Afshar bagface
 

I thought this might be interesting to you.

Gee whiz!
 

Rogwyn,

This is the first time I have ever seen
a name like Rogwyn.

Oh, and the bag is quite different also.
It is interesting that many names in most cultures indicate gender, yet some are used by both, such as my nickname Pat, Jo/Joe, Leigh/Lee, Morgan, etc.
When encountering names from other cultures and languages, one is unsure.
Is your name pronounced with a soft G as in Roger, or a hard G as in Gary?
It would help to know when we run into each other in the grocery store!
Meanwhile, now that the formalities are over, your bag is quite unusual in the design. The cross shape consists of five diamonds, and the border design is exactly the same five diamonds, but with four more, one in each corner, to make a diamond box.
It looks most like a Bakhtiari design, but could be Luri. The treatment of the closure tabs looks SW Persian. Hard to tell what size it is, but I would guess around 35cm square.
As we will make clear, or cloudy, in this salon, it is often difficult to differentiate one tribal piece from another. Seeing the other side of the bag may be instructive.

Patrick Weiler

Bakh to ya
 

Rogwyn,

Here is an example of a Bakhtiari piece, in a format sometimes called a spoon or ladle bag. It is 10"x17" (25x44cm), which is pretty large. It could hold a bunch of ladles and other household goods. These are made from a single, almost square panel, decorated in soumak and diagonal wrapping, folded in half and sewn together. This is sewn together with a bristly goat hair overcast plait-stitch join at the bottom and side.





As this picture is oriented in a horizontal fashion, the right hand edge is the "top" of the bag. Note that the goat hair overcasting is more worn here, from use in the field.
I am not aware of any Afshar versions of this type of bag. The design consists of diagonal rows of diamonds which are made from small diamonds surrounding a larger diamond with another small diamond at the center. Similar to your piece, each tiny diamond has a different-colored center. My piece also has a column of supplemental-weft designs on the long edge on both front and back. The front and back would have been the top and bottom of the panel when it was woven. Your bag looks to have a row of small supplemental-weft white diamonds at the top and bottom also.

Patrick Weiler

Afshar Soumak bag
 

Hello to all readers of this website:

For Patrick's edification my name is an old Middle Age family name
and it is pronounced like Roger.

Now that is clear I'd like to express my opinion, and not with a question mark, that this khorjin is Afshar. The wool and colors fit to this designation. Of course I am not 100 percent sure but would be surprised to learn it is not. The size is about 54 cm X 54cm.

The borders are definitely soumak stitch but the field pattern is not. It appears to be 'inlaid', which was also the description supplied to one of the khorjin I saw in a link provided in the Salon.

Seeing that photo is why I decided to email Dr. Price and send him the photo of the Afshar khorjin from my collection. I hope others will enjoy seeing it as much as I do.

I also have a number of other quite early soumak bags. They are a favorite type of weave I like to collect.
Rogwin

Name that bag
 

Rogwyn,

First, the bag. The colorful border does have an Afshar look.
I will post a picture of what may also be an Afshar bag with soumak designs.
Your piece does not look like inlaid brocading, but more like soumak and diagonal wrapping. Inlaid brocading is mostly found in Turkmen tent bands and Anatolian Turkmen horse covers according to Marla Mallett, although it is also used in one of my Khamseh cradles, and I have seen it on some Qashqai work also. It has a typical appearance where the front-floating pattern threads go under the warp, leaving ribs of warps between the floats of color on the surface. You could take a look at the backside of the bag face. Inlaid brocade colored threads would not be visible on the back like soumak colors are, because the brocading is done in an open shed, with the colored threads going over and under only the upper set of warps.
The closure tabs look like complementary weft.
Thank you for the information about your name.
It is always interesting to learn about such things. Especially that it is a name from the Middle Ages. Many names from that period did not get passed on.
From WiseGeek.org:
"In just three short years between 1347 and 1350, one in every four people in Europe died in one of the worst natural disasters in history: the Black Plague. By 1352, it would wipe out a third of Europe's population, or 25 million people, and would continue to spread death off and on for the next 300 years."
Korea also has a name problem, with 20% named Kim. From International Business Times:
“For much of Korean history, only the elite had surnames,” Baker said. “Those elites tended to adopt surnames that would make it plausible to claim that they had ancestors from China, then the country Koreans admired the most. There were only a few such surnames. So, when commoners began acquiring surnames [later], they grabbed one already in use to bask in the prestige of the families that were already using that surname.”
"Korean laws long banned men and women with the same surname from marrying each other – though this prohibition no longer exists. “In practice, people with the same surname and bon-gwan (region) do not marry each other."

Patrick Weiler

White Ground Bags
 

Rogwyn,

Here are a couple of white-ground bags. On both of them, the ground color is white cotton, with the white designs also cotton. I am not able to tell from the photograph if yours is cotton or wool.
I have considered the first bag, a spoon or ladle bag, to be Luri, but it could also be Khamseh or Afshar. It is 11"x18" (28x46cm) and has a light blue that is often found in older Afshar and Khamseh pieces.
The border has a Khamseh look, of a meandering vine, but with the flowers square in shape. It is done in countered soumak and diagonal wrapping.




The light blue color also is cotton.
The back is plainweave, but curiously constructed, with a section of warps in goat hair and with possibly tamghas (tribal seal, brand, etc) woven into it for good luck or protection.





Here is a picture from a Khamseh rug with a squared floral meander border:




And a Khamseh/Qashqai bagface from the ACOR8 presentation of tribal bags by Ann Nicholas and Richard Blumenthal. The floral border is quite geometricized. The ACOR photographs can be found on Jozan.net here:http://www.jozan.net/2006/ACOR8-Tribal-bags.asp





The next piece is 16"x15" (41x38cm), with a tightly woven plain weave cotton ground weave and countered soumak decoration. Most soumak weavings have the entire ground covered, but this one and yours leave much of the ground bare. In this bag, there are complementary weft rows bordering the closure tabs and bordering each row of soumak, the ground wefts are wool of different colors.





This back is completely plain except for the remnants of goat-hair closure loops.





My first impression is Bakhtiari because of the figures on the white ground rows, but as with many other Persian tribal weavings, an accurate attribution is questionable.
Here is another bag from the ACOR8 presentation, labeled Afshar. It has a similar shape to the ladle or spoon bag in this post and the Bakhtiari ladle bag from my post #3. It looks to be all wool with soumak designs:





All three of these ladle bags were woven in one piece, folded vertically and sewn closed on the bottom and side. Nearly every other small chanteh or single bag is woven vertically and folded horizontally. I have one example of a chanteh that was made like these ladle bags and have never seen another.

Patrick Weiler

Here is a picture of my soumak where the back side of the field and borders are visible, so Patrick and others can see how the technique I described as inlaid looks.


The border is definitely soumak stitch and the field appears different. This is why I described it as inlaid. The thin red string and tag you can see is my inventory tag.


Kind regards,

Rogwyn

picky picky
 

Rogwyn,

Thank you for posting the close up. The bands on what is probably the back of the bag, of blue/white and above it brown/white, look like pick-and-pick, where the two colors of wefts alternate.
The back of the bagface shows that the cross-shaped designs are not discontinuous weft inserts also known as tapestry inlay, because that would mean the colored designs would be part of the base fabric. And the reverse designs which appear on the back rule out inlaid brocading.
In your piece the colored cross-shapes appear to be colored threads floating over then back under the warps, with rows of weft above and below them. This would probably most closely correspond with overlay-underlay brocading. Brocade wefts usually go over three warps and under three, called a 3-3 float sequence, but can have different sequences.
Marla Mallett would be able to discern with certainty what the construction is.
This doesn't help us figure out for sure who wove it, though. Afshars farther east often used weft substitution, while Bakhtiari and Luri weavers made lots of soumak pieces, often with pile at the bottom and corners. I will post one of their pieces to compare.

Patrick Weiler

I read Patrick's attempt to understand the weave of the khorjin and believe his ideas about how the field design has been constructed are incorrect. Here is the best and largest photo my digital camera can produce. I believe it shows the inlaid technique I mentioned.

This khorjin is not Luri nor Baktiari, as Patrick has suggested. I am surprised he cannot accept the Afshar label and is continuing to believe it is wrong.

Thank you and have a nice day

RvM

Very Nice
 

Rogwyn,

These are very nice close up photos of your bag.
The technique does look like soumak after all.
In most soumak pieces the field is more or less completely covered, but here there are only these cross-shaped designs elegantly arranged with expansive space between them.
It is like a Miles Davis ballad solo. Jeff Sedlick, writing about the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, commented, "Davis puts as much emphasis on the silence between the notes…"
As for the attribution to Afshar, your assertion is the most valid. The Bakhtiari piece I posted just happens to have a similar motif and construction. We can only take each piece we find that seems to be related and compare them, hopefully finding enough similarities to achieve the critical mass needed to be optimistically certain of the likely origin.
The topic of the salon is about mis-attributed Khamseh pieces, but the bigger picture is that probably a significant percentage of what collectors and dealers think regarding tribal attribution is incorrect. And it is mostly due to the lack of accurate, first-hand information from when these things started coming to the collector market over 40 years ago. The pickers didn't want their competition snatching their livelihood out from under them, so they didn't say where or from which tribe they got their merchandise. And the front-line collectors, roaming the dark and dusty bazaars of Tabriz and Tehran and Shiraz, weren't trained anthropologists or archeologists. They were often highly accomplished artists, educators, foreign service professionals, business people and others who were fascinated by these wonderful, colorful, tactile and useful objects which would otherwise be discarded into the trash and rot away forever unknown.
Oh, and there was the ocassional pot smoking hippie, too.

Patrick Weiler

Fuzzy photos along with an unconventional wrapping method have combined to cause confusion about the structure here. It is not any kind of “inlay”—whether tapestry inlay or inlaid brocading. It is, as Patrick has said, soumak wrapping on an open ground. The confusion occurs because it is quite sloppy soumak, with MOST of the upward floats occurring on the front of the fabric rather than on the back side, as is usual. For a right-handed weaver, these photos are upside down; if the photos are reversed 180 degrees, we can follow the sequences.

This is such an odd perversion of a standard technique, that it would be useful indeed if other pieces with the same anomaly were to be found.

Marla

Here are three photos which I think make the techniques clearer.

As for Marla's comments about the technique being sloppy, I would have to disagree. Maybe her computer screen will now show her this is far from the truth. It should be clear the chevron border is soumak but the field and the other border are definitely not soumak. I always wondered what to call this technique and "inlaid" appears to solve the problem.

The bagface is in my other home so I cannot take any more or better pictures and unfortunately I will not be going there until the summer comes around. I hope this will end the speculation about the techniques used to create this khorjin.

As for it being Afshar I am quite positive this attribution is correct. And until someone can prove different I imagine this will have to be accepted by one and all. I should also say there is no other khorjin like it that I can find in the literature or numerous auction catalogs I have collected.

Rogwyn

Rogwyn,

I believe what Marla is describing is in your latest pictures where the colored threads in the field move in a diagonal fashion, and in the earlier closeup of the back there is a vertical move of the red near the bottom and a diagonal move of the red near the top, they are above the surface of the weaving and going from one row of that color to the next above (or below) row where the color is next used.
This is what she describes as floating.
Searching about for analogs I found this piece from an exhibition in 2007 at the Collins Gallery.





It combines a version of the diamond-cross motif in the side major borders and also a chevron design, in pile, at the bottom of the face of this opened double khorjin. Not to say that yours is related by tribe, but there is a relation to a couple of the design features. We know that of all the tribes, the Afshar reside in more locations in Iran than the others do. The Kurds have been spread around some, but Afshars are found from Khorasan to Veramin, Mazandaran, Azerbaijan, Kerman and Zanjan. They may have provided these designs to the Bakhtiari.

Patrick Weiler

Hi folks,

I think this Qashqa'i bag (that's currently on the market ) bears some interesting similarities to Rogwyn's bag face.








Joel Greifinger

Hi all,

Why not, I'll add my two cents worth.

I agree that if you look at the closures of the bag in question, the first thing that comes to mind is Afshar. Superficially, the colors may give a similar impression.

However, many weaving tribes use a light ground with an array of colors. The selvage treatment is not unique to Afshar work. It is commonly seen on Shahsevan, Lori, Khamseh, and Qashqai pieces as well. The diamond grid in the border is also seen on Khamseh pieces from Kerman (in Hull & Luczyz-Wyhowska). The colors are commonly seen in Khamseh and Qashqai flatweaves.

But more importantly, the open plainweave and sparse decoration are very common in Khamseh, Luri, and - especially - Qashqai pieces and to my personal experience, unknown in Afshar pieces. While I can see that our contributor feels sound in his position, I disagree entirely with an Afshar attribution. I don't think it is Bakhtiari-Lor; no pile at the bottom and the palette is missing the requisite darker purples and blues. My vote is Qashqai. A couple examples below.


















Regards
Chuck Wagner

It's Color not Design
 

Hello:

Thanks to Joel and Chuck for their thoughtful, but incorrect, assumptions concerning the attribution of my soumak khorjin.

As we all should realize designs traveled over many hundreds and even thousands of kilometers. They also traveled over decades and centuries.

Therefore they are not very useful when trying to determine where or who produced a weaving, and even less so when trying to determine this for an unusual or unique one.

The colors and range we can see in my khorjin are much different than any of those in the ones that have been added to this discussion.

But more conclusive is the similarity these color have to pre-1850 Afshar knotted pile weavings.

Also the handle of the wool seems like some of the older Afshar weavings I have seen in person and touched.

Another clue might be the use of the unusual technique that I have labeled inlaid for the inner border and field while the more prominent outer chevron border is umistakably normal soumak stitch.

I will be the first to acknowledge my Afshar provenance is not 100 percent positive. However, I will also be the first to question why readers and contributors to www.turkotek.com refuse to agree Afshar is the most probable.

One more thought I should add is the age of my khorjin. It is far earlier than any of those readers have suggested are similar.

I believe this age difference complicates knowing who and where it was made because it is sure the earlier a tribal weaving the harder it is to attribute. Also the older ones have fewer other examples for us to study and to compare.

I think it is obvious the weaver of the bagface Joel pictured, which seems to be the closes, was making a later version of mine. Perhaps there are others but I have not been able to find them.

Rogwyn

Rogwyn

What makes you certain that your piece predates 1850? Your belief that it must be Afshar appears to rest squarely on that. Personally, I tend to give little weight to age attributions, which seem to seldom have much more basis than marketplace lore.

Steve Price

A Doubtful Steve
 

Hello Steve:

Let me briefly address your comment above.

The reality I or anyone else cannot positively prove a khorjin like mine is, or is not, pre-1850 is a fact we all have to face.

But there are some signs and really more than not that point to this being the case.

The first is the size which is 54cm X 54cm. This is in keeping with other pre-1850 soumak khorjin and unlike post-1850 ones that are invariably smaller.

Patrick's guess 30cm X 30cm was based I believe on such a fact. Later knorjin and especially soumak ones are usually that smaller size and not the larger size the Afshar one has. Let me also say larger than circa 50cm X 50cm soumak bags are also more likely post-1850 than pre-1850.

Second is the elegant uncluttered with secondary motifs design the field of the Afshar khorjin has.

Third is the varied number of colors and hard to produce ones like yellow and green it has.

Fourth is the absence of pile knotted panels usually seen on Persianate khorjins.

Fifth is the lack of cotton. This to me is a significant one as cotton is not as waterproof and water resistant as wool is especially when the wool is tightly spun.

Sixth is the wool which has a texture like that in early Afshar weavings I have seen and handled. The wool is unlike any Quashgai, Lori or Baktiari weavings I have seen. So are the colors.

Therefore to use the American expression "If it walks, quacks and smells like a duck it must be a duck"!

I perfectly understand your reservations but if you consider the pointers above I think you might come around to agree with my calling it Afshar and pre-1850.

Enjoy your shortened day now that the clocks in America have been moved one hour in reverse.

Hi Rogwyn

Your argument continues to be based on the characteristics of pre-1850 Afshar material, which are actually unknowable. Is there even one Afshar khorjin that can be documented to have been woven before 1850? How many documented examples do you think it would take to generate a reasonably reliable set of criteria for identifying others? How do you know that any of the ones you've handled are as old as you think they are?

I don't have much patience for taking this sort of speculation as the basis for anything. May I suggest bringing your piece to Jack Cassin's website? He enjoys fantasy date attributions and would probably make a better discussion partner for you than anyone here.

Setting the clocks back an hour gave me an extra hour of sleep, which makes me less disagreeable than usual.

Regards

Steve Price

Rogwyn or Rogwin?
 

Dear Mr. van Myles,

Thanks for explaining the pronunciation of your name.

Before you go, can you clarify whether it is spelled 'Rogwyn' or, as you signed yourself in post #4, 'Rogwin'?

Joel Greifinger

To Steve and Joel
 

Hello Joel:

I emailed Steve about my name. It is Rogwyn but long ago and to simplify its pronunciation I began to use Rogwin. Hope that explains it.

Hello doubting Steve:

First off I never said I had seen or handled any pre-1850 AFSHAR Soumaks. I did comment on handling several pre-1850 Afshar weavings which more exactly were rugs.

And second I did readily admit no one knows the 100 percent positive date of any pre-1850 tribal weaving.

Taking the above into consideration I do repeat and believe my khorjin is Afshar and is pre-1850.

In my last posting I listed six points which I believe verify these beliefs.

What more can I add?

Nothing that will not be more of the same.

But once again the wool quality and coloration do look Afshar and early rather than late.

And the larger size, the two different borders format without the standard main and two minor borders, the elegant and simple yet complex and sophisticated design, the use of two different weft wrapping techniques, the lack of cotton, and the so far as I know unique design in the field are all pointers toward an earlier date than a later one.

Since you are doubtful, Steve, please explain what criteria can you list that would prove my date and attribution incorrect.

It is easy to say no, Rogwyn is wrong.

And since you obviously don't believe what I have given as evidence will you please give me your evidence to prove me wrong and to back up your position?

I am not interested in a big fight over this but you are the one who is creating it so now please back up your position.

Hi Rogwyn

I've offered no attribution (age or tribal) of your bagface, and have no more obligation to prove that you're mistaken than I would if you proposed that it was woven by aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. I find your evidence unconvincing, and I've said why. I'll expand on that a bit, though.

Four of your six criteria are based on characteristics that you believe to be common in pre-1850 Afshar khorjin. You have no evidence beyond marketplace lore that you've ever seen or handled a pre-1850 khorjin or even that you've ever met anyone who has done so. The other two criteria are ad hoc variants on, "I like really old rugs. I like the colors and drawing of these. Therefore, they are really old rugs." To make a long story short, you've adopted criteria that have no foundation in fact.

Your bagface might be Afshar, might not be (I think it probably is). It might be pre-1850, might be mid-to-late 20th century. I think its age is unknowable. You think you know it. I've got no dog in this fight, and don't much care whether your attribution is right or not. I do care about running a venue in which criteria for attribution can be presented and debated, and our conversation makes me think that this goal is being met. I'm glad you presented your arguments; perhaps some of our readers find them convincing or even compelling.

I really do think you'll find Jack Cassin to be more sympathetic to your argument. His thought patterns are much more like yours than mine are.

Steve Price

Dog in the fight
 

Steve:

You have now pushed me into the position of trying to find some common ground here but your denials and the logic behind them that you seem to feel is reliable are destroying any chance to reach that goal.

If you think the khorjin is Afshar what's then the problem? Why are you expressing doubt when from your own admission you think it is?

Are you playing the devil's advocate? If so then again I'd ask why. What is the reason to create dissension when harmony is a better frame?

As for the age? Do you sincerely think it is to quote you "mid - to- late 20th century"? If you really do I suggest you need immediate help.

Show me another all wool Persianate (and my khorjin surely is Persian) weft wrapping (soumak) khorjin with real green and real yellow that is post 1850. Or do you prefer middle 19th century as an age marker?

Rug collecting is far from science or mathematics. But there is some solid ground. The most sure is through careful comparison, and comparing my khorjin with the numerous other Persianate weft wrapped examples shows several points.

The most important being that my khorjin has early colors, an early size and format, and early field motif.

So would you be happier for me to say my khorjin is early rather than pre-1850 or pre-middle of the 19th century?

And for argument's sake if my khorjin was yours how would you describe it and its age?

For someone who has quote unquote "no dog in this fight" you sure are acting like you do.

And I will consider your suggestion to take my khorjin and go to Jack Cassin's website www.rugkazbah.com. But since this is Rogwyn's first efforts at internet rug posting I am not so sure this is the type of activity I want or need to be involved with.

Please remember I initially posted here because of the "inlaid" description one of the khorjin mentioned in the Salon received and the way it reminded me of the technique used in my khorjin's field.

I am not interested in a new career as an internet poster to oriental rug sites. I prefer learning rather than showing others what I have learned.

Hi Rogwyn

I think your khorjin is most likely Afshar, but the possibility that it has some other south Persian origin isn't eliminated. If it was mine, that's how I'd describe it.

I don't think it's mid-to-late 20th century, and my best guess is that it's late 19th/early 20th century. That's just a guess, though. Your earlier attribution is based on characteristics that you insist are only found on pre-1850 pieces. Since there isn't a single extant south Persian soumak khorjin documented to be pre-1850 from which pre-1850 characteristics can be extracted, neither you nor anyone else knows whether your claim is fact or myth.

Steve Price

Oops, remove foot from mouth
 

I made a statement early in this thread, when discussing the Bakhtiari soumak spoon/ladle bag:
"I am not aware of any Afshar versions of this type of bag."
There certainly are bags in this format woven by Afshars. I happen to have one. I just said that to see if anyone was paying attention.






They are also called spindle bags. Woven and then folded in half and sewn along the bottom and up the side, they make a versatile, deep bag.
This one uses several rows of two-color chaining and then weft substitution at both top and bottom. The field includes vertical and horizontal lines of soumak wrapping, with the diamond and zig-zag motifs of distinctive horizontal wrapping with vertical floats. With soumak, usually the floats are on the reverse of the bag, but in this type of weave the floats are integral to the design on the front.
The plain weave ground warps and wefts are a burlap-color wool.
The white outlines of several crosses are cotton.
Here is one from a Pinterest post taken from an old rugrabbit offering:





And another Pinterest post showing a Qashqai warp-float weave version:




There are Kurdish and probably Khamseh versions also.

To tie into an earlier post, #14, Joel showed a Qashqai version of a square khorjin quite similar in design to Rogwyn's. I noticed that it has the same tiny white circle weft-float border at the bottom as Rogwyn's piece has at the top. It is quite fascinating how designs can be transferred, along with minor details like even the weft-float border, inter-tribally, over large distances and time.

Patrick Weiler

Perfection in an imperfect world
 

Hello:

I titled this post Perfection in an imperfect world but it could well carry another and that is Knowing in an unknowable world.

I think everyone here, including Steve, knows there are few if any facts in the oriental rug feild, particularly concerning tribal rugs.

Therefore he who demands facts will be someone who cannot partake in any discussion other than to say No or someone who says I don’t believe or someone who says So what.

This clearly is Steve’s position.

I think this position is a foolish one because it throws out the baby with the bath water and discounts countless near and almost facts oriental rug students and researchers have uncovered and publicized.

It also flies in the face of equally numerous published examples where the application of such discoveries and research has allowed certain knowledge to be acquired.

Unfortunately Steve calls this marketplace lore that again throws out the baby with the bathwater.

Seems to me a thinking individual who is well versed in this idiom can differentiate between blatant marketplace lore and sound research and discovery.

For example when a piece has synthetic dye we all know it is post middle 19th century and when it doesn’t the chances are far greater that it is pre middle 19th century than not.

Then if this piece has a design that appears through comparison with others of a similar type to be formative and not degenerate chances are greater the former and not the latter is the case.

This is about as sound a ground as possible to determine the age of a weaving. At best it is a relative age that then can be related to a calendar one.

Determining where or who made a weaving is more tricky but by the same type of examination, comparison and conclusion it too can also be reasonably solved.

Wool quality can be felt and even scientifically determined with certain variants known. Colors from dyestuffs can be seen and also scientifically determined. It is by the application of these two criteria that the who and that the where can be often times become fairly well known.

So in reality there are far more tools to solve the age, the who and the where problem than Steve’s blanket and derisive statement of marketplace lore.

Now back to the Afshar khorjin I posted.

The six points I listed in post #18 are not as Steve has characterized them.

They are far more indicative and significant than guesswork, marketplace lore or opinion.

They are not silly nor are they errant arrows shot in the dark as Steve’s pronouncement can be understood to have classed them.

Here they are again.

The first is the size which is 54cm X 54cm. This is in keeping with other pre-1850 soumak khorjin and unlike post-1850 ones that are invariably smaller.

I think experienced collectors and interested parties would have to agree the earliest soumak bag are larger, in the 50-60 cm square range, than the smaller ones that re in the 25-40 cm square range.

I should add here that when I write early it roughly means pre1850 and late it means post1850. There are literally hundreds of published weft wrapped khorjin examples and anyone who has studied them would have to agree.

How old are the early ones and how late are the late ones? This is unanswerable but if we take the middle 19th century as a point of reference we can then place the early ones BEFORE that date and the later ones AFTER that date. This is why I dated the Afshar khorjin pre-1850.

Second is the elegant uncluttered with secondary motifs design the field of the Afshar khorjin has. This is more subjective as elegant and uncluttered cannot be measured exactly like centimeters can. But we all know what elegant looks like and even more how uncluttered does.

Third is the varied number of colors, their saturated and rich appearance and inclusion of hard to produce ones like yellow and green. This point is another measurable one as green and yellow, when not synthetic and I can assure everyone those two colors in the Afshar khorjin are NOT synthetic, are a good indication of early rather than late dyeing skills and access.

Go show me any late Persianate khorjin, or even Caucasian/Shahsevan one, with these two colors. I believe no one will find any. At least I have never seen one.

Fourth is the absence of pile knotted panels usually seen on late Persianate khorjins. This too is measurable and determinable and I have never seen any khorjin that is early with a knotted piled panel. Maybe one exists but I believe we all would have to agree almost all and by far the overall majority are late and not early.

Fifth is the lack of cotton. This to me is a significant one as cotton is not as waterproof and water resistant as wool is especially when the wool is tightly spun.

Let us all remember early khorjin were not made for export or the marketplace. They were made to be used and if a khorjin had a considerable amount of cotton then its ability to protect what was inside from getting wet would be greatly reduced.

Early weavers were not stupid they knew this and acted accordingly.

Therefore a lack of cotton can signify early and a profusion can better signify late.

Sixth is the wool which has a texture like that in early Afshar weavings I have seen and handled. The wool is unlike any Quashgai, Lori or Baktiari weavings I have seen. So are the colors.

This need no explanation and Steve’s pronouncement such criteria are marketplace lore is discounting determinable facts and a great amount of available proof to the contrary.

Let me now respond to several other statements doubtful Steve made.

“What makes you certain that your piece predates 1850? Your belief that it must be Afshar appears to rest squarely on that”

These are words I never said and I do not know why or where Steve got that impression. Perhaps he needs to re-read what I wrote to see this was never part of my argument.

I believe the khorjin is Afshar because of its wool quality and colors, which are again both quite determinable characteristics when one has handled many weavings called Afshar.

Are they really Afshar? This is an unanswerable question but since they are considered by many to be Afshar the use of this handy definition should be considered acceptable and not worthy of being denigrated as only worthless marketplace lore.

Of the similar examples respondents have submitted only the one in post #14 by Joel has any similarity.

But I believe we all would agree it is LATER than my Afshar khorjin. How much? Who knows but enough to make such a determination far more than worthless opinion or marketplace lore.

Here are two more reasons for believing my khorjin is early rather than late.

The two main borders and not the usual main border and two minor ones. The use of two different weft wrapping techniques.
Both these characteristics are unusual as well as ones rarely if ever found in later examples and in particular the two main borders one found in numerous other types of early weavings.

Another of Steve’s statement I find objectionable and without merit is the following.

“I've offered no attribution (age or tribal) of your bagface, and have no more obligation to prove that you're mistaken than I would if you proposed that it was woven by aliens in Roswell, New Mexico.”

In a good discussion when a difference of opinion is present it is quite reasonable for either party to ask and expect the other to present reasons for their belief. Not doing so definitely reduces the position of someone who cannot present their reasons.

Also what could possibly be the reason for Steve’s sarcasm other than as a defense mechanism? Clearly Steve is on shallow ground and it is his position that my criteria for believing my khorjin is both Afshar and early that can be called nothing but worthless marketplace lore.

I do believe any reader of this post would have to agree with me and not Steve who also said the following “To make a long story short, you've adopted criteria that have no foundation in fact”

Again in the unknowable science of oriental rugs you will not find fact but we can find almost facts like those I have presented.

Last I would like to comment on the following that Steve wrote.

“I really do think you'll find Jack Cassin to be more sympathetic to your argument. His thought patterns are much more like yours than mine are.”

I find this objectionable also because after doing some internet surfing of Steve’s opinions particularly his calling Jack Cassin a “jackass” I am somewhat offended by his characterizing me like that as well.

Why insult me when I have done nothing to deserve it other than to point out Steve’s weak and nonexistent objections to my Afshar attribution and my belief of the khorjin age.

Seems to me Steve’s objections are personal but he has tried to make others believe they are far more than that and are fact. This is nothing but an attempt to support his disbelief and make others think likewise.

Steve doesn’t have to agree with me but he does not have to apply nonsense like all my reasons are markeplace lore when clearly they are not and they do have basis in fact.

In fact they are far more than marketplace lore and Steve’s objections are far lower than any oriental rug marketplace lore I have ever heard.

One more point that Steve has written.

“I don't think it's mid-to-late 20th century, and my best guess is that it's late 19th/early 20th century.”

This too flies in the face of reason and fact because no khorjin with the characteristics of mine has ever been called “late 19th/early 20th century by any knowledgeable or credible writer, collector or researcher.

I say go find one Steve to back up your obviously unsupportable dating.

Good Morning Rogwyn

... he who demands facts will be someone who cannot partake in any discussion other than to say No or someone who says I don’t believe or someone who says So what. ... This clearly is Steve’s position.
Nope. My position is that some things are unknowable (the age of your khorjin is one of them) and thinking that you know them is self-deception.

I think this position is a foolish one ... and discounts countless near and almost facts oriental rug students and researchers have uncovered and publicized.
Nope. It discounts speculations that have found their way into the conventional wisdom by repetition.

It also flies in the face of equally numerous published examples where the application of such discoveries and research has allowed certain knowledge to be acquired.
Nothing based on extrapolation from a speculation is anything more than speculation.

Seems to me a thinking individual who is well versed in this idiom can differentiate between blatant marketplace lore and sound research and discovery.
Exactly.

For example when a piece has synthetic dye we all know it is post middle 19th century and when it doesn’t the chances are far greater that it is pre middle 19th century than not.
Nope. If it has a synthetic dye, it can't predate 1858. If it has no synthetic dyes, it might predate 1858, but might be mid-20th century. In fact, it might have been woven last week, although most of those are pretty easy to spot.

... if this piece has a design that appears through comparison with others of a similar type to be formative and not degenerate chances are greater the former and not the latter is the case. ... This is about as sound a ground as possible to determine the age of a weaving. At best it is a relative age that then can be related to a calendar one.
Whether a design is formative or degenerative is never an easy call. The soundest basis for age attribution is a significant number of examples of various documented ages. This is rarely available for tribal weavings, and isn't available for yours.

Wool quality can be felt and even scientifically determined with certain variants known. Colors from dyestuffs can be seen and also scientifically determined. It is by the application of these two criteria that the who and that the where can be often times become fairly well known.
Only if examples of documented origin are the sources of the criteria. That's not uncommon with regard to geographic or tribal origin, very uncommon with regard to age.

So in reality there are far more tools to solve the age, the who and the where problem than Steve’s blanket and derisive statement of marketplace lore.
There are, but not for the age of your khorjin.

You follow this with a lengthy recitation of criteria you believe to be identifiers of early Afshar work, all based on the assumption that things called early or late in the marketplace really are early or late. I've said as much as I think needs to be sad about them.

“I really do think you'll find Jack Cassin to be more sympathetic to your argument. His thought patterns are much more like yours than mine are.”

I find this objectionable also because after doing some internet surfing of Steve’s opinions particularly his calling Jack Cassin a “jackass” I am somewhat offended by his characterizing me like that as well.
I do think Jack is a jerk, and make no secrets about it. On the other hand, he believes that it is possible to reliably assign dates to tribal and rustic weavings, sometimes within 50 year time windows going all the way back to the 17th century. So any discussion you'd have with him would probably revolve around which criteria are best and what they prove in terms of age, rather than whether the criteria have any significance to age determination.

Have a nice day.

Steve Price

Avoiding rhe unavoidable
 

Steve:

You act like Mr Cassin, and now me, is the only person who feels confident to ascribe a date to an oriental rug or flat weave.

Are you so willing to level the same intensity of criticism and scorn on Dr Jon Thompson, Dr Fredrik Spuhler or Dr Walter Denny for their doing the same thing?

I fear not and your stance is one like the camel whose head is in the sand but believes his posterior is also hidden.

I have spent some time since posting here reading the various times you have denegrated those who do not think as you do. It has happenend more than once, right?

But I am not saying in this instance your position is wrong. Be clear I am saying it is foolish.

As my last post was titled there is little knowable about oriental rugs but that does not stop all of us from believing certain quite obvious things about them and acting accordingly.

I am sure were you to find my Afshar khorjin in your local antique store for 100 dollars you would buy it immediately and believe you got a bargain.

Not only for the price but for the quality and importance this little khorjin has. And I do believe you would not then date it late 19th or early 20th century.

I have also seen some of the pieces you own and must comment my Afshar khorjin were it yours would be one of the best and earliest pieces in your collection.

Again you do not offer anything to discount or negate the criteria I have stated nor have you presented any of your own. You have presented a number of quasi scientific denials but really Steve who tries to apply science to a field that is by definition and fact unscientific?

For me the answer is someone who either cannot understand the difference or someone who is too stubborn and self possessed to admit it.

Is my khorjin pretty?

Does my khorjin appear earlier than the ones your readers have offered or others anyone can find by thumbing through the literature?

Your scientific denial of the criteria I have listed is nothing but that denial without anything to back it up.

For instance the synthetic dye question. Of course it is possible for a weaving to have no synthetic dye and be post 1850. But it is not only the absence of such a dye that I citied. Is the design "formative" or is "degenerative".

You and I and everyone else who has experience can differentiate a degenerative desgn from a formative one. Why deny this?

You differentiate such criteria every time you buy something or don't. Your decision is based these and other criteria, not only price. So why deny such criteria that are not scientific but are meaningful as nothing but worthless marketplace lore.

I am sorry Steve but you are someone who is standing on a pedestal of righteousness that is built on a foundation of crumbled and crumbling stone and cement.

You deny the obvious and you only see what is impossible to apply.

Please consider this my last attempt to bring some light into your dark cave of science that has no place in a world of oriental rugs that is anything but.

I can tell you feel you have successfully defended your position and won this encounter. But I am even more sure if you polled your readers and did so anonymously so they would be assured you did not know how they voted you would see more support my position than yours.

Go try it if you dare, professor Price.

Jack, I've grown tired of the little game we're playing, so I'm ending it here. I've given you the last word, which is more than you've ever done for anyone.

Have a nice day.

Steve Price.