Martin Andersen

Hi All

Here is a small Beshir rug 46 x 89 cm (1'-6" x 2'-11"). The size justifies a Mafrash or a Torba labelling, but as there is no trace of the back I suppose it might as well be a trapping.



The motif seems to be more frequent in larger rugs, in this small rug the motif compared to the larger rugs is scaled down without any loss of detail.
I suppose it is up for discussion whether this motif is cloud bands, snakes/dragons, or purely floral. I am not sure from which original source, but the motif seems to be called both "Yilan" snake, and "Abr" cloud ban.

Beautiful small secondary motifs like Botehs and this:

detail


detail front

In the yellow and especially the white knots used for the small flowers the yarn seems much thinner than the rest, making the small flowers even smaller.

I get the knot count to something around 64 kpsi, its asymmetrical open right, the weft is orange brownish madder. The pile is (unfortunately) down to the knots, and subjectively the rug has a very old feel.


back

Any comments or references to analogies very much appreciated

best
Martin

David R E Hunt

Hi Martin

My understanding is that a lot of these beshir repeat patterns are copied from other trextiles, ikat in particular. Personally, this "cloudband" closely resembles a repeating "tulip" pattern seen in some turkish rugs. Could these, the Beshir tulip and the anatolian tulip, both be copied from some sort of trade cloth, or does one rug design proceed from the other?

Variation of the ground color blue/brown/green/red is found in older pieces.
On Beshir type bags and trappings we read in "Between The Black Desert and Red" that

"one does encounter some chuvals and large torbas- of the type refered to as jollars in Afghanistan- that seem to have the structure and color scheme associated with Beshir" and

"Some are surprisingly fine and thus do not seem as likely to be Beshir. Such pieces may also show patches of several colors of silk, including yellow, light blue, and pink, often of a thinner guage yarn than the pile wool; there have been suggestions that it is the kind of silk used for embroideries".

Dave

Martin Andersen

Hi Dave

Thanks for your response. I have seen the possible connection between the Beshir motif and Ottoman/Anatolian tulips mentioned before (perhaps by you here on turkotek?) so I have looked around the net for tulips This one seems to be the closest i can find, if the red/white had been inverted it would of course have been closer:



The formalized curves + a peduncle - generating a highly stylized tulip. Could surely be a parallel to the Beshir motif (the penduncle/stern is not very pronounced on my mafrash, but it is so on some of the larger beshir rugs)

Your reference is to tulip patterns on turkish rugs, the one above is of course an embroidery, is it possible you could post images of them? I would be very interested in seeing them.

I certainly agree that the motif on the beshir is floral, but as often with the turkmen rugs I find that there certainly might be multiple sources for a singular motif. In this case snake, cloud band and dragon comes up next in line.

The variation in the background colors on these rugs sure is a bit strange. Somehow the color scheme seems to try to articulate a floating randomness which seems odd in the turkmen pile weaving vocabulary. Perhaps this could be seen as an indication that the whole design is derived from another textile technic, perhaps Ikat (or perhaps batic, the small boteh motifs might point in that direction? or something completely else?)

(and I will take a closer look on the white knots to see if they might be silk)

best Martin

Horst Nitz

Hi Martin, David

it is a fascinating motif. With Beshir we are on grounds of the historical Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, offering possible sources for the motif that precede the Ottoman fancy for tulips considerably. You may find these horned dragons with boteh wings from the Tillia tepe burrial worth considering: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/MenWithDragons.jpg ; or the portrait of Demetrius, founder of the Bactrio-Indo-Greek kingdom: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/DemetriusIMet.jpg .

Regards,

Horst

David R E Hunt

Hi Martin

It seems the repeating pattern refered to as the "cloudband", and as
found on these Beshir weavings, are derived from a linear pattern
in which the individual components are stylized into floral motives.
It is based upon a floral meander border which has been expounded
into an all over geometric pattern. In short, the pattern seen on this
Beshir bag face consists of three rows of floral motives.



Plate 20a from "Oriental Rugs From Pacific Collections demonstrates a most simplified
rendition of the design, a rosette and vine/floral meander



In this Ladik from Thompson's Oriental Rugs the individual elements are rendered in
a more realistic, yet compartmentalized fashion. The second rug, from the
Tokat Vakif museum in Turkey, show both greater stylization and compartmentalization .
The element is rendered almost as cartouch.



In this Kula, from Eiland and Eiland's "Oriental Carpets"plate 146,
we see what I believe to be the same component of this floral
meander, yet rendered as quadruple unit blocks of color.
Also, notice how each sucessive unit alternates in direction,
be it from left to right or right to left, in all of the above weavings.



Thus the repeating structural unit and motive of the beshir "cloudband"
pattern, consists of the lateral arm of a floral meander, repeated and
alternated in left to right direction as it proceeds. It is single bract of
this floral meander pattern, as most rudimentarily demonstrated in
plate 20a from "Pacific Collections".



As such the "snakes" or "cloudbands" we see hovering above the floral
or "tulip" motives are meerly the lower part of a tulip motive repeat,
which has been turned to face the opposite direction.



A criticism of this idea would assert that the floral motives found
in the above Anatolian rugs are not proper analogs to the forms in
the "cloudband", but given the weaving's propensity for opposition
and the use of negative space, I believe the up curled and down curled
petals essentially slight variations on the same theme.

Dave

Martin Andersen

Hi Horst and Dave
Thanks for your posts, very interesting, and I will follow up. Right now I am going through my books (and the net) for the beshir cloudband motif. And I will post it all when I get my scanner up working.

Elena Tzareva has a reference to a beshir cloudband in Torba format which is published by Amos Bateman Thacher in "Turkoman Rugs: An Illustrative Monograph On The Rugs Woven By The Turkoman Tribes Of Central Asia" I don't have this book. If any one could post a scan of this I would really appreciate it.

best Martin

Joel Greifinger

Hi Martin,

This is from James Cohen's online "Turkoman" exhibit:

17. Beshir Torba



Second Half Nineteenth Century 2'5" x 1'3" / 70cm x 38cm

Small examples of Beshir weavings with the so-called 'Serpent' design seem to be more unusual. This one has the full range of colours including two greens, two blues and some yellow. There is also some undyed brown wool pile that is standing a little proud.

In excellent pile but missing most of the upper border and losses to the other three sides, now secured. Asymmetrically knotted open right, goat hair warp, pink/red woollen weft.

Joel Greifinger

Steve_Price

Hi Martin

I've got a copy of Thacher's book at home, will try to remember to scan that page and post it tonight.

Your mafrash is a beautiful little piece, and the fact that the cloudband motif is reduced in size to fit the small size of a mafrash reminds me that in much Turkmen work the motifs aren't reduced in size for smaller pieces, there are simply fewer of them. The size of the ashiks in ashik gul asmalyks and in ashik gul dyzlyks is more or less the same; the asmalyk will have 15 or 20 of them, the dyzlyk only has one. The borders are also more or less the same size, just fewer of them. Dyzlyks usually have only one border, generally one seen in asmalyks as a minor border.

Regards

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

Hi All

Looking around the net I surprisingly found this older photo of my beshir:



It is rather sad to see that the rug since this recent photo was taken has lost even more of the borders. I would have loved to still have the trace of the upper outer border as it is seen here (a good reminder that securing the edges is terrible important)

And the outer borders are actually interesting, I have looked around but haven't found anything which look like these fragments. If any one has images of comparable boarders I would be happy to see them.
The simpler inner border on the country seems to appear frequent together with the cloud band motif.

Regarding the colors: the true appearance of the rug is probably somewhere in-between this photo and my own photos (I know I tend to under-saturate my photos, perhaps because I find a lot of rug photos unrealistic over-saturated)

Joel, do you have a link to Cohens online turkmen exhibit? I cant find the beshir on his homepage. The Cohen torba sure is monumental with this singularly motif.

And Steve, thanks if you could post a scan of the Thacher beshir, until know I have only seen one complete non-fragmented Torba with this motif, published by Elena Tzareva. I suppose the Thacher beshir is complete too.

best Martin

Joel Greifinger

Hi Martin,

Here's the link to the Cohen exhibition

http://rugrabbit.com/content/james-cohen-turkoman

Joel

Martin Andersen

Hi All

Here is the large rugs I up till now have found on the net and in my books. I am sure there must be more around, and would appreciate if you have other samples you could post:

from the net:




http://www.spongobongo.com/her9996.htm




and from the books:


Turkmen Carpets: Masterpieces of Steppe Art. Cat 110.


Between the Black Desert and the Red. plate 70. 241 x 130 cm


Between the Black Desert and the Red. Plate 71. 389 x 203 cm


Between the Black Desert and the Red. Plate 72. 79 x 71 cm. Fragment, photo from back.

Just from looking at condition, spacing and colour I personally wouldn't hesitate guessing that the last sample is by far the oldest of these.This could indicate that the motif originated from a singular curve with a bulge and a decorative emphasis on only one of its ends - giving the motif head and tail. And no stern connecting the curves. Surely making the "Yilan"/"Yylan"/snake nameing of the rugs a lot more understandable.
Elena Tzareva writes in Masterpieces of Steppe Art "Perhaps one of the most archaic totemic MAD (Middle Amu Darya) motifs is the yylan" So I guess that Tzareva will agree that the snake is older than the flower in this motif. And this of course opens up a huge area of possible speculations in motif origin (I will try to be sober )

best Martin

Benjamin Tholen

Hi Martin,

nothing to add, but hey, where ist that last picture from? Any story to it ?

best

Benjamin

Martin Andersen

hi Benjamin

I suppose its the photo with the girl you are asking about? unfortunately its not my story, just found it on the net (and couldn't get myself to resieze it), but it somehow shows us how the rugs are traveling around these days

best Martin

Martin Andersen

Hi All

The small format rugs with this motif are even less homogeneous, but then again its only a total of four I have found uptill now (including my own):


Jim Allen (wedding rug, no size)


Cohen. 70 x 38 cm


Torba 139x45 cm. Rugs and carpets from central Asia. Elena Tzareva. plate 104

I am not sure if Elena Tzareva gives reference to 1 or 2 analogies, but she writes like this:
Analogies: The Ersari 1975, No. 21; Thacher 1977, pl. 41

If anyone could help with posting images and size of these/this I would appreciate it as material is rather limited for comparisons.

best Martin

Martin Andersen

Filiberto Boncompagni

Hi Martin,

One of ours Italian readers, Igina Barchi, sent me three photos from an Italian dealer’s website. Their attributed age is, respectively, 1850, 1860 and 1870:







Regards,

Filiberto

Martin Andersen

Thanks Filliberto and Igina Barchi

I suppose the Italian dealers dating illustrates a generel dating going from older to younger, perhaps also in accordance with the field motif going from more snake-like to more floral (reminisces of difference between head and tail, versus symmetry and stern)

best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Filiberto and Martin

I think 19th century is likely for all three, mid-19th century is plausible but not really based on much more than marketplace custom. Consecutive 10 year intervals between the ages of these three rugs is fantasy.

Regards

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

Here are some of the rugs of which I have measurement scaled to relatively same size. Actually the size of the motif is less varied than i would have expected. But still mine has the smallest rendering of the motif, rather close sizewise to the single-curved fragment from "Between the Black Desert and the Red"



best Martin

Chuck Wagner

Hi Martin

Here's another large rug, from Enza Milanese's "The Carpet" - latter 19th century:



Regards
Chuck Wagner

Martin Andersen

Hi All.

I agree that putting these rugs into a precise chronological order is pure guesswork. And I suppose this last one, unless it has synthetic colours, easily by a dealer could be called mid 19th. Never the less I personally find that dating it a bit late is fair, probably because of the regularity and the spacing of both field motif and borders. Of course just a subjective "feel" or guess, which I cant validate.
The Beshir rugs are as I understand it generally considered workshop- or cityrugs. I suppose their large sizes put them out of the yurts, and into the large looms of commercial workshops. And the beautiful small Beshir niche or prayer rugs also seems to be more related to the architectural situation of city and mosque, then to the yurt.

(not that I want to discuss these lovely niche rugs in this tread, just to illustrate )

But then again as with all the turkmen rugs nothing seems to be simple, the Torba published by Tzareva dosen't at all look like a workshop rug. Tzareva calls it "Ersari ( Bashir)" and it may illustrate no-directional motif migration between workshops and (perhaps older) non-workshop traditions. The (normadic?) Ersari seems to have been relatively open minded in adapting motifs to their Torbas and trappings.

Well back to the relation between snake and flower in this motif: The motif of this last rug that Chuck has posted, does as it seems late, kind of mess up my own line of thought on motif development. But I will take lightly on that, as all the rugs here could be contemporary within the open timeframe of the 19th., except the single-curved fragment which I still wouldn't hesitate thinking older.

If one cuts the basic of the field pattern down to this: red curves and red filling dots. Then a development of continuous stiffening and compressing of the pattern could account for the appearance of the stern/peduncle in the motif.

Originally the filling dots are placed randomly, as filling dots, around the main motif - the curve:


The spacing gets limited, aligning some of the filling dots in a singular line within the curve:


More curves are added, the line of dots becomes the stern:


And the snake becomes the flower:


Why the weavers did chose to interpretate the dots into a stern is of course interesting, and it may as Dave suggest be related to other floral patterns. And it could be related to the motif itself and a cultural shift from eastern traditions and iconography, to Muslim traditions. I suppose a Muslim would rather be seated on flowers then on snakes

best Martin

Pierre Galafassi

Hi all,

The following Beshir rugs may bring some more water to David's mill.
Both are given as nineteenth century.

a) U. Jourdan. Turkmen. V. 294


b) Lefevre & partners. 1984. 27.


Season greetings!
Pierre

Martin Andersen

Hi All

Its not that I don't think that the pattern ended up being overly floral, on the contrary. But I find that both the motif and its naming clearly suggest that it originated from something else. I am not saying that there is no relation to the anatolian floral borders, but the jump from these borders to the impressive main fields of the beshir carpets is a rather huge jump. At least I have to see some more related samples of the anatolian tulip border before I get convinced that the beshir motif originated solely from there.

The beshir motif is generally called "cloudband". In "Rugs and Carpets from Central Asia" Tzareva calls the motif "abr (cloud band)", but in her new book "Masterpieces of Steppe Art" she calls the motif "Yylan (snake)"

The Cloudband naming may be a marketplace term for the rugs, or it might have some accuracy.
I suppose this is what is conventionally called the cloud band:


And I suppose it is also conventionally agreed that it is Chinese in origin, and in China often directly intermingled with the dragon motif:


The dragon and peacock fight goes way back in china, here on a bronze mirror 4th bc,


I am sure most people here on turkotek knows about, and are opinionated on, how motifs like the cloud band and the dragon has migrated through asia - and the rugs. This following is of course one of the classical examples that the dragon (and phoenix/peacock) is a part of the rug vocabulary from east to west:


In Caucasus we have the Dragon Sileh rugs with the entire main field covered by s-shaped highly stylized dragons:


Going back to the cloud band we have the so called Kazak Cloudband rugs were the curved shapes seems almost identical to the shapes in the beshir motif:


And here is another type of beshir rug (perhaps not totally relevant here) where the red s-shape perhaps not is nether cloud band nor snake, but it certainly isn't floral:


An interesting version of the cloud band motif can be seen on this old anatolian rug. In the upper and border there is a classical rendering of the cloud band:


But in the side border we see it in a very different version, please note that the cloud band here in the endings almost gets head and tail:


And seeing this dragon-like rendering of the cloud band i must admit that I suddenly understand how others have seen the early Seljuk borders as stylized dragons (but I wont go into the territory of the kufic border here )

And then of course there are the Scythian, the Bactian - as Horst points out, and probably a lot more as material for speculation in motif origins.

I have looked around if there are any real red snakes in central asia, havent found any, but as you see there are lots of red dragons and red clouds around. And a snake in the sky, that is rather close to a dragon

But anyway I still think that the best argument for the Beshir rugs to be called Yylan or Cloudband rugs, and not tulip-rugs, is the fragment from "From the Black Desert":



best Martin

Martin Andersen

Hi All

If one reduces the beshir motif to red curves + red dots, then there might be some funny speculative connections in the following.

The Ottoman tulip on the kaftan I posted earlier is designwise related to the very interesting "Cintamani" pattern.

cintamani. kaftan detail

The cintamani is in itself an enigmatic motif which surely has travelled along the silk road. The origin of the cintamani motif is complex - and probably in itself of course multi sourced.

This motif was by the Ottomans called cintamani which is Sanskrit suggesting a direct connection to India and tibetan/chinese Buddhist tradition and iconography,
From wikipedia: "a wish-fulfilling jewel within both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.....In Buddhism it is held by the bodhisattvas, Avalokiteshvara and Ksitigarbha. It is also seen carried upon the back of the Lung ta (wind horse) which is depicted on Tibetan prayer flags. In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the Chintamani is sometimes depicted as a luminous pearl and is in the possession of several of different forms of the Buddha.
Within Hinduism it is connected with the gods, Vishnu and Ganesha. In Hindu tradition it is often depicted as a fabulous jewel in the possession of the Naga king or as on the forehead of the Makara." (Naga is a multi-headed snake, Makara a composite of elephant, crocodile and sometimes peacock-tail, also known in China)

The circles are the jewel(s) or pearl(s). The number of 3 jewels is Buddhist tradition (triratna). The curves I have seen interpreted as Buddha's lips, which I somehow find bit unlikely. Flames or flaming cloud bands seems more appropriate, probably depicting glowing holiness:

Triratna

I am not quite sure but these Afghan Buddhist stone carvings are also said to represent the cintamani: The curves here doesn't look like flames, perhaps rather waves, which of course also makes sense as pearls and ocean, and is also in accordance Buddhist religious concepts:

Footprint of Buddha + Triratna. 1st century, Gandhara

The Tibetan wind horse, carrying the flaming cintamani. In the corners, representing the corners of the world we have traditionally the peacock, the dragon, the lion, the tiger:


The flaming pearl seems to generally be an attribute of Chinese / Tibetan dragons. In following 19th Chinese robe the central dragon is accompanied by Buddhist emblems, in the center the flaming pearl (and the dragon itself almost an flaming cloud band):


The dragon motifs from Mawangdui, Lady Dais coffins and the silk banner depicts complex mythological and cosmological material, where the relation between cloud band and dragons play a prominent role - and the visual articulation of the sun as a red circle + the red circular dots around the right dragon is striking:

Painted silk banner. Mawangdui (c. 168 BC)

The coffin of Lady Dai. Mawangdui (c. 168 BC)


The David Collection in Copenhagen (which by the way holds the finest collection of Islamic art in Scandinavia http://www.davidmus.dk/en ) has this Ottoman velvet with the cintamani motif:


I quote from their description: "The chintamani pattern is most often associated with the art of the Ottoman Empire, but it is older and probably originated with the Central Asian Turkic peoples. It has been convincingly interpreted as a combination of the tiger’s stripes and the leopard’s spots, and as such refers especially to manly courage."
Would be interesting to see the source for this interpretation, but I suppose its obvious that leopard and tiger skins must have had extremely high prestigious and symbolic value in Turkic nomadic culture:


Ceremonial yurt with leopard skins, mongolia

Here we have a dotted lion and a striped tiger - both apparently desperately fighting cloud bands:


I haven't really found any textiles or chinese/mongolian images where i definitively could say it were leopards (The lion above is the closest I can get), Tigers are a bit easier, and we have the Tibetan tiger rugs. Even though most Tibetan tiger rugs aren't very old (the oldest existing perhaps 19th?) they seem to represent a very old tradition as ceremonial gifts to Lamas:


The tiger stripes above seems very directly related to the cintamani. And interesting to se that tiger stripes and cloud bands in Tibet can turn out very much alike. And the same goes for dragons and cloud bands:



And then back to the Anatolian rugs where the cintamani also is a main field pattern, here even with cloud band and tulip borders :


And surely this pattern and layout travels back the silk road, here ending up upon an Uzbek embroidery:



The cintamani is also a very important and almost one of the emblematic ornaments of ottoman Iznik tiles and ceramics. It is fascinating to see this motif used and transformed in the limited colour scheme of ottoman ceramics, where of course the red colour is very important:




The cintamani motif certainly gets used as a floral pattern (also intertwined with the tulips).


But it seems like its origin in pearls and clouds is parallel alive for the ottomans. In the tall vase we see the cintamani pearls transformed into sails on ships (and perhaps the cloud band into red waves). At the last plate (probably not very old) we se the pearls in the sea:


Actually it would be rather strange if the ottomans didn't have some kind of concepts regarding "meaning" of a pattern with such a strong visual impact, especially if worn by Sultan and court. Even if they had adapted the pattern without knowing anything of its original symbolic content, I would think they would have had to invent some kind of explanatory notions around it.

Another motif connected to the cintamani - perhaps symbolic inherent, perhaps invented by the ottomans - is its connection to the peacock:


The gigantic byzantine columns, which original probably have been brightly coloured, must have been impressive when the ottomans conquered Byzans. With the right colours they must have looked very much like the peacock feathers. They could have played a role in how and why the cintamanti became an emblematic motif in Istanbul:


But anyway the cintamani pearls are visually easily transfigured into the eye on the peacock's feather. And that's rather fascinating: if the cloud band represent the dragon and the pearls the peacock, then the ottoman cintamani can be seen as a hyper stylized version of the ancient conjunction of phoenix and dragon. The two mythological figures representing either astrological constellations, the sun and the moon, or the male and female as in taoist yin and yang:


This connection is of course speculative. But even if the cintamani were just a beautiful decorative pattern for the ottomans, then I still find it fascinating as an example on how symbolic iconography surely have migrated through asia, perhaps as abstract intermingled echoes - all the way from ancient China to ottoman Anatolia. Be it phoenix and dragon, tiger and leopard or Buddah and pearls.

And of course the town Beshir / Bashir and the Amu Darya is geographically placed literally in the middle of this, right on the Silk Road routes.

Martin Andersen

This 16th c Anatolian rug seems to have mingled blue and green background colours in the main field:


The multi coloured background transgresses into the border, something which also seems typical in the beshir yilan rugs. Elena Zareva suggest that the background of the yilan rugs is water. The cintamani motif could as also seen in the anatolian ceramics easily mingle with water. The ambiguty between water and sky is something that the cintamani shares with the dragon (and cloud band / wave):


There are other possible motif sources of the beshir yilan motif than the cintamani, among them of course the turkmens beloved ramshorn and the anatolian tulip - and the relation might not be direct as in copying the design, but I find it hard to think that these rugs should be unrelated:


To wrap it up a bit provocatively, one could state that the beshir weavers did what the turkmen weavers always had done; sealing up, or even concealing, ancient animistic iconography into floral decorative patterns which gave identity to a group of people. I am of course aware that the beshir rugs have never been regarded as representing a tribe, but perhaps the people that made these rugs themselves felt that loss of identity and the yilan motif could be seen as a relatively late attempt on establishing Turkmen identity - "the Beshir Yilan Gol".

Well I suppose with this last suggestion I am just trying to stir up some arguments, sorry One could also formulate it like this "the beshir weavers created a new turkmen pattern. Visually new, but structurally ancient"
(And sorry for the long ramble on something of which a lot, if not all, might be old news for turkotekers)

best Martin

Marvin Amstey

Martin,
It might be old news for us "old" folks who have followed this for a long time, but your summary is prodigious and all in one page. Well done!

Unregistered

Please consider that a particularly nasty and poisonous side winder snake occupied much of central Asia. You can easily Google side winder snakes and there you will find that their mode of transportation over the desert sands looks exactly like these Beshire Cloud-band weavings. I have written about this on Turkotek before and the idea has failed to gain much traction. Please explain to me the asymmetries always found in this design and why, in the older versions, you see one end elaborated into a face or head versus the other end. Also remember in the sidewinder the tail end was also elaborated into a rattle. Look at the intermediate more linear "bands" and then look back at the snakes pattern of movements.and here again I find a near perfect match. I admit that some of these design complexes do remind me of a flower BUT I think in looking for inspiration in Central Asian designs look first at the world they lived in for inspiration. Bows, arrows, horses, camels, dogs, flowers, snakes, spiders, and on and on. Central Asia was the source of designs far more than it was the recipient for designs, IMHO.

Rich Larkin

Hi Martin,

Wonderful stuff. You have an admirable ability to read these designs very imaginatively, keeping your feet on the ground all the while.

There is an interesting rendition of the design on page 7 of Oriental Rug Review, Vol. XI, No. 6 (August/September, 1991). It is an advertisement, so it isn't viewable from the link here on T'Tek. I would scan and send, but I'm traveling and don't have access to the means. Perhaps someone else could do the job.

In the subject example, many of the principal figures (snakes, dragons, tulips, cloudbands, etc.,...none of which strike me as very apt) are strung together, end to end. It's the sort of treatment one might think suggested late, prosaic weaving; but the piece seems to have an archaic look, all the same.

BTW, not much seems to have been made of the propensity of the weavers of these and other "Beshir" pieces to make the field mottled, often with different shades of blue, sometimes with blue and brown. It is also a Kurdish trick, not that I am drawing a connection between the two groups. In general, I think the Beshir weavers are given too little credit for having produced interesting weavings. Perhaps this is because they are also reputed to have been primarily commercial weavers, next to the alleged sacredness of the tribal weaving of Turkomans.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi

Interesting idea. I did Google various search terms for sidewinder, and the information I turned up says there are only two species of sidewinder. One occurs in the southwestern US, the other in Africa (Namibia). This is a problem in what I think is an otherwise interesting suggestion. I don't recall seeing it on Turkotek before, but you could probably write books with all the stuff I don't recall.

If you would, please overwrite the word "unregistered" with your name when you post.

Regards (whoever you are),

Steve Price

ADDENDUM: As far as I can tell from internet searching, there are no rattlesnakes of any kind except in the Americas

Martin Andersen

I suppose it is the Echis carinatus which Jim (whom I suppose the guest is ) refers to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echis_carinatus
It does move like a sidewinder and live in central asia:



Personally I certainly also see the snake in the beshir yilan motif. As I see it all but the very late versions of the motif have a bulge for head and an apex for tail. But I also find snakes and dragons very closely cultural related

But I certainly also see the tulip as an ingredient in the motif. For me its the cultural composit of it all which is fascinating:



best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Martin

I agree that the "Beshir cloudband" looks mighty like a snake, and the presence of a native sidewinder in central Asia gives plausibility to the notion that this is what it represents. Snakes hold a very prominent place in the iconography of many Asian cultures, too.

Regards

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

just a small defence for the dragon interpretation:

A peculiar detail of the yilan motif is the branching, crowns or ramifications at the ends of the red curves ("the black desert" fragment only have them in the bulged end), on most of the rugs they are in different colours in each end:



They are hardly naturalist figurations of neither snake or tulip, as Steve points out the asian viper is not a rattlesnake with a rattle at the tail, and tulips doesn't have branchings at their petals (though flowers growing from flowers of course is an important part of turkmen weaving layout)

Dragons on the other hand very often have some kind of forking at theirs tails, not identical to but corresponding to their head:



And just for the fun of it: here is a contemporary anatolian version of Şahmeran, a crowned dobbleheaded lady probably with seljuk/mesopotamian origin:



best martin

Horst Nitz

Hi all,

After an extensive discussion with some entertainment value the result seems inconclusive and we are back to square one. Are we not?

Information inconclusive or unavailable as such can be as significant as if it was abundant and freely available. Perhaps instead of the result, the value of the discussion lies in the process. What, if this interesting motif has done to us what it has done already to the native weavers one-hundred years ago? Were they facing the same question of what to make of it? Half of the rugs shows a kind of stalk, making the motif resembling a kind of flower; leaving this away it looks more like a snake. This ambiguity I would take as indicative of a process at the preliminary end of which the weavers copy a motif because of tradition, this being their sense in it. The sense of the motif may have eluded their elders hundreds of years ago, belonging to a different context, an echo of people and cultures long gone. This makes the motif another case of ‘elli belinde’, ‘hawzi’, ‘cloudband’, ‘wineglass’ and ‘crab-border’ etc etc, retrospective rationalisations serving the ego and its desire for control.

What could that gone context have been? The significant proximity-distance equilibrium of forms in some of the textiles (especially Martin’s) with the boteh dragon wings in the Tillia Tepe burial, maintains the connection with the Bactrian gold find a reasonable research hypothesis to me.

Another trace suggests itself if one sees in the arrangement a fragmented göl. If one rearranges the bits and pieces, the stalks become the diagonally arranged pedestals of birds around a small central medallion, a composite form known as / from other göls.

Regards,

Horst

Martin Andersen

Hi Horst

I suppose conclusions in this area of motif migrations will always be rather speculative, and certainly always lead on to other questions.

According to the written russian accounts (as I remember Moskova) rug workshop production in Beshir/Bashir is starting around 1870. Of course this production must have drawn from some sources. Perhaps the transformations from the Ikat patterns to pile weave might have been a result of this lack of local pile weave tradition. But the yilan/cloudband seems to be more complex, drawing from older sources.
Of course its speculative to connect the yilan motif with archaeological material with gaps of milleniums, but the Tillia tepe founds points to the fact that the geographical area has been a meltingpoint for cultural syncretism for ages. Greek/Mesopotamian, Buddhist and Scythian iconography and tradition is obvious.

The dragon jewelry you pointed out sure for me is relevant as a background source for the yilan motif. And I find it interesting how much it actually resembles turkmen silver jewelry, which we know is contemporary with the rugs, and in that way indirectly might sustain a cultural/aesthetic connection:



Here is a parallel motif also from Tilla tepe, please note the tails of the beasts (probably the "Makara" which in india is associated with the cintamani):



And also from Tillia tepe a Buddist cold coin with the triratna/cinamanti on the left:


Here perhaps the same woman as above with snakes, from the greek/scytian Kul Oba treasure:



And a Bactian seal with a snake as handle:




The Scytian/Sarmatian connection is obvious in the golden crown (which in no time could leads us to the classical animal and tree figuration (which we know is inherent in the turkmen gol) going all the way back to Sumerian culture)


Tilla tepe

Sarmatian crown



Again the turkmen silver from the 19th. is strikingly close, here a woman's hairdress:




Personally I have no need for finite conclusions in this area of trying to get a hold of some of the historic/cultural sources of an enigmatic motif like the yilan, and perhaps as you say the value of the discussion lies in the process

best Martin

Martin Andersen

And adding to the complexity (or inconclusiveness) I agree that the stalks certainly also are ambiguous in their possible origin.

These Dolgan bird poles have before been discussed as connected to the turkmen rugs http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00130/salon.html :



Scythian and Sarmatian bronze pole toppings are related, note the bells:


And the Mongol Tughs certainly travelled along with the Turkic nomadic conquers across asia as battle standards. Here Mongol Tughs and Turkish crescents:


Along this string of possible motif migration, the tulips stalk morphs to a heraldic standard pole - and the small crowns or flowers on the head and tail of the snake in yilan motif turns into bells:



For me personally none of the possible motif origins in this tread (and I am sure there are more) are mutually exclusive. On the contrary they all point in the direction on the fascinating complexity of the cultural migrations of which also the Turkmen rugs has been an important and active component in. The mobility of rugs (and jewellery), compared to for example architecture or literature with its reading barrier, surely has been a vital cultural transmitter both as trade goods and as spoils of war during the centuries of exchange between urban and nomadic civilisations.

best Martin

(this morning having croissants for breakfast I had a strong inclination to stop this tread as I saw a morphologic resemblance from the croissants to this topic. And goggling it turns out that there are stories that the croissant was invented in Vienna in 1683 to celebrate the defeat of the Ottomans - I better stop now )

Horst Nitz

Hi Martin,

..."a parallel motif also from Tilla tepe, please note the tails of the beasts (probably the "Makara" which in india is associated with the cintamani)."

Sorry, I need your helping hand, can't make up head and tail with those beasties. Are they tail up head down (the right one looks like that), where is the chintamani?

Regards, Horst

Martin Andersen

Hi Horst

Seeing the the Makara in the jewellery is just my personal interpretation (and the Makara is kind of a side track in all this, sorry for going astray). But I see it here, head down and the branched tail up, and with curled wavelike legs:



The Makara could be seen as a kind of an indian parallel to the dragon. A sea-monster depicted with a rather large margin of different composite elements like elephant head, crocodile body and peacock tail. I dont have any photos of its relation to the cintamani, wikipedia was the source for this connection (this is of course not hard science, just a general discussion) Here are some photos of the Makara:



And this figurine, also from Tillia tepe, is standing on the head of the Makara:



On its way to china the Makara perhaps morphs into the dragon, ending up in this direction:



best Martin

Rich Larkin

Hi Martin,

This image is coming in rather late. Sorry about that. It is from an advertisement in an old number of Oriental Rug Review.



The drawing of the snakes is rather free form as they go, without much to contribute to the tulip derby. I don't find the flower to be convincing as a basis of the design anyway, though your analysis of the progression to a flower is quite persuasive.

Referring back to your speculations about the missing section of the vestigial outer border, I note that the border of this rug in the vertical section shows a repeating white line next to the divider that resembles the one in your piece. However, it is part of a rather different scheme than those you considered.

Thanks for the interesting and prodigious effort here.

Rich Larkin

Martin Andersen

Thanks Rich

Interesting rug, and nice being back to the actual rugs after the detours. Age attribution by design is as we all know of course very tricky and only speculative. This rug does, as you said earlier in the tread, look older than the others with same rendering of the motif. But according to how I see the general motif development I would have to say it comes in late. I suppose that we with the beshir yilan motif are talking about a design development in a relative short time span, perhaps just 3-4 generations of weavers. And there probably have been some overlapping in how the motif were perceived.

And your are right about the border, it opens up for some other possibilities than I have considered (but I do have to say that it looks a lot like tulips running around in this border )

best Martin

Rich Larkin

Hi Martin,

I can conceive arguments that put the rug I illustrated at the older end of the spectrum, and others that put it at the later end. As you say, it's very speculative.

Whatever might be the true story, I have a hard time placing all the Beshir types in a commercial workshop setting. It seems there would have been a local indigenous weaving tradition there that developed into a commercial industry. For an analogous situation, we can look at Persian weaving in the nineteenth century and Edwards' chronicle of it. He deals largely with the production that was part of his professional concern, but ignores a lot of rustic weaving tradition. In addition, he speaks of a lot of the better known production as having commenced at various points in the later nineteenth century, though it is evident there were earlier weaving traditions in such areas, presumably in low volumes. I imagine a similar dynamic occurred in the weaving area that produced the Beshirs. I know these comments are away from your topic.

Rich Larkin

Pierre Galafassi

Hi all,

Richard E. Wright in «Bukhara and its Ersari», Research Reports, Aug. 2008, mentions a Russian government survey in Tashkent, (thus quite far from «Beshir city» which is situated on the Amu-darya and reporting to Bukhara). The Simakov team happened to illustrate rugs found on the local bazaar. This survey took place in 1869, thus only months after the Russian takeover of the Tashkent- and Bukhara khanates.
Among the illustrations selected by R. Wright in his report there were rugs which Rugdom would surely ascribe to Beshir production, like the «prayer Beshir» below (FIG).



If Richard Wright reads us, he might want to check his copy of Simakov, looking for an example of a cloudband «Beshir» too. Its absence might be purely casual.

During the 1890‘s, the Danish geographer O. Olufsen (2), one of the rare rugies traveling the region at the time, visited Khiva, Merv (mentioning the Teke-(#1) and Yomud- (#2) weavings as being the «best rugs in the world»), and Bukhara and it’s region. He mentioned, described and in part photographed a prety large choice of rug types, offered to local customers in the «Tim-i-gilam» (rug bazaar) of Bukhara. He mentioned again Turkmen- (the best), but also Khirgiz-, Amu-Darya Arab-, Beluch- rugs etc.... He clearly stated that there was a rug production in Bokhara-city itself (contradicting several modern rug experts) which he was able to differentiate from other sources. He did not specify the ethnic group responsible for this urban production (but most inhabitants of the city were Tadjik and Uzbek at the time). His book is illustrated with at least one unmistakably «Beshir prayer rug» too (Unfortunately no cloud band «Beshir" either, sorry guys).

Now, nothing is impossible, but I would not put too much money on the theory that a 1869-or-older «prayer Beshir» rug (nor on any cloud band «Beshir» for that matter) was a mere commercial design created ad-hoc in «Beshir city» for gullible European gogos.
It took Russia another 15 years after 1869 to pacify the western side of the Amu Darya and a little more to build a railway to Bukhara, thus opening the whole area to safe business.
It seems much more likely that the bazaars of the Tashkent- and Bukhara khanates still catered, at the time, to the needs and taste of their local population, selling genuine rugs from the many ethnic groups of the region.
Besides, to my knowledge, none of the many European travelers who roamed the Amu-Darya area from 1830 onwards, especially after the fall of Merv (1884), ever mentioned Beshir as a city of any importance (Unlike Bukhara, Chardhui, Karshi or Kerki ), nor as being home of a carpet market (unlike Bukhara & Karshi), nor of a carpet production.
IMHO the attribution of the various «Beshir» rug types to this city is more than a trifle dubious, not to speak of the role still often attributed to Ersari Turkmen in the weaving of many of their patterns.

(1)R. Wright, citing Simakov, N. E., L’Art de l’Asie Central, Recueil de l’Art Decoratif de l’Asie Central, Plate #4 -- #7, St. Petersburg, 1883.
(2)O. Olufsen, «The Emir of Bukhara and his country» (Several visits between 1896 and 1899).

Sorry, it seems my key board has been hyper-active again. I will have to fix it.
Best regards
Pierre

Martin Andersen

Hi Pierre and Rich

Highly interesting. And stupid of me that I haven't checked up on resent danish literature on this : http://tors.ku.dk/forskning/komparative/afhandlinger/centralasia/ as there certainly is serious research and cultural studies in this historical and geographical area.

Years ago (before my specific interest in turkmen rugs) I have browsed through the old published literature of the scandinavian expeditions to tibet, central asia and mongolia, from Sven Hedin in the 1890s to Haslund-Christensen in the 1930s. This literature is kind of non-sicentific exotic travel reports, and the old books have a limited number of photo illustrations, but embarrassingly I haven't been through the books of Ole Olufsen http://www.archive.org/stream/emirofbokharahis00olufiala/emirofbokharahis00olufiala_djvu.txt . which certainly looks like being highly relevant - thanks Pierre.

And there might even be unpublished rug related photo material from all of these official expeditions at the royal danish library, I will have to find time to look in to it.

best Martin
who will probably have to take a break on posting here on turkotek )

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Martin,
A copy of Ole Olufsen's 1911 edition (easily readable and with all illustrations) can be tele-charged from

http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7082946M/The_emir_of_Bokhara_and_his_country

There is also a 2OO2 re-edition.

Enjoy
Pierre

Horst Nitz

Hi Martin and all,

thanks for the info on the Makara. I haven't come across that one before. Interestingly, the Tilia Tepe gold medallions seem to amalgamate steppe style (those curled-up legs of the animals are perhaps best known from Scythian artefacts) with Mesopotamian and Eastern Mediterranean style, i.e. this rolling from a North-Mesopotamian cylinder seal and 'your' goddess from Knossos in the parallel thread, both ca. 14th c BC -are you sure it is here face that could make you a 'believer ?'







Posture and theme (dominating / managing powerful flanking beasts) seem to be linked. A case of Silk route cultural exchange?

Regards, Horst

Martin Andersen

Hi Horst

The dragons on the first Tillia tepe jewellery in this tread have rams horn, also making the Mesopotamian/Scythian connection. And to call them dragons is of course perhaps not quite precise (but anyway what does constitute a "dragon"?) . They could also be seen as winged and horned horses, perhaps water horses (like the Capricorn, which by the way in Indian astrology is synonymous with the Makara). The Scythians were as far I understand originally Iranian pastoral nomads, so in that sense it isn't strange that they carried Mesopotamian iconography with them on their way north.

And yes the resemblance to the Minoan goddess in the other tread did cross my mind (snakes in the hands and all) - but this tread is already rather long and wide. I am not sure what to believe, I will probably end up kind of very syncretised

Best Martin

Martin Andersen

Hi All

Rather late in this tread it came to my attention that there in Hali issue 64,1992 is an article by Gerad Paquin on the specific subject of Anatolian rugs and cintamani. I have now found the article - and it is surely very thorough, highly interesting and well illustrated.

The articles main focus is the strange connection between the Ottoman court version of the cintamani and its roots in tiger/leopard skin and Buddhist iconography. There is nothing in the article that contradicts what I have been loosely around here, on the contrary. (The article doesn't go into the connection to dragon, cloud band and the beshir rugs and all the other stuff, but I suppose it easily could have if it had been even longer )

Here are some scans from the article. These ones clearly establishes the connection between leopards, tigers and the Ottoman Kaftan:





In this last persian miniature the mythological hero Rustam/Rostam is wearing a dress combining the stripes and dots (and relating to the other stuff in this tread its interesting that he is also accompanied by dragons on banner/quiver and tughs, as a mongol conquer)

And here two rugs. The first a 16th Anatolian rug which has as main field the red cintamani motif with green bluish background colours. The size of it is 150 x 450 cm. The second a fragment were the curves are branched. Paquin is referring to this fragment being from the very earliest Ottoman court workshop production. The size of the fragment is 43 x 70 cm (making the size of the motif roughly same size as the yilan motif):



With these two final rugs I am personally convinced that there is some kind of parallel connection between the Anatolian cintamani rugs and the Beshir Yilan rugs.

best Martin

Horst Nitz

Hi Martin,

... need a little help from my friends. Where is the chintamani in those Beshir rugs. I can#t make it out, can you pinpoint it, please?

As to the HALI article, yes it is very interesting and well illustrated, but I doubt the concept. It is long shots from Indian Buddism to a Mongol era representation of Rustam to the Ottoman court. For the time being it is associations, similarities or parallel forms at best to me, as long as no meaningful / intrinsic connection can be drwan.

Best wishes,

Horst

Martin Andersen

Hi Horst

I sure see that it may seem like long shots between Ottoman court art, Mongolia, and Buddhist India. But on the other hand the migrations of Buddhism and Buddhist iconography to China/Mongolia, and the Mongolian/Turkic tribes ending up in Istanbul are of course historical facts. And I find the Hali articles points regarding the cintamani well supported. The connection to the Beshir rugs is of course solely my own speculation.

I will try to clarify:

The Ottomans themselves called the pattern cintamani. Which is the direct sanskrit/indian name for an almost identical Buddhist configuration. That is for me more than just an associative similarity, that is a very direct connection between motif and language:


Ottoman cintamani - Buddhist cintamani/triratna

This connection is certainly not simple like 2+2=4. It is (probably like all cultural and artistic migration) a case of multiple sources which have intermingled back and forth, not only in a one way direction.
But putting it up in bullet points may perhaps clarify a bit how I see it :

1. The Buddhist cintamani (which can be 1, 3 or more flaming pearls/jewels) migrates along with Buddhism to China where it becomes accompanied with the dragon (and if the Makara has been connected to the flaming pearl, then perhaps the Tillia Tepe jewellery can be seen as transitions in this) :



2. In Mongolia leopard and tiger skin serves as representative adornment of power. As the Mongolian court becomes more civilized under Chinese cultural influence leopard and tiger skin gets transferred to luxurious textiles. And in this process tiger and leopard gets stylized to stripes and dots:



3. In the luxurious textiles and other art forms the stylized animal stripes and dots (perhaps representing earthly power) becomes intermingled with the flaming pearls and the dragon (perhaps representing divine or religious power). The pearl of course easily can be stylized to a dot, and the dragons association with the cloud band perhaps have made it transformable to the curve/wave/stripe:



4 Ending up via the Turkic/Mongolian migrations as an Ottoman pattern, a motif which is stylized bordering to abstraction, neither looking like animal skin or pearls, but still with the name cintamani:




Regarding the possible relation to the Beshir rugs: I dont necessarily see the Yilan rugs as directly and solely evolved from the cintamani motif. And the snake/dragon motif in the yilan rugg is for me too apparent for them to be just a development of the Ottoman cintamani rugs. But the overall level of schematisation from figurations to the highly stylized level of almost only curves and dots (some even with the same colour scheme: red on blue/green), seems very parallel to me:



One could, I think with good reason, speculate in a common older rug source which is now lost. And that common source could perhaps be the place where a dragon with pearls had a level of stylizations which could intermingle with the stripes and dots from the animal skins.
The Ottoman cintamani rugs and the beshir yilan rugs could be seen as independent related species - with the famous missing link.


If I should directly pin-point the cintamani in the beshir yilan rugs (and that is a bit misleading on how I look at it) it would be in its shape of dragon and pearls. The dragons of course being the snakes, and the pearls being the red dots, or perhaps more specific the larger round ornamentations which is frequent on almost all of the beshir rugs often in one of the curves of the snake. These larger ornamentations have different shapes for example boteh or star:



I hope this clarifies how I see the possible connection between the cintamani and the yilan motif. I of course know that some of this is speculative interpretations, but on the other hand I find a lot of it based on rather well supported facts.

best Martin

Martin Andersen

Hi All

With the danger of creating more confusion (and the danger of being misread as a total crackpot) I have to bring in one more analog.

The Chinese dragon is a part of the Chinese zodiac, and as such related to a specific star constellation.





This constellation actually has a strong resemblance to the yilan motif. Urs minor (which kind of have the shape of a boteh) would then be the flaming pearl.
And the blue/green/brown background colour on the yilan rugs would be the night sky - illuminated with red stars, emphasizing the dragon star constellation.

totally speculative of course
best Martin

Martin Andersen

Sorry, I have to correct myself: Chinese astronomy is new for me, and the Chinese zodiac differs from western tradition:



This specific star constellation is only called the Dragon in western Ptolemaic tradition:



In Chinese astronomy these stars are a part of one of the larger 4 group constellations and are called The Black Tortoise of the north (which is accompanied by a snake). The others being the Dragon, the Tiger and the Phoenix:



But anyway my incident suggestion was not that the Beshir rugs were anything near astronomical correct star maps. just that the snake/dragon motif perhaps also for the beshir weavers could have been directly associated with the stars and the night sky. And at least the night sky fits the background colours beautifully

best Martin

Horst Nitz

Hi Martin,

a surprising and fascinating association you are making. Great form!

Best, Horst

Filiberto Boncompagni

I agree. I’m always skeptical about theories on origins and meanings of motifs on rugs but "The Black Tortoise of the north constellation" is a brilliant and plausible hypothesis, IMHO.
Regards,

Filiberto

Martin Andersen

Hi All

Chinese historical astronomy is rather complicated, and the exact star constellation which perhaps could have been related to the snakes in the beshir rugs, might not be terrible important. But the Dig Dipper is probably a better candidate than most. It is highly recognisable consisting of seven bright stars always visible to the plain eye all night in the northern hemisphere, and revolving around the Stella Polaris:



Here we have the seven bright stars, a snake and a tortoise on a Chinese coin from the 6th.:



And a drawing which shows how the Big Dipper have been placed in the Black Tortoise constellation:




(And come to think of it I wonder if there in the "cloud band" name is a possibility of a double connotation, originating in turkmen language perhaps lost in translation, something like cloud also having the meaning of sky or heaven. Making the snake simply a band in the sky. In Danish "cloud" is actually "sky". )

This has been great fun, and thanks for the all the inputs and comments
Best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Martin

That's one of the very few examples of a persuasive interpretation of motifs on rugs I've seen. Congratulations, and kudos. It warrants publication.

Regards

Steve Price

Chuck Wagner

Martin

I agree with Steve - this is worth publishing. Why would we not expect a population of people who spend a significant portion of their lives sleeping under the stars to find some way to represent the constellations - and associated astrological beliefs - in their material culture. Good thinking, sir.

Regards
Chuck Wagner