Karaja Long Rug

[Joseph R. Putnak Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joseph R. Putnak]

Dear Heinz,

I had not seen that update by Mallett; thanks for sharing. Interestingly, Karadja rugs are mentioned as having this unusual weft reinforcement technique, which confirms your original attribution.

Best,
Joseph

[Chuck Wagner Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Chuck Wagner]

Heinz,

I wonder if this could actually be a Kurdish rug.. The borders are all wrong for a Karadja rug, and are more typical of Shirvan and Moghan rugs from further north (and Akstafa, to a lesser extent). The color palette is quite different from traditional Karadja work as well. Just a thought.

Regards
Chuck

[Heinz Kamping Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heinz Kamping]

Chuck,

Joseph also believes this to be Kurdish work, and I, too, am not entirely comfortable with the idea of calling it a Karadja. The bird border is found in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan, including on Shahsavan carpets. I hope the clothing of the figures and the striking camel trapping might help to attribute the piece to an ethnic group. I think I've seen photos. I'll do some more research.

Heinz

[Heinz Kamping Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heinz Kamping]

I am sure I have seen this before : Large hats, white leggings, skirt.

[Joseph R. Putnak Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joseph R. Putnak]

Chuck, Heinz,

Hello. My initial feeling that this rug might be a Kurdish product was based mainly on the way the ends are finished with warp interlacing, and a detail image that I found of a runner with similar medallions and the same minor border, which was described as Kurdish. What changed my mind was the presence of 3-ply warps, which are very rare in Kurdish rugs. Only about 1% to 2% of the rugs in the Eagleton and Burns Kurdish rug books have this feature. Also, the unusual side selvedge treatment, with additional wrapping wefts that penetrate deeply into the body of the rug. As far as I know, this feature has not been reported in Kurdish rugs but only in some rugs from the eastern Caucasus/Persian East Azerbaijan where few Kurds are known to live. The question in my mind is how to weight the decorative/design elements, some of which may point to the Kurds, against the structural anomalies which appear to point elsewhere.

Joseph


PS: In addition to Azerbaijani Turkic rugs, I think the 'bird' border is also found on rugs attributed to the Kurds. I seem to remember some examples from the Burns book on Kurdish rugs. I can't even guess where this design originated but it seems to be widespread.

[Joseph R. Putnak Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joseph R. Putnak]

This rug (which I previously posted an external link to) is described as Kurdish, mid-19th c.

I will post the image of another rug with the same minor border, which is described as a Karaja rug, c1870.

However, I don't know whether any of this information is correct. Pending new information on Heinz's rug (maybe the costumes the human figures are wearing will shed some light), the safest option may be to just call these Azerbaijani village rugs, as unsatisfactory as that is.

Joseph

[Joseph R. Putnak Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joseph R. Putnak]

And, here is the "Karaja" rug.

[Heinz Kamping Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heinz Kamping]

Chuck, Joseph,

I found pictures of very similar costumes of a Kurdish tribe in Iran. It is somewhat confusing that these tribes are settled in Khorasan in North East Persia.

Heinz

[Heinz Kamping Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heinz Kamping]

Detail of my rug.

[Heinz Kamping Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heinz Kamping]

Here is a picture of women belonging to the Kurd Kurmanji tribe in the Zagros mountains in NW Iran. The tribe lives in NO and NW Iran. Please see the orange areas in the map attached.
Is this a likely indication that the carpet was woven by Kurds in northwest Persia?

[Joseph R. Putnak Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joseph R. Putnak]

Heinz,

While the figure depicted on your rug could be that of a Kurdish woman (I do believe it represents a woman) wearing a wedding headdress it is too rudimentary to draw any firm conclusions. After all the discussion and consideration in this thread, I think your rug does not come from the Kurdish heartland in the Zagros Mountains region but possibly East Azerbaijan province in Iran to the Mughan Plain, northward, west of the Caspian Sea. Here, there seem to be only a smattering of small Kurdish settlements according to your map. So, I think we cannot definitively attribute your rug to a Kurdish tribal group, but neither can we say with certainly that it was not made by Kurdish hands. Nothing is certain except (probably) the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Therefore, I think we will always be dealing with probabilities here. While some features such as the rug’s folksiness and certain design elements are not inconsistent with a Kurdish attribution, the structural discrepancies (i.e., 3-ply warps and the special selvedge treatment) are problematic.

Anecdotally, this reminds me of a funky village rug that I once owned but could not attribute. The proposed attributions I received from acknowledged rug experts and scholars ranged from West Persian Kurdish or Luri to Derbent in Dagestan. But regardless where your rug came from, who made it, or how old it is, I think it stands on its own as an enduring work of folk art.

Joseph

[Heinz Kamping Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heinz Kamping]

Joseph,

Thank you very much for the excellent summary. As an engineer, I was particularly pleased to see the mention of the Second Law of Thermodynamics