If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
The TurKoTek Home Page can be accessed by clicking the link, or on the image on the top of the page on the left side. From there (or from the link here), you can access our Archived Salons and Selected Discussions. Our forums are easy to use, and you are welcome to read and post messages without registering. However, registration will enable a number of features that make the software more flexible and convenient for you, and you need not provide any information except your name (which is required even if you post without being registered) and a working email address. Please use your full name. We do not permit posting anonymously or under a pseudonym, ad hominem remarks, commercial promotion, comments bearing on the value of any item or on the reputation of any seller.
Looking for a little more clarification on a Turkish rug motif called “Tirnak” which means fingernail. Some sources list it as “nail” although this can be confusing since it also means a nail for a wall for example. I have only found one definition for the Motif from an article in Jozan from 2004 from Didem Atis. The article is about Yagcibedir rugs.
From the article; “Tirnak (Nail): It is always on most interior of border lines and symbolizes the old age and death.”
Thus far, everything looks correct from the article especially with the other motifs signifying a timeline from birth to old age and death. The sequence of the motifs is clear. I would like to know if anyone has any further knowledge about the motif. Thanks.
The "meaning" of motifs, colors, layouts and designs is almost always marketplace folklore. Even if it had a meaning in the distant past, the weaver is unlikely to have known (or cared) about it.
Thanks for the input Steve although I don’t totally agree with that. Since we are speaking of Turkish motifs, I will stick with rugs made in Turkey. The tradition of culture, family, etc are important to the weaver. I do agree there are many pieces made for tourists and other commercial reasons. These rugs lack character and generally do not follow any historical aspect other than a fast buck. One with a good eye can spot one a mile away. For those still making rugs with care and integrity, following tradition is upheld, and they do know the meaning of motifs that have been passed on for generations. Most everything in Turkey has a meaning. To the outsider, those things “look nice” or “wow” but there is a symbolic meaning irregardless of it’s a rug, a building, a gesture or even a regional dance for example. I just learned that the motifs may have changed names over the years or got lost in translation but the meaning is the same as it has been for centuries.
I do agree that sellers do make up stories. The Grand Bazaar is a great example.
The rug culture is slowing dying in Turkey. 30 years ago there were 150.000 weavers. Today it’s estimated at is less than 15,000. Many things contribute to this dwindling number. Over the last 40 plus years, I have seen a culture slowly consumed by western influences thanks to tourism and social media. Thankfully we had DOBAG from 1981 until recently that produced outstanding rugs in the traditional way.
I'm sure you're right about the cottage industry rugs made by village women. But the overwhelming majority of what's on the market is woven for sale, and many sellers cater to the desire of tourists to vicariously participate in esoteric cultures. My favorite example is rugs with prayer design (an arch at one end). Almost none of them were ever used or intended for use in Muslim ritual.
Incidentally, Saul Barodofsky's new book (NAZARLIK) is a nice survey of protective motifs.
Well, we have little or no photographic or artistic evidence that mihrab rugs were used in prayer ritual. Yet there they are, some dating back to the 14th or 15th century. I suspect that they were used as such, far more often than we might imagine. Possibly on the floor, or equally likely, on a wall somewhere (in settled cultures, anyway, as the Uzbeks do with embroidred arch pieces). I see them as a proxy for a mosque, and as such it's easy to picture them used ritually. Especially, the safs found in Anatolian mosques.
I have no doubt that pre-19th century rugs with an arch at one end were used in Muslim prayer. But prayer design rugs were produced in huge number during and after the orientalist period, almost all for the western market. Muslim prayer doesn't require a rug, just a clean place. Some of our Muslim students used newspapers, and I was given a couple of machine made prayer design rugs as a gift.
Here's a link to an article I wrote about the subject about 25 years ago. I apologize to any and all who are offended that I didn't use the word Muslim - I simply didn't know that it was offensive until much later.
Apparently the niche within the prayer rug was introduced around the 15th century during the Ottoman times. I’ve read that it was intended to keep the worshipers to pray in straight lines within the Mosque. Again, this is what I read and it kind of makes sense. I do also know that westerners loved the Silk Road and many were made for export and sold to the west.
I’m shocked that more information is not available on this subject especially from Turkey. It’s more than likely the information is out there and known within Turkey and it’s possible it just hasn’t reached distant shores.
Turkey has incredible documentation on history within its borders. Records are kept dating back 100’s of years. For example, even in the 1800’s when the looter and so called Archeologist Heinrich Schliemann stole the treasures of Troy, no official records exist in Istanbul. If it was authorized to remove those treasures, there would be records and he would not have needed to hide the finds on a boat covered with grapes traveling the rivers to reach Germany.
If the documents do exist, they will need to be translated in Turkish first. I do know first hand the amount of paperwork and archaeological finds that are located in storage and back rooms will take many, many years to get to.
Here is a small example of archaeological finds that were on the “to do” list. I took this picture in Konya in 1985 in an area the public doesn’t see. This was just a small part of a massive storage area.
Hi, to all. In the 1988 Udo Hirsch and Belkis Balpinar ( Vakiflar Museum Istanbul.) dedicted two pages and some foto s on the arch/niche subject.
best. Egbert.
Tweet
Comment