Welcome to the Salon
Hallo Everybody, thanks to all of you for coming along and taking an interest, and special thanks to Steve for the editing of the manuscript and for getting it up and running. As I can see the salon has had a vivacious start, and many concerns and questions have been expressed already. I will try to address them as good as I can, some directly here, others in the threads you have already started. Before I come to this, I would like to say thank you to two more people who I am sure have not the slightest idea that I feel grateful to them at all. There is Brian Moore who started that wonderful thread with the title ‘Nude Figures on Rugs’ that prompted me to get the flat-weave out of its trunk, and Loretta Boxdorfer of the Armenian Rug Society who contributed in the thread and who gave me the decisive cue that got me started in researching the rug. This is the link to the thread: http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00059/nude.htm . Little did I know then what I was in for. Martin, in taking up your idiom, yes I am taking you on a ride, by a high track through a wild landscape. If you are willing, you might enjoy it, if you are not, you probably feel every bump of it. These are images from the retreat area of the Mountain Nestorians in the High Kurdish Taurus (all etchings from Wigram and Wigram, 1914 - see bibliography): One of the four rivers of Eden; the Zab entering the Tyari Gorges: Bridge near the village of Alot on the Lower Zab: Here we have a group of bear hunters in the village of Qudshanis, where also was the seat of the Patriarch. Womenfolk stay in the background. Both sexes wear the same conical hat that has an appearance in the rug as well: Back soon, Horst |
Hi Horst, You will be surprised to know that it was mostly yours truly for getting your Salon up and running through several months of corrections and revisions, as Steve was very busy. It was a hard job but somebody had to do it and you don’t need to thank me for that anyway. Regards, |
Hi Filiberto, this is less than half correct and I think we should refrain from private matters. Regards, Horst |
Hi Horst Beautiful photos. And I am sure it will be a bumpy road, you have just here introduced yet a another small bump for me: Quote:
I see no conical hat? I know, a small bump in the hills you would like your readers to follow through your vision, but you sure even in the smallest details do demand more imagination than I am able to deliver best Martin |
Hi Martin, both sexes wear the same conical hat in the picture, but in the rug we have a birth-giving Mary only that wears no conical hat on her slightly conical head. I wished I could manage with two images on my screen, to make judgements easier. You are right. Thanks for correcting me. Horst |
Hi Horst, Quote:
Ask Steve, then. |
Sorry this might be seen as nitpicking, but i do have a general
point The bumpy hat to me demonstrates your problem: the Christian mountain Nestorians wear a multisex hat, ergo you put a non-existing hat on the rug because you are sure its made by Christian mountain Nestorians, it turns out there is no hat, then you turn the wide and flat head into a conical shape. And I suppose the multisex aspect is preparing for an idea/argument of the figure being female Mary, even though the genital area looks rather male :) Horst you are simply not interested in looking at the actual rug you have at hand - you are interested in your preconceived ideas. And from there on you lead us to desperately looking for 2-3th century "scepter bar", "fishes", "vesica piscis", "birds", "horned rhombus", "tiara","rosette s encompassing the letters forming the word ΙΧΘΥΣ" all encoding a theologically highly sophisticated composite symbol in your late 19th-early 20th soumak? A symbol of which there is no whatsoever historical visual evidence except in the rug you have at hand where hats come and go as you like. To me this is preposterous bumpy. Martin |
Martin, you don’t need to apologize. I perfectly understand your line of thinking, only your presumption is wrong. In the years since the 2006 thread (then I first thought it was a couple, Adam and Eve, because I had not looked at the rug in its trunk for many years, only changing moth-balls once in a decade) I’ve been looking at the composite symbol and Mary many times, I have installed it as a screen saver. The picture I have looked at only once before, and that was about five years ago. Yesterday, in preparing the pictures for this thread I realized for the first time that there were women in the second row wearing the same unisex hat. It never went into the theory building, which was more or less done three years ago. No preconceived ideas, only a little perceptional problem. I am glad you solved it for me. “even though the genital area looks rather male“ - Mary takes the ancient crouching birth giving position even today familiar to many women all over the world. In relation to arms, thighs and lower leg, what you perceive as a genital is much more proportionate to a baby’s head than to a penis. It seems you are having a bigger perceptional problem than me. Well, if art fails, structure might tell. You know, I think you send us your meassures, and then we have a better basis for judgement. Cheers, Horst |
Horst, even if the figures should be females, and even if they should
be in a birth-giving position how on earth did you arrive at the
perception that these 8 girls should be Mary depicted in the spirit of
“strict compliance of early Nestorian Christians to the Mosaic law and
its ban on idols, that knew few exceptions”? 8 birth-giving Marys I
would say thats one hell of an exception to Mosaic law Cheers |
Hi Horst, Quote:
Jokes apart, if you take the human representation on your sumac as anatomically correct, then it is a monster! It has neck, torso and legs of the same width. The head is wider than the torso too. Selecting only details convenient to your thesis while ignoring the big picture is not a good research method and it doesn’t conform to the high standard of scholarship to which you believe to belong. Regards, |
Would actually have skipped this, but what the heck: The question
regarding nude human depictions and gender could probably have been
something that could have been looked seriously into (for example lots of
comparable material in the old 2006 thread). Interesting that Horst when
critically questioned immediately turns it to a question about me sending
him measurements of my private parts - very bad internet etiquette.
and tragically comical when Horst a bit earlier in thread has posted this :) Quote:
|
And its kind of strange that even Horst’s own sources totally
disqualifies his rug with its “birth-giving Marys” as a possibly Nestorian
alter rug. Here a quote from Wigram W A, Wigram E T (1914) The Cradle of
Mankind (my underlining): Close by the church is the cell in the cliff (a small natural cavern) that was the hermitage of Mar B'Ishu, the Rabban. And here a freakish water-drip has formed a stalactite which has a rude resemblance to the human figure; and which is accordingly reverenced as a statue of the saint formed by angel's hands. Considered as a work of art, the statue does not do any great credit to its supernatural artists ; but it is a most exceptional thing to find an image of any sort, or of any origin, reverenced by any member of the Nestorian Church. No Evangelical has a greater dislike for anything that savours of "idolatry". Even pictures are rigorously forbidden in their churches; though curtains and the like are employed to as great an extent as their means allow. As an "ornament" only the plain cross (in wood or metal), with no figure upon it, is permitted ; and this, lying on a table at the entry of the sanctuary, is kissed by every worshipper as he enters the church. No other sacred symbol is ever introduced. Here a simple and plain cross on Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI born 1887 in Qudshanis (a plain and simple cross of course with no resemblance whatsoever to the Qashqa'i medallion of Horst's rug - or a composite symbol with "scepter bar", "fishes", "vesica piscis", "birds", "horns" or any other "idolatry" ) best Martin |