDY HALE, FOR EXAMPLE). BUT I THINK IT A SHADE IRRESPONSIBLE TO STAND ALONG SIDE A POOL TABLE AND TAKE POTSHOTS AT SOMEONE WHO HAS TAKEN THE TROUBLE TO PUBLISH. AND I THINK GENE'S POSTING OF SUCH INDICATIONS ALSO HAS THE EFFECT OF DENIGRATING, WITHOUT MUCH RISKING ONES-SELF, THE WORK OF A SERIOUS, HONEST MAN.

(b) This particular line was not started by you, and the principal posters in this line were the ones lightheartedly tossing Baluch bombs at each other... What caused your sudden interjection and then that shot at someone you know little about… followed by veiled references and innuendos about Baluchsters hyjacking lines? Reminds me a little of what happened to Lad Duraine. In this line, your Baluch comments looked diversionary, not everyone else’s.

IN TRUTH MY COMMENTS WERE TANGENTIAL, BUT I HAD BEEN APPALLED BY THE TENDENCY IN OTHER THREADS TO CONTINUALLY DERAIL WHATEVER WAS BEING DISCUSSED BY TAKING THE CONVERSATION TOWARD THE BALOUCH. WHAT STRUCK ME WAS THAT THIS WAS SEEMINGLY HAPPENING AGAIN IN A NEW AREA: ANATOLIAN MATERIAL. NOW I SEE RICH LARKIN AS A SERIOUS, REASONABLE AND KNOWLEDGEABLE PERSON SO MY OUTBURST WAS NOT DIRECTED AT HIM, ONLY AT THE NOTION THAT ONE MORE AREA WAS GOING TO BE THE OCCASION FOR CLAIMING BALOUCH SIMILARITIES (AND MAYBE SOURCES). IT WAS NOT THE BEST PLACE TO MAKE THAT MOVE SINCE THE THREAD IS PAT WEILER'S AND HE'S TRYING TO SHARE SOME ANATOLIAN PIECES.

(c) Like you, I don't care for some of the newer, street vendor rugs posted here. They often can’t even lead into sociology because they don’t have much sociology woven into them. But I also didn't care that much for a lot of the more ragged, marginal textiles in a flood of posts from Anatolia either. No problem, I looked at them all, I learned quite a bit, noticed what resonated artistically or intellectually, and went back to the lines that that I felt I could contribute to.

IF YOU READ CLOSELY YOU WILL SEE THAT I HAVE SAID SPECIFICALLY THAT WE CANNOT REALLY COMPLAIN ABOUT THE TENDENCY TO PUT UP AND DISCUSS BOTH NEWER AND MORE PEDESTRIAN MATERIAL. WHAT I DID WAS REPORT ON A SECTOR OF EXPERIENCED COLLECTOR OPINION DOES OBJECT TO THIS. (SOME OF THEM FEEL SO STRONGLY THAT THEY SAY THAT TURKOTEK IS IN FACT DOING "HARM" TO THE RUG WORLD BY FOSTERING SUCH LOW LEVEL CONVERSATIONS). SOME ADVISE US TO SHUT THE PLACE DOWN IF WE ARE NOT WILLING TO ATTEMPT TO ACHIEVE A HIGHER LEVEL OF QUALITY BY RESTRICTING PARTICIPATION. THE "OWNER/MANAGERS" OF TURKOTEK (OF WHICH I AM ONE) DO NOT SEE THE SITE IN THAT WAY AND ARE UNWILLING TO RESTRICT PARTICIPATION. LIKE YOU, I THINK IT IS POSSIBLE TO LEARN AS THE RESULT OF THE DISCUSSION OF MATERIAL THAT MOST WOULD SAY IS NOT REMARKABLE. SO YOU AND I HAVE NO DEBATE ON THIS POINT AND MY POST DID NOT INDICATE THAT WE DO.

(d.) I really would like to know your source of the badam border and "stacked guls equals Afghanistan” attribution…and what you think “Afghan” means in a Turkmen rug context? But that’s a question for another line. My point...sociology is a part of rugs. Many of us like it and study it deeply. It isn't going away, especially with millions of volumes available on the internet.

AGAIN, IF YOU READ CLOSELY, YOU WILL SEE THAT I SAID OPENLY THAT I CANNOT PROVE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS "STACKED GUL" INDICATOR. IT IS ENTIRELY THE RESULT OF MY OWN OBSERVATIONS OVER THE YEARS WITH REGARD TO PIECES SAID TO BE FROM AFGHANISTAN. I WOULD GO A LITTLE FURTHER. IF YOU LOOK AT THE IMAGE THAT JAMES PROVIDED, I ALSO THINK THAT THE OUTSIDE OUTLINE OF THE MAJOR GUL IS ALSO THE SHAPE OFTEN SEEN IN MANY AFGHAN PIECES AND THE INTERIOR INSTRUMENTATION USING TRIANGLES MAY ALSO BE FREQUENT. BUT I JUST MADE AN OBSERVATION NOT A CLAIM TO ANYTHING REALLY.

d. If you wish, you may email me direct if you feel we need to work something out.

WELL, I THINK YOU SEE MY MAIN ISSUE, ALTHOUGH YOU MAY WELL DISAGREE. THERE IS A TENDENCY TO THE TANGENTIAL IN LOTS OF THREADS. SOMETIMES THAT CAN ACTUALLY LEAD TO THINGS THAT ARE MORE INTERESTING THAN THE ROOT THREAD. BUT IN THE CASE OF MY COMPLAINT MY OWN EXPERIENCE IS THAT YOU AND GENE IN PARTICULAR FREQUENTLY TAKE CONVERSATIONS THAT ARE ABOUT OTHER THINGS ENTIRELY INTO THIS AREA OF YOUR PARTICULAR INTEREST. IF EVERYTHING MUST REMIND US OF SOMETHING BALOUCH THEN IT IS NOT, EFFECTIVELY, POSSIBLE TO HAVE DISCUSSION OF ANYTHING ELSE. MY REQUEST IN THIS REGARD SEEMS REASONABLE TO ME. JUST STOP DERAILING THREADS ABOUT OTHER THINGS. IF YOU HAVE A "BALOUCH" INSIGHT TO SHARE (ESPECIALLY IF IT IS A LITTLE STRAINED) START ANOTHER THREAD.

ONE LAST THING UNRELATED TO ANY OF THE ABOVE. IT IS CLEAR THAT YOU AND GENE KNOW A LOT ABOUT THE HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY OF BALOUCH COUNTRY AND OF CENTRAL ASIA MORE GENERALLY. THAT CAN BE OF REAL INTEREST AND USE, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS NOT JUST POURED OUT "EN MASS," BUT RELATED TO THE RUGS.

I HOPE THAT AT LEAST CLARIFIES MY CONCERNS.

MY EMAIL IS "rjhowe@erols.com"

REGARDS,

R. John Howe

TurkoTek

Hi John:

I've had my say about the immediate flurry, and I am content to leave it at that. I would like to comment on one point raised in your response to Jack, the one about what is appropriate topical material on TurkoTek. I would agree with some of your offstage critics that there is quite a bit of (frankly) schlocky material reviewed on TurkoTek, probably beyond its merit, and sometimes at excessively great length, too. That's just my personal opinion, and I don't see myself too high on the ladder of "strict standard" commentators. Nevertheless, it is an occupational hazard for a welcoming, "come one, come all" venue like TurkoTek. It is preferrable, in my view, to what would result from a juried review of the potential contributions. Incidentally, with all due respect to the scholars among us, some of them do tend to take themselves and their studies too seriously in my opinion. I'm reminded of a certain ambitious wine emporium of a former day in Cambridge that used to publish a newsletter purporting to find exotic essences of one kind or another in their vintages. To their credit, they were accustomed to stating that wine appreciation was a subject that was impossible to approach with too much humility. It is an adage that works well in the area of rug connoisseurship, too.

I would like also to point out the obvious fact that the proprietors of TurkoTek put in a great deal of effort to make the forum available to us and workable, a feat that (as we see) isn't always easy, and I appreciate that very much.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Rich -

Yes, it is not often recognized with sufficient visibility that Steve Price and Filiberto Boncompagni put in enormous amounts of time and effort to make our conversations here possible.

But, as Steve is fond of saying, that's why they get the big "bucks." And Filiberto is currently on vacation, drawing the full pay that he gets when he is here.

I also think that a more "select" group would not necessarily be much of an advance. Many experienced folks spend a lot of their time sorrowing over the aesthetic inadequacies of their peers.

As one of Philip Roth's characters, Portnoy, by name, noted in an utterly different, and not entirely polite context, the position of some more experienced folks often seems to be "no one can do it like I can."

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi John and all,

This is not the first time we have heard strains of "the discussions on Turkotek are not worthy" from unspecified off-line experienced collectors and/or experts. The solutions seem rather simple to me.

1) Don't read the threads that are uninteresting or too simplistic for one's taste and experience.

2) Contribute to more sophisticated discussions by offering interesting pieces or providing more learned commentary on threads begun by others.

Since I am still on the steep part of the learning curve, I can usually find something of interest in most threads. As someone who still has much to learn, I would also observe that on occasion when I think there is something of interest at a more advanced level, there is too often a deafening silence from those who might be able to provide more elevated commentary. I'll offer a personal example. I am interested in the connection between the Ersari "serrated" border and the "curled leaf" (in relation to my "MAD Ersari" carpet that I offered on Show and Tell a few weeks ago). This didn't capture the imagination of other Turkotekkers. However, I have found some rich discussion in Turkoman Studies I which makes some interesting connections between the ashik motif and the curled leaf. Although I think it is relevant and interesting in relation to the Ersari use of the ashik and the "serrated" border, I have refrained from re-opening that discussion since it drew limited interest the first couple of rounds.

As I have said before, I personally wouldn't object if the more experienced folks set aside a discussion forum to which only they could contribute, and the rest of us could just read. But the selection of members for that forum might pose some difficulties for the managers...

James.

Hi John,

Kudos to Steve and Filiberto, as you suggest. I meant you too. I don't have a good handle on who does what, or specifically how much work is actually required, but your own efforts have been very visible since my patronage began.

James, I suspect a study of why certain informed persons steer clear of these pages would disclose concerns about professional or semi-professional reputations. I don't mean to be invidious, and I'm not in their shoes, but that factor would probably be present.

__________________
Rich Larkin

I do not mind having this thread "hijacked" by Balunatics. Or any other "tics" or "teks" either.
Some of my best friends are afflicted by that particular madness. The posters to this web site are not necessarily a cross-section of the collecting community, but it is refreshing to have a Baluch contingent that is vocal and contributing.
One of the more satisfying aspects of Turkotek is that it is a venue for discussing rugs and ethnographic textiles, any and all. Where else can one participate in an ongoing stream of rug related conversations with like-minded fellows? I do think one of the shortcomings here is the tendency to sometimes not tell someone that their prized possession is of very little collectable merit. (mine included) This does not mean, though, that a trifling piece has no relevance or connection to other weavings. As someone once said, every expert was a novice at one time.
Speaking of experts, I have been told by some that they "look in" on Turkotek, but do not comment. Some are dealers and feel it would be inappropriate. Others have nothing but disdain for the level of discourse. Many people, I suppose, tune in for the information (and the fireworks) but feel no urge to participate.
The price of admission is the same for everyone and you are not required to participate.
I have a Baluch piece that has a design that is quite similar to the one Richard posted and it will be stimulating to see how tenuous the connection is between Turkish and Baluch designs. I will have to take it off the wall and photograph it in the next day or so.
Stay tuned and Keep On Posting!

Patrick Weiler

Buy you guys a Beer?

Hi all,

I just tuned in to find the usual food fight over pin-sized angles.

Couple of things. I feel the History of E.Persian, S.Asian carpets from Samerkand to Kerman cannot be understood without some understanding of the tribal areas of Khurrasan. I don't think Khurrasan in turn can be understood without taking into account Turkoman, Baluch, Timuri, Chahar Aimaq, Hazara, E.Kurd, Arabic and Pashtun weavings (Mushwani) in the area.

I don't venture much into commenting on the world of Caucasian or Turkish carpets..never collected them although I have a few examples of both...so I usually let the people who know about the subject comment and I admit I thoroughly enjoy picking up some knowledge from them. (The only comment I think I've made on that area was the bit about Solar-lundar Calendar and the date on Jack's rug last year..and that was because I was working with several Persian - Farsi speakers). Anyway, I was always of the opinion that if you don't know a lot, listen...and that's not bad advice for the people who don't like the Eastern border of Iran too.

Gene

PS. As for Jerry Anderson, He's dead; I'll write his obiturary for "HALI" not Turkotek at some point. But since he has been mentioned, here are a couple of observations (in addition to what I said to David Hunt last year):

Jerry Anderson is not a God...but he was an extremely interesting man and on most points of ethnography, rugdom, history of the W-Iran, E-Afghanistan area, very knowledgeable..but not infalliable. Jerry, as I've said many times, was brilliant and he was possibly unstable. And John, yes he did drink when he had access to it. just as you do.. I've mentioned this several times in a humorous fashion.

And, Jerry was not, as has sometimes portrayed, the country bumpkin cousin, diamond in the rough, pure ruggie, going his way without knowing what was happening in rugdom. Nope, he knew what was going on in rug scholarship...He introduced me to the Haji Baba society in 1976..I bought my first book ..Schulman's because he had a copy....

He had some very controversial ideas. He had some brilliant insights. And like O'Bannon, he was wrong at times...as I've discovered wandering around Afghanistan. He sometimes accepted "tribal word." And his house was always filled up with tribals. He was incapable of the discipline of writing a book, although we talked of it many times. But he wrote litterally hundreds of pages of observations and some wild speculations about designs and ethnography in private letters to Boucher and McCoy-Jones and others. It would be interesting to know if these are preserved in Boucher's estate. It'd also be interesting to know if one of my best friends (owner of a couple of those exquisite Baluch Jahan Baig's from David Black's book), in whose home Jerry lived for 18 months, still has his stuff.

In any event, why don't we all take a deep breath. Baluch and E.Iranian rugs are interesting and are here to stay, even if they are banned from Turkotek. and if that's not your cup of tea..don't read the stuff.

And...since I'm mentioned in the comments above, In my defense, I never uttered the word "Baluch" in this thread...in fact I didn't even post on this thread until now, although I'll admit to thoroughly enjoying the light-hearted exchage between Rich and Patrick. So I think casting aspersions on me is unfair in some ways (ok, I'm a big boy..life isn't fair.. and I can take care of myself)

PPS:

John: Buy you a beer..or better yet an Islay...when I get home.

Patrick: nice bag..and come to think of it, it does have echos of Baluch..and how that translates down the "Turkish tribal corridor" (Kurd-Luri-Khamseh-Afshar-Baluch) from Anatolia to Seistan is worth considering.

James: I said several times your MAD Ersari is outstanding...don't know enough to comment on it but would like to hear what you've come up with...there are not a lot of people really researching their rugs (although I can think of a couple). I'm pretty amazed that a high-quality rug like that hasn't attracted the attention and high-powered observations of all the sophisticated experts mentioned above (who are evidently somehow embarrased by uninformed comments on Baluch rugs..or maybe by Baluch rugs in general).

Richard: Nice obsevation and comment on the bag...and your comment and diplomacy increase my respect for your opinion.

Hi Gene

You wrote,

Baluch and E.Iranian rugs are interesting and are here to stay, even if they are banned from Turkotek ...

Belouch and East Persian rugs are banned from Turkotek? Why am I always the last to know?



Steve Price

Anatolibaluchian

OK Steve, since Baluch rugs are now banned, here are some photos of an Anatolibaluchian rug I have had for quite some time.
It could charitably be called a "study rug", but I haven't spent much time studying it. I just know I haven't seen any quite like this one. The major "gul" design is somewhat superficially similar to the one on the bag that Richard posted.



It has a row of "mountains" along the bottom of the field, as though the weaver wasn't quite sure what the design would look like. And that feature carries on throughout the piece - like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces just don't fit together very well. You may be able to make out one of the flatweave stripes at the bottom is that good, nearly edible apricot color found in older pieces.



The pile is asymmetric, open left, 7h x 9v with two wefts. There are a couple of "ponds" at the top of the field with ?waterfowl? floating about. Or are they legless quadrupeds?



It has that typical "electric blue" that is sometimes seen in Baluch (oops, I mean Anatolibaluchian) rugs.





It certainly has what one might call "condition issues" making the central part of the design nearly unreadable, but the overall impact is one of bold whimsy. The dark colors give it a brooding, mysterious air.



There are many "dice" scattered about, including two of the minor borders.
It has 4-cord selvages with goat-hair wrapping.
I could not say if this design has Anatiolian origins, but it does make an appearance in a lot of Anatolibaluchian pieces.

Patrick Weiler

Patrick,

I agree with you that your rug has a lot of "Baluch type" features, and I like it. If I were to mention a particular feature I have noticed in a large segment of Baluch type weavings it is the use of a generally low-range palette that is brought to life by a few colour highlights. In your rug, this effect is seen in the use of the "electric blue" in the border and a few of the field design elements. My overall impression is that your rug was woven by someone not fully familiar or practiced with this design repertoire. I think the main border is meant to be one that is seen on many Sistan weavings (various colours of diagnonal stripes with internal squares), and also in some S. Persian rugs. She also struggles with the execution of the "double rams horn cross" design in many places.

Gene, I appreciated the compliments that you and others provided regarding my MAD Ersari rug, and I don't want to sound petty about this. What surprised me a little was that there didn't seem much interest in further discussing the design origins etc. Perhaps there isn't much to say, but I have been able to follow up on Steve's reference to the ashik design, which I think was right on the button and perhaps of some relevance to an important design pool for some of these Ersari weavings.

Cheers,

James.

Folks,

I'm glad Patrick (not me!) put this one up on his own thread, because it seems in effect to be doing just what John decried: hijacking the thread with Baluch speculations/ejaculations, or whatever. I don't see the rug as a particularly compelling example of fairly direct Anatolian influence in Baluch production. I think the comparison of the brocade I cited and the pile bag I posted does call up a direct connection that seems to beg an explanation. Tom Cole's website contains an article in which he suggests one based on relatively early movement of Seljuk people. He doesn't show the device I've cited, to my recollection, but I find the article fascinating. This is the link:

http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article60IcocBaluch.html

As far as my post is concerned, I'd like someone who has the knowledge to comment on whether the brocade in the Tokat Vakif museum is in fact Anatolian work. If so, I'm quite amazed, especially inasmuch as the motif has migrated from one kind of textile to another that is technically very different.

About Patrick's Anatolibaluchian, I agree with James that the weaver tried to play with the principal device with mixed results. It came out wonky, see other thread on Jaf bags! But I like it.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Patrick's rug and Jerry-O'bannon

Patrick,

I'm very much taken with that Anatoliabaluch rug..the simplicity, colors, mountains, ducks (dragon boats?)..and the hint of the MAD Ersari in the borders...And I can't say anything about it worth saying. The Kelim ends look both Turkoman and Afshar...the pallet has that Baluch look as James pointed out...and it resonates.. (ok I said something). Rich concentrates on the brocade and so I immediately go off..kind of like "Life of Brian".."the brocade..the brocade." But I wouldn't mind seeing the back and borders.

-------------

Now, this is the last word on John's complaint about me because it looks like he's defending his friend O'Bannon..a very worthwhile endeavor and honorable too. The only time I ever/ever heard Jerry discuss O'Bannon was JA's commentary on passages in "The Turkoman Carpet." (and Jerry had neither been drinking, nor playing pool that day). O'Bannon apparently had written about the Kizil Ayak...he decided that they didn't exist and instead should be called the "Char Shango." Jerry's points were exactly as those made to me 32 years later by an old Herat dealer.

--- "Kizil Ayak" is Turkish for "red foot" - and probably is a trade name.
--- "Char Shango" is Dari/Farsi/Persian for 4 corners - a village in N. Afghanistan exists by that name..but there is no "tribe" by that name.

Jerry's point was this. Did O'Bannon speak Dari or Turkish? Or did he take the word of happily nodding locals when he published that book? If so, who were his guides? Tadjiks or Turks or Pashtuns? Jerry thought the scholarship was suspect and said so.

Now...John...That is it the absolute totality of what JA had so say about O'Bannon. Question for you...based on the above, are you now willing to stand up and declare on Turkotek that Kizil Ayak carpets for now and evermore should be called "Char Shango" as George did in print?

I've said on several occasions that among very many other conversations I had with him, JA's comments on this book and on Kizil Ayak ..he had the book in his hand... stuck with me. I have made a lot inquiries in the field to try to follow-up on this with mixed results as I've mentioned a couple of times on Kizil ayak threads. The last time I checked in Spring 2007, the oldest dealer in Herat said (Afghan style), "the two (Kizil Ayak and Char Shango) are the same..and well they are different." He implied that the carpets came from the Char shango village area but the weave and knotting of Kizil Ayak was different from "Char shango"...i.e. the fabrics are different. Why was not expressed..I asked the question; didn't get an answer...and I had the distinct feeling he was searching my face and asking, "what do you want to hear?" And...I'll try to clarify this when I get back out there.

I hope this assuages your feeling that JA had it in for the scholar O'Bannon...quite the contrary...JA was a skeptic as one should be skeptical in that area of the world...and (maybe this is an unnecessary comment but one I've discovered is apt and one young rug collectors need to take into account)..as found out early on (visit to London, Fall 1978 - David Black, Clive Loveless..and a dozen others) one needs to be skeptical about all/all rug "experts," including those who would presumably form with John an elite "brain trust" for this site. In the end, you get captured by the hobby, you do your own research and you decide which guru you trust.

Gene

Whatever.

Hi ya'll, hows ya mama and all dem?

Oh…To heck with those that don’t want to participate. I don't think "defending" was the core issue. Whatever. For some reason, that "Duckpondia" tribal rug (possibly akin to Marty's Afshar) reminds me of a carpet discussed in “from the horses mouth,” that was a real puzzler. It was thought by Jerry Anderson to be Rukshani Baluch.

See: http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article10JA.html





'25. Rukshani Baluch carpet, Baddini tribe, Nushki area, Chagai district, Baluchistan, late 18th or 19th century. 1.45 x 4.65m (4'9" x 15'3"). Warp: Z2S, ivory wool; weft: brown, grey brown and apricot wool, 2 shoots; knot: 2ZS, wool, AS open left, 6-7H x 6-9V = 36-63/in2 (558-976/dm2); sides: not original; ends: bands of weft-faced plainweave, with weft substitution decoration at bottom; colours: 20. Eiland, Oriental Rugs from Pacific Collections, pl.97, attributed as “Aimaq or Baluchi, mid-18th century”, subsequently reassigned to “Taimani Aimaq, Khiva, with one flatwoven end done in Baluchistan”. Anne Halley Collection, Courtesy Adraskand Inc., San Anselmo, California.'

The ability of Caucasus designs to get to Baluchdom could have a rreasonable explanation…one that I’ve been looking into a little. As we know, the Persian armed forces from Shah Ismail to Shah Abbas were the Kizil Bash Shia Turkmen tribsmen from Azerbaijan, the Afshar being the most famous. Many of the Aimaq tribes including the Bahluli, are thought to be possibly Kizil Bash leftovers…and the Kizil Bash were strong behind the scenes players in Afgan politics at least until the 20th C.

Regards, Jack

Reconsider

Jack,

Nice posts and carpets. And a couple of your historical points don't fit. KizilBash..red hats (they wore a 12 ponted red hat symbolizing the 12 - Shi'a - Imams)..were essentially Sufi who became Shi'a..who came out of Azerbaijan with Shah Ismail to conquer Persia..late 1400's, early 1500's with Shah Tamasb. The Kizilbash were not a tribe but a union of tribes. Their major battles early on were with the Ottoman in Iraq and Turkey borders. They fought the Uzbeks in e. Iran about 1520 on... Later on..much later into the 1800's the Sunni Turkoman tribes were calling all Persians "Kizilbash" to justify their slaving raids.

So, that puts the Kizilbasn tribal armies down into the Seistan basin about 1520. The problem is Babur was writing about the Chahar Aimaqs in 1495..he fought battles with them...and their history takes them back to the Mongol invasions about 1240.

So, there is no way that the Chahar Aimaqs...a Sunni group..are related to the Kizilbash tribal groupings around Shah Ismail who penetrated into Khurrasan in the early 1500's...except that all claimed Turkish origin. The Chahar Aimaqs were already in their mountain redoubts as were the Timuris (another Turkish group) incidentally by the time the Kizilbash Persian/turks arrived in the area.

But..as we discussed many times..the whole area from the Sinjiang basin of Khotan, Yarkhand etc. to Anatolia and on over to Algeria and down to Delhi was more or less Turk for 1,000 years...Seljuk, Black Sheep, White sheep, Mahumud of Ghazni, Kizilbash, Ottoman, Timur, Moguls.... whatever... And they all wove similar designs to some extent... and these designs are possibly related to earlier Indo-European tribal group designs inherited from the Sythians (Roman area Indo-Europeans who adapted to the Stepp life.. i.e. he Sakas..Seistanis...or the Yueh Chi..the blue-eye Indo European defeated by the Han Dynasty Chinese who recoiled onto Central Asia...say about the 1st century BC?)

Kizilbash as Shi'a have not play a role in Afghan politics in any recent memory...Kabul/Seistan/Kandahar/Baluchistan always was the fracture zone forever almost between Persia and India going back to Cyrus...and from Mahmud of Gahzni on, India was Sunni...but Afghans..Kabulis always were Sunni...never Shi'a to my knowleged..except the Hazara..and they are distinct to this day in Afghanistan. No Kizilbash tribe played a recent role in Afghan politics.

leave it to Rich to comment on the Baluchness of Patrick's striking AnatoliaBaluch carpet.

Gene

Ps. James, I hate to say it but the "experts" don't seem to be able to contribute much about your oustanding MAD ersari. (John..love to hear someing interesting from you about that carpet). To me there's a lot of history there..and I'd like to hear what you have come up with.

Actually, its devilishly difficult to comment intelligently on it because it seems so familiar but not familair; you can't just generalize...the structure, provinence and colors seem known, its the design which is fascinating..but the design is known..they way its put together is what is unusual. But of course, anything I'd say on the history/ethonology of the area would have to be cleared with the new self-declared censors..the new "brain trust" of the site.. who have now decided that Turkotek has become "trite" because of all the unwashed.. So I'm being careful before writing my opinons about tribes and movements in the area where I think your rug might have been made.

Dang

Gene,

Darn, I was hoping for a taxonomic identification of my rug.
Common Name: Baluch
Kingdom: Textile
Phylum: Weaving
Class: Tribal
Order: Pile
Family: Rug
Genus: Dozar
Species: Timuri (or whatever you think it is)

The link between the design that Richard showed, a diamond lozenge with a central diamond on a vertical pole and at either side a sideways "W" and a "C", compared to the museum piece that shows an 8-pointed star with a diamond at the center, a diamond at each apex and a diamond lozenge outline, is not as strong as it may need to be to show a relationship other than the basic shape. That does not preclude intermediary versions, though. And with Gene arguing for a Turkic origin of most of the peoples of the area from over a thousand years ago - with their related ethnic design pool - the similarities are not at all surprising.
Tom Cole noted the Baluch came from an Indo-European Scythian background that was assimilated into the Turko-Mongolian hordes, but he does not compare Scythian designs with Baluch designs - he compares some specific Seljuk designs with more recent Baluch designs - thereby showing a design relationship between the more Indo-European Baluch group and the Turkmen Seljuk group. He noted that the Seljuks conquered the Khorasan area of the current Baluch tribes. This would have brought the Turkmen/Seljuk designs into contact with the Baluch peoples. His picture #9 shows a Seljuk rug with an 8-pointed star within a diamond - similar to the design of the subject museum brocade rug - but again a bit removed from the one Richard shows.

By the way, I believe these rugs are from the Ankara museum, not Tokat. My photos were mixed up when transferred to a laptop, so Richard, if you are on your way to Tokat, you might want to stop in Ankara on your way.
And I believe that this brocade rug was Anatolian. I would have been surprised if it was labeled otherwise.

Patrick Weiler

More Rugs

To continue the original pre-Baluch theme of this thread, here are some more rugs/kilims from the Ankara museum.

This one has an interesting version of the niche-column design, with different top and bottom borders:



Another pre-historic rocket ship:



This is a bit odd, with the top border of a different design, smaller in size than the bottom border and without the reciprocal minor design at the bottom of the field.



Yes, there were some pile rugs, too! Note the 8-pointed stars and diamond designs, found not only in the brocade rug but also in the Jaf Kurd rugs being shown on the Show and Tell.



And speaking of the Baluch/Anatolian connection, the border in this piece is familiar.



Finally, here is Vedat Karadagh, our tour leader, ICOC dealer, raconteur, bon vivant and all around great guy, pointing out that this is not a Baluch rug.



Patrick Weiler

Hi Patrick:

I'll take your word for it out of respect for your position as thread leader, but judging from the set of the jaw and the overall body language, I would swear the guy was commenting on the close resemblance of that rug to the lighter brighter color palette Tom Cole likes to talk about from another well known rug producing region. I will not, however, believe that a rug tour guide could have the name, "Vedat Karadagh," as a real name. But if "Marion Morrison" could become "John Wayne," I will not begrudge this man his prerogative.

Speaking of light/bright, the cascade of images in this thread and many others put up by you and John from the ICOC has been such a pleasure. The overall effect on me has been to emphasize that the full body of extant Anatolian weavings is far more varied, interesting and exciting than one would think if one focused on the limited range of types the older (and not so older) survey books used to trot out.

Thanks for commenting on my post relating to an asserted connection between the design device on the brocade and the well known Baluch device. I was aware of and considered the detail discrepancies between them, and it may well be that the resemblance is superficial and accidental. I intend to study the several examples of the recent incarnation (my own and published) to see what I think about the range of variation among them, and then compare with the brocade. Keep in mind, I'm no Walter Denny, and I'm not really trying to prove this particular connection. My larger point is that I am (and have been for a long time) impressed with the kinds of parallels Cole attempts to point out in his article between old Anatolian and more recent NE Persian tribal. As I mentioned in an earlier note, I find more there than just the general melange of designs and styles all over those areas.

I agree with your view of Cole's article, that he sees an infusion of Seljuk influence into whatever the greater Khorrassan context was at the time. Beyond that, I am unable to make out very much in terms of rugs woven there within the last 150 years based on one horde after another having moved to and fro. As we know, the term "Baluch" as a description of all of the weaving is an inadequate one of convenience and not an accurate statement of the ethnic origins of the many weavers. But it has been said by some that those weavers, whoever they were/are, were essentially copyists without a very deep or solid weaving tradition of their own. I think an implication of what Cole is pointing out is that there is an ancient weaving tradition in the area and among the indigenous peoples, who include the descendants of any Seljuks or others that might have come in a thousand years ago or so. They need defer to no one as weavers of this sort of textile in my opinion. I agree with James Blanchard's comment of several days ago (I can't recall just where right now) that this tradition is characterized by a capacity to assimilate many designs and styles and make them part of the tradition. This is a strength, not a weakness.

Regarding your entry with the ducks or whatever they are, would you count the number of rows of knots vertically on the warp lines in one of those diamonds from tip to tip, and then do the same along the weft line? I'm interested in the sucessful squares (tipped on point) achieved on that rug, in contrast to the lozenge effect on my bag. I plan to do the count on mine, too. I assume that mine has become lozenge shaped due to gradual compression of weaving along the vertical line relative to the horizontal. Of course, that factor would not be in play on a brocade, unless the brocadist were simply copying a pattern.

__________________
Rich Larkin

One could also perhaps see a certain connection to the Talish with regard to the above posted Milas.

Square, Man

Richard,

Can't you read Vedat's name badge in the picture?
The average knot count is 8x8 per square inch and I counted 61 knots top to bottom and 61 side to side in one of the diamonds. The texture is quite fine and, as they say, like a handkerchief. Some rows of knots appear to have been beaten harder and are more compressed, but the wefts make up for the little difference that the height of the knots causes.
Luckily I had not put the rug back up on the wall yet.
As for the Anatolian rugs and their variety, many of the designs never travelled beyond the area they were made in - sort of dead-end designs. But many others travelled widely, ending up both east and west, north and south of the weaving world. The broad borders are not frequently encountered elsewhere and the field design of the next-to-last rug is kinda funny lookin'.
The brocade pattern would not need to be that shape due to compression so it is either an original design of that shape or, counter to some cases, the design was transferred from a pile medium with compression.
Oh, and I have never been addressed as a Thread Leader before. That one is going on my resume!

Patrick Weiler

quote:

---

Originally posted by Unregistered
One could also perhaps see a certain connection to the Talish with regard to the above posted Milas.

---

8 pointed Star

Patrick,

I suppose its hopeless...a disease of some sort..I need help:



Gene

Patrick:

BTW, if there's an eight-pointed star in that brocade motif, I'm missing it. Can you help me. (I know what you're thinking..."That explains a lot!")

__________________
Rich Larkin

More Rugs, More Stars

This first photo is of an antique tractor outside a store in Ankara, near the museum at the top of the hill. You can make out the city in the valley below. This neighborhood had restaurants, dry goods stores and a street or two of antique dealers. We did not have enough time to explore everything, but due to the placement of this photo near this batch of rugs it indicates that they were at the Ankara museum.



Richard,
First you could not read Vedat's name badge and now you can't see the stars in the brocade. Am I detecting a trend?
Actually, I had to blow up the close-up on my own monitor to decipher the design on the brocade. Most of the red has corroded away, leaving mostly blue and white, making it difficult to discern the design.
The 8-pointed star looks like some of those in this first rug. In the top row of stars, the first one on the left, and the fifth and sixth have the same design that is inside the diamond motif on the brocade. In the second row from the top, all but star one and five have the same design. This rug also has that Baluch-looking border.



This next piece illustrates a speculation I have made on Turkotek before, but I never had an example to confirm it. The major border is what devolved into the Kazak wine-glass and leaf border. You can readily see that if this major border is cut in half you have the leaf part and with the middle diamond cut in half it acquired a line that transformed it from half a diamond into an upside-down triangle with a stem - or wine glass.
Some of the round flowers in the field contain 8-pointed stars, too:



Next we see a Western Anatolian piece reminiscent of modern Bergama pieces, but with a few old designs in the field, such as the Memling gul and those curious bird-like creatures I do not recall seeing before, and the central gul has that pesky 8-pointed star:



Next, an Eastern Anatolian Kurdish divan cover perhaps. Note the 8-pointed stars in the rows between the major Holbein-gul rows:



And a very Kazak-looking piece that very well could be Armenian:



And finally, a very orange prayer rug:



The quality of this last piece is suspect, but note the "dice" border and the major gul that looks like it came from an Abadeh version of an old Qashqai rug.

I will send a couple more batches of these rug photos to Steve. Maybe we can generate a lot of heat, a little light and ignite a few controversies.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Pat,

I believe that the primary border has been mentioned several times here on Turkotek.



At the 8th ICOC in Philadelphia in 1996, I presented a paper entitled “The So-Called Leaf and Wineglass Border in Anatolian and Caucasian Rugs” in which I demonstrated (well, at least I think I did) that the “leaf and wineglass” border represents neither a wineglass nor a leaf, but results from the process of halving this border or others similar to it. I illustrated the point with other rugs using this border type, including one in which three of the borders are complete (as here) and one is halved. There are several other points of correspondence as well.

The term “leaf and wineglass” is an unfortunate example of a pattern being named according to representations that Western eyes think they are seeing – but aren’t there at all.

That paper was published in Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies, Volume 5, Part 1. I’ve had been tell me that they disagree with my analysis, even though they haven’t read the paper or viewed any of the 36 illustrations. It apparently still doesn’t seem odd to them that Muslims would adorn rugs with representations of a wine glass. They hold to the belief that it must be a wine glass because that is what it is called. Years ago the wineglass was sometimes called a tuning fork, almost equally absurd.

Others, including one who posts here prominently, routinely say that it serves no purpose to discuss or propose anything about design evolution because it simply cannot be proven.

Wendel

I'll Drink To That

Wendel,

I suspect that much of what passes for scholarship in rug studies is based on less than what you have presented and what I have also postulated. The foundation of rug knowledge, from the late 19th century until after the mid 20th, consists of market lore, dealers' tales and fanciful speculation.
There is considerable resistance to acknowledging research that counters common misconceptions.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Wendel

The practice of naming a motif or design with terms reflecting something familiar doesn't necessarily imply that the observer thinks that this is what it represents. There are probably some who think the "wineglass and leaf" border actually represents wineglasses and leaves, but most just use the term as a convenient descriptor. There are lots of examples of this. Latchhooks, for instance, or beetles. I doubt that anyone thinks the "latchhook" device is really a representation of latchhooks, and I don't think I've ever seen a claim that the design on "beetle bags" actually represents a beetle. Likewise for the "tuning fork" on some Turkmen ensis, the "bow tie" on some Turkmen borders, and the list goes on.

I think these are useful shorthands in communication, although they do occasionally get taken too literally, mostly (but not exclusively) by novice collectors.

Design evolution can sometimes be dealt with in reasonably convincing ways - Horst Nitz's recent Salon is a good example. More often than not, though, proposed evolutionary pathways are so speculative as to have little value, especially when the subject becomes (as it too often does) the starting point of the pathway - design origin.

Regards

Steve Price

Patrick,

Are you saying that they deliberately put in the red corrosive dye, knowing it would corrode away to leave the famous Baluchi design motif! Migawd, this is unbelievable stuff!

Really, though, I cannot see that eight pointed star in there. I love them, and I've seen enough elsewhere to get my astronaut badge, but not in that brocade. I'll blow up the picture and work on it.

I love the Eastern Kurdish divan cover. My kind of rug. About the orange prayer rug. Are you pretty sure it's bad? There's orange and there's orange...

__________________
Rich Larkin

Deliberately Crude?

Richard,

The orange rug is old, but crudely woven. I was quite surprised to see so much orange in Anatolian rugs of considerable age, hundreds of years old. As for the red in the brocade, perhaps I can send Steve the close-up photo in a bit of a larger size. The "missing red" appears to have been worn away rather than corroded.
The divan cover was spectacular and I took a close-up, but it is out of focus.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Patrick,

Some of my best friends are crudely woven rugs. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. As to the orange, I know John has remarked more than once recently that the Turkish dealers insist a lot of that orange is good. The orange in your image seems to have that tinge of apricot we want so desparately. Not sure whether that's the rug or just my monitor. I do like that Abadeh style "endless knot."

If you could get a larger (closer) version of the brocade device on the screen, I'd be obliged.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Rich -

The Turkish dealers' position on orange is distinctive from "a lot of orange is good."

They know that orange is widely decried, and seen with deep suspicion, by many rug collectors.

What the Turkish dealers know, from the pieces in their museums, is that rugs that are 13th century can have bright oranges that most collectors would reject.

They know that "brightness" of a color (orange included) is not necessarily a sign that it is from a synthetic source.

A Bohmer footnote: I am currently reading his book on natural dyeing and he argues (I encountered this from him in another source once) that the thing that is distinctive about synthetic dyes is that they can project a purity of color that natural dyes cannot achieve.

Natural dyes, Bohmer argues, always contain shades of close analgous colors (he doesn't use that precise word) and this makes them more complicated and interesting to the eye. He says this complication does work to "mute" the basic color somewhat and also contributes to "color harmony." Natural colors tend not to clash because they often contain lots of each other in themselves.

So for him it is the "purity" rather than "brightness" that should be the source of suspicion that a given color in a rug might not be from a natural source.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Thanks, John. Very interesting. I wonder whether he was referring to the entire range of synthetic dyes through history (on the issue of purity of color), or to modern dyes only.

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Rich Larkin

Rich -

He doesn't talk about it in this way. Here's his most direct sentence. "Monotone, and therefore always reproducable, colour tones are the goal of dyeing with synthetic dyestuffs and are considered - when acheived - to be a mark of quality."

His book "'Koekboya:' Natural Dyes and Textiles, a Colour Journey from Turkey to India and Beyond, 2002, ISBN 3-936713-01-4, is a very impressive piece of work. I'm thinking of trying to review it on Turkotek, but that's going to be difficult and not just because I know little about dyeing with natural substances. It's a very wide-ranging, quite beautifully produced book that would be hard for me to characterize usefully. But I might still try. Have to read it first.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Ambitious. Bravo!

__________________
Rich Larkin

More Ankara Vakif Rugs

Here are a few more rugs from the Ankara museum. Most are conditionally challenged, but thanks to the tremendous efforts and investments of many restorers, conservators and Turkish officials, these pieces were not only collected and saved, but conserved and put on display. Over the years I have read of the disastrous conditions many of these pieces were kept in and the exhortations of rug collectors and dealers for the Turkish government to take better care of their patrimony. If you think how much money it takes just to conserve one rug, think of the investment that has been incurred to bring this irreplaceable legacy back to the public.

This first piece has the same design of 8-pointed stars in the main border as the earlier brocaded piece. I think it is a Kula or Makri rug:



The next one has an interesting border design:



The panel above the mihrab here has what we have traditionally called a "cloudband", but whose true source of design inspiration is obviously an octopus. Also note the resemblance of the head of the octopus to that Farsi or burning bush Baluch design shown on the Show And Tell thread:



And the main border of this piece somewhat resembles the field devices in Tekke engsis:



Here is a rug with the traditional and common "460" design found in modern Baluch rugs, too:



OK, there is no such thing as the traditional Baluch 460 design. I just made that up. To see if you were paying attention.

And I love this oddball little piece. It has a little birdhouse on a tree:



Patrick Weiler

Sameness

Patrick,

In your last Turkish post there are two rugs, No3 and No5 which display great similarity in colours and their main border, and even something in the form of the minor stripes which to me, seem that they may have been woven by the same weaver - or if not, then perhaps the same workshop or village.

Is this a fairly common occurance to see two very old rugs which remain extant and showing basically the very same colours?

Speculatively,
Marty.

Encouragement

Oh gee everyone, seems Ive generated my usual blankness - come one, surely there others who can see how much the two resemble each other without having to point out all the other similarities?

I thinks its just wonderful to imagine how two rugs woven who knows how many years ago (obviously a LOT!) by possibly the same weaver or whatnot, to arrive in the same place how many years later...

These are two which probably resided somewhere within the precincts of an ancient mosque, maybe having been given by the same person, perhaps at different times, and had been eventually brought/bought out into the wider world where they came together again. There are endless possibilities, but I bet that there would be a fairly decent provenance if they are on public display within or from a museum collection.

Whatd'ya reckon?

Marty.

Hi Marty

I had no trouble seeing the family resemblance between those two rugs once you pointed it out, just didn't have anything useful to say about it. Probably the same for some other readers.

There can be amazing congruence within some kinds of weavings. Perhaps most striking is the so-called Dokhtor-i-Qazi Belouch prayer rugs. Early examples (I doubt that anyone really knows whether this means early, mid or late 19th century for these rugs) are similar in all sorts of seemingly trivial details, and differ significantly only in the filler devices in the area between the mihrab and the borders. There is a similar level of uniformity in Tekke ak-juvals. My recollection is that both have been the subject of salons; a Google search of our archive will probably turn them up pretty easily.

Regards

Steve Price

Thanks Steve, it also probably goes to show just how many old rugs maybe from the same place remain out there.

We used to say at home that there seemed rarely to be two rugs which looked alike (excepting Turkmen pieces), but that idea didnt remain with me very long

These two rugs, to me, will always be brothers, especially because of the colours which remain strong even after all this time, and the treatment of the mirhab. It probably is quite true they were unlikely to be from the same weaver, and near impossible to be conclusively proven, even if worth the finding out, but to me personally, its a wonderful rareity to be able to think it anyway.

Regards,
Marty.

Same Bat Time, Same Bat Place

Marty,

Good eye!

Both of those rugs were probably woven in the same region of central Anatolia, probably within a hundred or so years of each other and within a hundred or so kilometers. The major colors, main borders, large panel above the mihrab, spandrel treatment, mihrab shape and design, and on and on all indicate a similar area of production. Mudjar, Kirsehir, etc.
You will be hard pressed to find one of this age or quality on the market today. Your conjecture that:
"These are two which probably resided somewhere within the precincts of an ancient mosque" is quite likely.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Marty,

I haven't been able to figure out which bunch of rugs it is that has the two similar ones. Apparently, Steve and Patrick figured it out. Which post?

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Rich Larkin

Patrick,

I hate to admit it, but you are a funny guy. I was zeroed in for about a minute on the blue octagon trying to figure out how it resembled the traditional "460" design made eternal by the Baluch. Then my eye dropped to the lower right corner. I do officially protest on behalf of the Baluchi ambassador, however.

I repeat, it is great to see all these varied old Anatolian village rugs, the like of which we haven't seen for the most part. New and old at the same time...a ruggie's dream. Thanks again for the effort.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Similar

Thanks Patrick; although there are many many pieces which resemble each other and can be said to come from the same or similar 'atelier' and/or district, like those from Heriz etc and the Turkmen rugs, with the Caucasians/Shirazi/Isfahans 'district'ly so to speak also having a sameness, I must admit that the rugs from Turkey had not struck me quite in the same way as having so close an appearance between them.

Richard, you were looking at one of the rugs I mentioned, which has the ugly black '460', that one, miss the one above it, and the one above that is the other which I had thought to carry such colour and details which prompted me to think perhaps they came from the same weaver.

Regards,
Marty.

Together Again

Richard,

Here are the two rugs of the now internationally famous "460" type, together once again. I only threw in the Baluch remark to needle the Turkotek "Baluch minority party" members who have been known to filibuster the occasional thread until the original intent of the thread has been abandoned. It could be an attempt to gain Turkotek majority status by showing overwhelming numbers of Baluch rugs until their nefarious intent is succesful. I say we just pander to the Baluch party and hope they remain restive but under control. Otherwise we may find ourselves under seige by, say, the Indo-Persian contingent, or the Sino-Silk party.
I have no idea why that number is on the rug, but it was not removed during conservation - probably because it would have damaged the rug.



Marty, there are some antique rug "types" from Anatolia that are instantly recognizable, such as the Transylvanian rugs, Ushak rugs, Bergama, etc, but most of the really old ones are gone and only a few remain in museums or private collections. Many types were an evolutionary dead end and were no longer made after they went out of fashion or their makers were "removed" from the area. Thus, the remaining few are not often seen in great enough quantities to be recognized as a "type".

I will look through my photos to see if I took any more of this type.

Patrick Weiler

quote:

---

I only threw in the Baluch remark to needle the Turkotek "Baluch minority party" members who have been known to filibuster the occasional thread until the original intent of the thread has been abandoned. It could be an attempt to gain Turkotek majority status by showing overwhelming numbers of Baluch rugs until their nefarious intent is succesful. I say we just pander to the Baluch party and hope they remain restive but under control. Otherwise we may find ourselves under seige by, say, the Indo-Persian contingent, or the Sino-Silk party.

---

Thanks muchly Patrick, seeing them together certainly brings a 'type' into the picture.

Although the two panels above the mihrabs differ in their object, that of the first, which you described, and I think accurately, as an 'octopus', might suggest this particular rug may perhaps come from somewhere closer to the coast than further east.

Although not getting much from the blue panel in the second one alongside, it doesnt detract from the more obvious similarities which bring them together sufficient to maybe call them a 'type', or as I perhaps might wish, products from the same weaver and/or village.

The colours of the two seem so very similar as to have one think the same dyer made them, in which case it would be interesting to know if it was usual for Turkish weavers to often make their own, or more often buy the wool already dyed, from the village weaver.

Even still, if from the local dyer who may have had his product used by a number of different weavers within a locale, we are still unlikely to find out if the rugs were made by the same weaver or not. Might it be determined from an analysis of the structural details which could possibly be procured from the Museum?

Not that I believe it is particularly important, just that sighting their sameness struck a cord with me and niggles, and thinking it might be wonderful to find two products possibly from the same weaver.

Although their condition differs markedly, one having been distressed far more, doesnt really say anything, other than one may be older, or less cared for over the duration of its life.

Looking at the colours, is it possible that two rugs could carry such similiar nuances unless from the same dyer - I mean, did/do dyers have such strict recipies that they can deliver exactly the same colour time and again? And that those colours would age in the same fashion, delivering them to the stage we see them at now? One would think if so, that the wool would also have to have been similar in spin and origin, lanolin content etc for those colours to display so closely today, after possibly centuries.

The idea fascinates me, and its only from my position of total ignorance that I am able to speculate so willingly...

Regards,
Marty.

G'day all,

Aint it amazing that we can looks till the cows come home and still not see something directly in front of our faces ... I have just now noticed that the 'octopussy' rug is also numbered, 765 or 265 possibly; so they should then have come from possibly the same 'picker' or dealers catalogue in the fashion those numbered for the Dutch business in a previous thread on Turkotek ages ago.

What sort of person would destroy the pictorial image of a rug by numbering them on the front, rather than the back! Blimey, there were/are some dopes around arnt there (including moi)!?

So these two may have come from the same origin anyway, heh heh. Yah, ya rugnut, Turkey!

Marty.

Re: Sameness

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marty Grove
Patrick,

In your last Turkish post there are two rugs, No3 and No5 which display great similarity in colours and their main border, and even something in the form of the minor stripes which to me, seem that they may have been woven by the same weaver - or if not, then perhaps the same workshop or village.

Is this a fairly common occurance to see two very old rugs which remain extant and showing basically the very same colours?

Speculatively,
Marty.

---

Hi Haroun

When you post, please overwrite the word "unregistered" in the user name field with your name. Thanks.

I don't think they are done from cartoons. If they were, they would have an axis of symmetry. Although they are more symmetric than most, and the corner resolution is nearly perfect, you can see that the corner resolution was achieved by using a partial motif in the upper and lower horizontal borders of each of them. The latchhooks in the upper part of the field of one are symmetric, as would be expected if done from a cartoon, but the latchhooks in the lower part of the field aren't symmetric in either rug.

Interesting thought, though.

Regards

Steve Price

Phinal Photos

This is the final set of pictures of rugs and kilims from our ICOC trip. These are also from the Ankara Vakif museum. I did not find any more of the Antique Anatolian Marty Grove type.

This one has Transylvanian cartouches in the border, stars in the field and carnations in the cartouches.



The inner border here changes from white to dark blue. It has an Eastern Anatolian color and look. Jim Burns might say it represents a Kurdish rendition of a Persian garden design.



Here we have lotus flowers floating around a lily pad.
(sure, right, another undocumented design attribution)



This Ladik suffered from a cannon blow during one of the more tempestuous times in Turkey. The soldier carrying it died, of course, and was buried at the mosque where the rug was donated. I think. Probably.



Another Baluch with Turkmen-related designs.
OK, it is NOT a Baluch, truce OK?



And, finally, a reminder of how enlightening our journey was. This is a display of lamps at a stall in the Grand Bazaar.



Marty, I am afraid you will have to travel to Ankara yourself to check the backs of those prayer rugs. It may be a while before I return.

Filiberto, I suggest you convene the first Defense Against the Baluchotek party meeting at your eponymous restaurant. I will get a table for two or three, that ought to do it.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Pat,

The first is fabulous, just fabulous and quite early. The third is just a tad below the first, but the other three range from unimpressive to nice but standard variety (as in the Ladik).

In the first, the carnations in profile in the cartouches are unusual. But, then, the whole rug is. Within it, one can trace design techniques back to the Mamluk rugs and forward to contemporary Turkish weavings.

This is why being able to see the centuries of historical carpets in Turkey is such a valuable learning experience.

I'm sorry I missed that trip. One day.

Wendel

Response from Baluchotek

LESS FILLING.

Hi Patrick,

I just love the way those Kurdish weavers did their rugs any old way they felt like, and this one here is a prime example. That border around the three panels looks more like my EEG than a border, and of course they went and did the blue/white switch. And the cockeyed medallions. Wild.

The border of the piece with the eight-lobed devices surrounding the octagon (lily pad) is a winner. Has that been seen often? I think I've seen it before, but not as nicely drawn as this one. (I'm not as up on my Turkish rugs as I should be.)

Coincidentally, my upcoming novel is a thriller based on how a gang of insurgents is trying to infiltrate and take over TurkoTek. The thriller aspect is that there is a brilliant but sinister mole in the picture who is masterminding the effort, but nobody suspects him.

It's Steve!! Notice how he responded to Marty's perfectly innocent question about a couple of similar rugs, and went directly to the Dokhtor-i-Qazi? Wow! Who'da thunk it!?

BTW, what do you know about the provenance of the last rug in the string, just before the picture of all the lamps? I know it isn't Baluch, but do you know what it is? You didn't happen to handle it or inspect it closely, did you?

__________________
Rich Larkin

Hi Rich

You blew my cover. Now I have to kill you. Make an appointment.

Steve Price

I will, Steve, as soon as I've fixed all these slightly used Baluch rugs I've been planning on repairing. Might take awhile.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Double agent, or coming in from the cold.

…or “great tastes”… Patrick, you are doing a great job getting “their” confidence…keep up the good work and continue passing the details of their evil plans. That way, we, Baluchotek nation, will know when to strike, divert, or subsume a line that is threatening to go solo.

I do appreciate it when Wendel, Patrick, et al illustrate why certain village Turkish rugs are better, more attractive than others. Left to view these without a scout, it is hard for me to get a sense of balance that is more than purely impressionistic. I wonder if this is because the borders of Turkish rugs sometimes seem a little overpowering compared to their country cousins? (I actually own one old(?) Bergama prayer rug).

The design of the field of the third rug, with the flowers floating around the lily pad, reminds me of a pattern I think I’ve seen a lot in the more untamed outback Turkmen group rugs, … and the scheme might have occasionally okkurd in the designs of non-Turkmen, unnamed. I’ll forego the analogies.

Patrick, that picture of the Turkish lamps may have answered a question about the field design of a rug I looked at some time ago. It isn’t a great work of art, but…. I don’t know what the rug is, or what the field represents, but the lamps seem reasonable.



In any case, I enjoy seeing rugs that diverge from the main stream of rug collecting, Baluchomania. I certainly enjoy these, a lot more than…say…Halloween gorilla suits, sofa comforters, or macramé. But that is just my opinion…which is one thing that everyone has

Regards, Jack Williams

Jack,

It is not surprising that a lot of these ancient Anatolian designs seem familiar to collectors of more modern "antique" rugs. It is not that they are necessarily the direct ancestors, but that to a great extent they are the only remaining ancient rugs of any quantity and variety remaining for us to compare with. If a similar quantity of equally aged Persian rugs, or Caucasian rugs still existed we may also see vestiges of their designs on modern rugs as well. We do not know either the origins of many of these designs or where the designs traveled to before ending up on our Saryk or Jaf or Kurd or Bijar.
Oh, sorry, or Baluch too.

Richard, that lily pad rug border is definitely striking. The weaver was unable to resolve the corners, so we assume it was a village or rural weaving, perhaps based on a more urban prototype. I would appreciate it if you could research that and report back within the week. After you finish repairing your pile of Baluch rugs.
That last rug has the Yuncu look about it, but there were no tags on any of these rugs at the Ankara museum. It is possible that they plan to add tags later, because the museum was not entirely ready for their Grand Opening. We were allowed a pre-completion visit because of our ICOC connection. Suzan Bayraktaroglu, who gave one of the ICOC academic sessions (on the vakif museum in Tokat) was our guide at the Ankara museum. She is also spearheading the establishing of a dozen General Directorate of Foundations museums to contain vakif donations throughout Turkey.
They were still hanging many of the rugs. We only got to see the smaller rugs and kilims on one upper floor and they were still under construction. We saw piles of larger kilims in one area that were being prepared for hanging and incomplete flooring, lighting, wall finishes etc. It will be a stunning museum for rug enthusiasts when it is complete.
Not to add a political tone to this, but there was a bombing within a block of the museum a couple of weeks after our return, and there was a protest of nearly a million people in Ankara the day we were there over the upcoming elections.
Our bus tour of Central Turkey was a whirlwind of both typical tourism and focused rug stops. From the underground cities of Cappadocia to the Dervish mosque and museum in Konya to the tremendous variety of restaurants (many of which were down narrow alleys, up formidable, narrow stairways, through unmarked doorways) these tourist visits combined with trips to the vakif museums, felt and rug manufacturing facilities, rug stores and markets to result in a very memorable and probably impossible to duplicate experience. We stayed one night in Tokat at a brand new hotel that was not even open yet to the public. We rode through snow in the mountains. We took a wrong turn and spent a couple of hours on the wrong road - being stopped once at a government checkpoint looking for who knows what. But, at all times we were kept safe by the Evil Eye protector jangling at the front of the bus.

Patrick Weiler

Kurdotek

Jack,

The picture of the rug you posted was not visible (at least to me) until just now. I do not know if you have an attribution. But, of course, I do!

Baluch, 18th century.

Oops, wrong thread!
I have a Kurdish piece with the same inimitable motif in the major border of your piece.
I call it the "pencil" motif.

It looks like the stub of a pencil, with a point at one end and an eraser at the other.

"History of the Lead Pencil
Lead pencils, of course, contain no lead. The writing medium is graphite, a form of carbon. Writing instruments made from sticks cut from high quality natural graphite mined in England and wrapped in string or inserted in wooden tubes came into use around 1560. [1] By 1662, pencils were produced in Nuremberg, in what is now Germany, apparently by gluing sticks of graphite into cases assembled from two pieces of wood. By the early 18th century, wood-cased pencils that did not require the high quality graphite available only in England were produced in Nuremberg with cores made by mixing graphite, sulfur and various binding agents. These German pencils were inferior to English pencils, which continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s."
http://www.officemuseum.com/pencil_history.htm

I will download a photo or two in the next day or so.

Patrick Weiler

Hey Jack,

Are you kidding me? If that isn't a work of art, what is? What is it, by the way. How do you feel about the colors? How about a little info on the materials, weave, size? Can we get a look at the back?

__________________
Rich Larkin

OMG...someone else likes it?

Rich,

I hope you are serious, because your interest and appreciation will restore my confidence in my eye. On this piece, to my everlast sorrow I listened to my brother who sniffed that it was not traditional anything therefore was probably just some polygot rag...basically he panned the piece...after I spotted it early in an obscure location and had watched it for a week. My confidence shattered, I didn't bid and it went for a song...to my regret.

I know nothing about it, though I know the dealer. my other excuse was that I had used my budgeted money on two really terrific Timuris that week...however, that is lame at best.

If as Patrick says, it contains the rare weaver's "pencil and eraser" emblem and presumably uses that methodology, repairing weaving mistakes must be simple. Here is an example of using the eraser repair method to fix a border. Too bad the method cannot be applied to some of the bang-a-gong things we have reviewed lately.



Regards, Jack Williams

Hi Pat -

Just to follow the main line here (this is the "pencil thread" isn't it?) there's a 500-page "History of the Pencil," by a Duke professor. Good read.

http://www.amazon.com/Pencil-History-Design-Circumstance/dp/0679734155

This book is full of odd pencil facts. Thoreau's family were pencil manufacturers and Thoreau himself held patents to some pencil-making machines.

Thoreau was a great list maker, and never without a pencil, but his list of what to take to Walden Pond does not include a pencil. Maybe too obvious.

When you finish that one you can move to his history of the bookcase. Another thriller.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hey Jack,

Well, I was probably spoofing slightly when I said it was a monumental work of art, but that rug in a way is what I used to live to find. Mind you, I said, "In a way." Of course, what I mainly wanted was a first class Baluch, like any civilized hobbyist. But not too far back on the list would be any rug with the following qualities:
-never saw anything like it (mysterious origin);
-interesting design (a bit "off the wall" constituting a bonus);
-could be pretty old;
-but if the color was atrocious, forget it.
[also had to be cheap!]
The rug in your picture seems to have most of the necessary qualities. I assume it has cotton foundations. It's wild.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Write this down

Richard,

Your list of attributes for adding a piece to your collection is a lot like mine, although for some inexplicable reason a number of my rugs also have another characteristic. They make seasoned, wealthy, experienced collectors Wince, Gag and Vomit.

(Hmmm, sounds like a law firm)

Here is the border of my Kurdish piece with the "pencil" motif.



It is probably just a geometric version of a reciprocating flower and vine type of design. When I bought this piece, that border design looked unusual. For a few years now, I have been looking for it again and it always appears on Kurdish pieces.



Jack, in the rug you posted these "pencils" have become flowers on a tree. (pencils on a post?)
Those balloon-like things could very well be lamps. Lots of prayer rugs have a lamp in them, but those lamps are not quite like these.
I have seen several of this type of rug you have posted and they mostly seem to be from the early 20th century. There is probably a wealthy, eccentric collector buying all of them up. It is not me, because I am not wealthy.......


Patrick Weiler

Patrick,

The wincing/vomiting phenomenon crops up in my experience, too, but it happens in the post acquisition phase. I was referring specifically to my stalking criteria.

It brings to mind the Kurdish non-Jaf rug corner I posted with a few others a few days ago. There is a dubious story that goes with that. I'll get into it some day, perhaps when the "My most preposterous rug acquisition" salon goes up. It certainly shows strong under the wincing rubric.

__________________
Rich Larkin