Attribution Unknown?
 

A couple of pieces have been posted so far with undecided attributions.
One is Jim Miller's piece, here:




We can fairly confidently say it is not Khamseh. It may be from the Varamin area, with single-wefting and some typical coloration and designs. It is probably not Shahsavan, could be Kurdish.
Here is a very small picture of a similar-looking bag called Kurdish that appeared on ebay, but nowadays they don't let pictures linger long on their site - so all that I can find is from a search cache:




Here is a piece I have wondered about for a while. The diagonal stripe design is found in Shahsavan, Afshar, Gendje and other areas. I finally found a Khamseh piece with the same design, look and construction, so that is what I call it:




The two yellows are different dye lots, not fading.
It is 17"x17" (43x43cm), 8hx7v symmetric knots per square inch, light and light brown depressed warps, and the top half has the same brown wefts, but the bottom half starts deep red, then dark brown, then dark blue and back to gold at the bottom. These weft yarns also comprise the plain selvage over two paired warps, so the colors of the warps are the color of the selvage.




But there is also some hanky-panky going on, too. At the bottom it looks like the wefts weren't pounded very tightly, giving this area wider rows of wefts than in the rest of the piece.




At the top there is a section where extra wefts are inserted, and several extra rows of knots, which peter out towards the middle of the piece.




The overall picture on the front is busy, because not only do the colors in the stripes change, but the designs in each stripe change. It is not the regular, straight lines and uniform designs one would see in Caucasian or Afshar work. Khamseh works, though.

So, do you have any other pieces of challenging attribution which might be khamseh?

Patrick Weiler

AfKhamQash
 

Pat,

Glad you asked, since the dial on my attribution wheel keeps turning on this one:













It's 61" x 44", with wool foundation, symmetrical knots (about 100 kn/sq.in.) and red wefts. The warps are mostly undyed gray/brown with some ivory. All of these borders are used by the range of South Persian weaving groups (as you've pointed out about this version of boteh border in the "Other Often Appropriated Motifs" thread). The black, white and red checkerboard patterns on the ends are reminiscent of the so-called 'Qashqa'i frieze' motif (a variant of which is also used by Khamseh weavers), but it's not like any version I've seen before. Some of the fowl in the field design look Khamseh; others not so much.

The standard clues seem to cut in various directions, attribution-wise. The seller I got it from called it Afshar but then decided he thought it more likely Qashqa'i. I alternate between Afshar and Khamseh, with a nagging Qashqa'i doubt only surfacing at particularly stressful moments.

So, it might be Khamseh.

Joel

Flipping Birds
 

Joel,

You said:
"with a nagging Qashqa'i"
Is this her?


I'm not surprised she would be nagging, after all the work she has to do around the place. Multi-tasking too, puffing away on that Hubble-Bubble and spinning yarn.
My guess is Khamseh. The colors, borders, shape, warp colors and the look of the back all point that way. Now, don't ask me what the "look of the back" means.

Ask Steve, he said the same thing about a Shirvan piece the other day!
As for the birds, it looks like a non-Qashqai weaver tried her hand at the typical more realistic-looking Qashqai-type of bird:



The knots look depressed, but are they symmetric? I will post a picture of my asymmetric Khamseh.

Patrick Weiler

Quite symmetrically depressed
 

Pat,

Yes, and pulled to the left. But hey, decide for yourself




Perhaps, in the center of the field, those are less-than-convincing attempts by a Khamseh weaver at Qashqa'i naturalistic birds . However, she comfortably reverts to familiar murgi in the spandrels.

Really? Aw, c'mon...

Joel

Stand By
 

Joel,

I see the red wefts which we attribute to Khamseh pieces in there between the knots!
One clue to attribution is to find things and places in a weaving where the weaver "reverts to familiar" as you said. There is a story from WW11 about German spies who were highly trained to look, sound and act American and then sent across the front to gather information. The Americans fell for their act, until the Germans asked where they could get some petrol. Americans call it gas. The ruse was exposed.
Just as a weaver might try to mimic a rug from a different region, she still weaves the rug the way she was taught.
Yep, those knots look symmetric. As for the pulled left, that discussion is happening on the Show and Tell page!
I wonder if the knots on one half of a rug would pull left and the other pull right if both a right and left-handed weaver were working on it together.

Here is a chanteh, with both sides in pile, which I bought as Baluch. I wasn't fooled for a minute into paying the higher prices which Baluch weavings command. Wait, they don't command higher prices.
Maybe the seller just didn't know.
This one has the Qashqai frieze, but in red and blue, at either end.
It also has the ubiquitous boteh border common in SW Iran. The endless knot is often found in SW pieces, but also in Kurdish and others. And the motif in the top panel is found in Afshar, Luri and Khamseh pieces.




The colors in this piece are particularly pleasing, with the green on the front losing a bit of its yellow, but just enough to keep it :D green enough.
It has the reciprocal green/brown and blue/red minor borders often found on Khamseh things.
It is 14"x21" (36x53cm), with brown warps, 7h x 11v asymmetric knots for 77 knots per square inch. Asymmetric open left, by the way. Maybe that is why it was misattributed?




Here is a sold Rugrabbit Baluch with passably similar coloration and asymmetric, open left knots.




The weaver of my chanteh, though, did well by using the red field instead of the dark blue which is often used by Khamseh weavers.
Looking on line for Khameh bags, I came upong this piece, labeled Shahsavan, which was sold on Rugrabbit.
The red/blue reciprocal border, Qashqai frieze at the top, bird-on-a-pole tessellation, the twill-pattern closure tabs and the colors all seem to point to Khamseh to me.




The Khwest for Khamseh's Khontinues!

Patrick Weiler

I spy with my little eye
 

As opposed to the red wefts which we attribute to Afshar pieces, like this?




Do you spy a discernible difference?

Joel

Orange you seeing Red?
 

Joel,

They did that just to confuse us a hundred years later.
Actually, the indicator of Afshar use of orange wefts is not a universal attribute of all Afshar weavings. You have just volunteered to do a study on the percentage of Afshar weavings which use red versus orange. Get back to us in a few years with your results!
 
When you combine the weft color with the warp depression in the second picture, you begin to accumulate a preponderance of evidence in favor of an Afshar attribution. The Law of Large Numbers tends to apply here, where "the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed." Wikipedia
As a mathematician I know states, disregard the outliers.
There is a photo in the Housego book Tribal Rugs, plate 79, showing "...wool hanging up in a courtyard in Kirman, the wool is brought in from neighbouring villages and is awaiting dyeing prior to being woven into carpets." I recall reading that nomadic tribal herders would bring wool to towns and exchange raw wool for dyed wool. This tends to explain the similarity in coloration of many rugs and trappings from a larger region, conflating differing tribal production. Then you need to inspect the other indicators to push the attribution one way or another.
It also complicates the ability to distinguish one tribe's output from another, making the topic of this salon possible. The Curious Question of Khamseh Kilims.

Patrick Weiler

Just moderately depressed. Thanks for asking.
 

And not the first picture where there are wefts of the same red hue and moderate warp depression?

Here's a closer shot:




Joel

Seeing red? And pink, salmon, peach...
 

Patrick,

It is indeed a potentially long research project that you have assigned me, but I hope that I am off to a promising start.

Few publications with any substantial number of Afshar weavings include information on weft color. But two that do, for at least some pieces, are Tanavoli's Afshar and the pieces from the Corwin collection featured in Oriental Rugs From Pacific Collections. The results from this exploratory survey are as follows:

Tanavoli: 33 reports of weft color.
Red: 12
Orange: 5,
Pink, salmon or peach: 7
Other, mostly undyed: 9

Corwin collection: 14 reports of weft color.
Red: 4
Pink: 5
Orange: 4
Other: 1

I trust you will be as excited as I am by the promise of these initial results and will seriously consider maintaining, or perhaps increasing your funding of this important research.

Respectfully submitted,
Joel Greifinger
  :steve:

Exhausted
 

Joel,

I did an exhaustive search of all the Afshar pieces I could lay my hands on. The results were:
Orange wefts: 4
Light Brown wefts: 3
Red wefts: 2
Granted, the red was on the orangey side.
Here is one with orange wefts. It has the rectangular format of Afshar work, the Afshar diagonal-striped minor borders and the hash-gul major border which tends to disintegrate when done by Khamseh and Luri weavers. It also has seven birds, of which none appear murgh-ish like Khamseh chickens. The two birds at either side have four legs. Hmm.




Which leads to this chanteh. It has the serrated leaves and a pair of birds similarly drawn to some of those in the above Afshar, but with a square format when folded, flat to moderately depressed warps. It has mostly dark brown, but also other various colored wefts and even a section of red wefts. The selvage is two three-ply warp units interlaced with the ground wefts. The pile is asymmetric, open right.




These small sized weavings often do not have a lot to go on in attributing them to specific tribes. This could be Khamseh, possibly Qashqai. There are 8hx10v for 80 knots per square inch. The warps are mostly light brown, but the selvage warp units are a darker brown.




Both of these pieces could belong in the Serrated Leaf thread, because they have the herati-type of design, but the chanteh is one I have not conclusively determined yet, so it is in the Attribution Unknown category for now.

Patrick Weiler

To the bunker!
 

Patrick,

Please allow me to make one additional request (beyond my earlier suggestion for increased funding). During the annual week-long rug bunker rug-turning and moth inspection, could you have your staff record the weft color for any presumptive South Persian tribal weavings? Five simple categories would suffice: a) Afshar; b) Khamseh; c) Qashqa'i; d) Luri; and e) too ambiguous to attribute.

As for weft color categories, if your staff feels the need to combine, for example, pink and peach wefts into a single category, so be it. We'll sort out the fine details once we've generated a massive database from the bunker's voluminous contents.

Joel

Done!
 

Joel,

Bring a jug of wine over and we'll get started right away!
Meanwhile, there is a category we neglected in the weft color survey. Mixed.
The one in my previous post, which I noted has orange wefts, is hiding a secret in plain sight. Well, not so plain, because the thing is up at ceiling height.
When I flipped the bottom over to check weft colors, I neglected to Do A Larkin and inspect more than a square inch of the piece.




So I lugged a ladder in. From the picture you can see the bottom few inches are orange, the next one third is brown and the top two thirds are orange again. It is evident from the picture because the selvage is similar in construction to the small chanteh, two multi-ply warp units interlaced with the ground wefts. It is these ground weft colors you can see at the edges of the piece.
It also has asymmetric open-right knots at around 80 psi, but with a more pronounced warp depression than the chanteh.
As for the designs, both have some striking similarities, from the triangle-chicken designs in both, to the round flower in the center of the lower half of the chanteh and to either side of the latchook center of the khorjin face, to the mosquito-looking serrated leaves.
Kissing cousins.

Patrick Weiler

Lawsuits
 

Here is a Khamseh Curiosity.
The reason for being in the Attribution Unknown thread is not because of the tribal affiliation, but because of the design. It is not a design as such, but merely a rectangle within a rectangle with rosettes of differing types. The quincunx squares outer border is common to SW Iran. The round rosettes along with small crosses and a couple of S motifs is ubiquitous. But the central panel, on a dark blue background, is rather amorphous. It may be an attempt at a 6-pointed star with the Windows Operating System logo in the middle.










The back is plain-weave stripes. It is 12"x10" (30x25cm) with 6hx9v for 54 symmetric knots per square inch. There is no warp depression and as in many other tribal weavings the wefts are mixed, with black in the top half, orange in the bottom half and at the very bottom it almost appears as mixed orange and light wool. It is not, though. It is just that the orange wefts are so loose that alternating light wool warps show through giving it an almost-single-wefted look.




Look also at the wedge-weave section in the left major border right near the height of the center panel. It appears to have discontinuous knotting of the pile. It is a beefy, chunky little bag with no apparent design except the one Bill Gates must have found and used for his Microsoft Windows logo. And that probably explains why the design isn't found more frequently. Lawsuits.

Patrick Weiler

Afseh? Buchaqchi?
 

This little gem is not an easy one to classify.
It has the squarish shape more common to Khamseh, 13"wide x 12"high.
The side finish is similar to the Khamseh cradles. It has 10x10 what look like symmetric knots per square inch. But the warp is rather depressed, so it is hard to tell for sure. It has complementary weft designs on either side of the closure tabs which are very densely woven in a somewhat unusual way.
The selvage join is black and white goat hair, as are the closure loops.




The colors, with the orange, and the depressed warp point more towards Afshar, as does the diagonal border. The star in lattice has an Afshar look also, but the overall appearance is more Khamseh.




The back is nondescript, though the colors have a Khamseh feel.




This could be a village weaving from somewhere near Niriz, with influences from both Afshar and Khamseh sources. The colors all look good, but the condition is excellent. This may be a good case of a dowry weaving that was seldom used and kept stored away for most of its life. There are remnants of a couple of cords at the sides on top, which may have been for carrying. It doesn't appear to be from a double bag, but was woven as a chanteh.
It is one of those weavings that could have been made by either a Khamseh or an Afshar, or, quite possibly Buchaqchi. It looks remarkably similar to this horse cover on the Haji Baba web site:




Patrick Weiler

Adding to the rak'at
 

And this (presumably) Afshar rak'at:




Joel

Seeing stars
 

Hi all,

I posted this little mat quite some time ago, but reprise it here in a different context.

It was sold to me as "Turkish". From my perspective, arguments in favor of that attribution are the symmetrical knotting, "Anatolian orange" (outer border), and a good purple (corrosive).

However, I've come to label this "Khamseh", for no other reason than the general gestalt.

It remains a bit of a puzzle to me, but I've always loved the remarkable glow of the colors.

It has symmetric knots and quite flat structure.

James

Let's disassemble that rug, James
 

James,

I agree with your Khamseh attribution. The minor "dice" borders seem to be more common in Khamseh work. Opie opined that they were nearly a SW Persian signature motif. That "arrows and crosses" major border is a refinement (?) of a meander border as found in this earlier Khamseh rug, from Jozan.net:




The field design is a lattice repeat, common to Baluch bags, but also if you expand the common single vertical column to multiple columns, you can see how the basic layout as shown in the rug below has been expanded to a lattice and the medallions surrounded by hexagonal shapes has been crunched down into one of stars surrounded by hexagons in your piece.




Similar to this Afshar/Khamseh rakat also:




The minor tulip-like meander border is found in many versions in Khamseh work. The coloration, though, of your piece is strikingly similar to Khamseh weavings, with the deep blues and reds. I think the weaver took influences from the regional design pool and created a lovely, crisp weaving with simplicity and success. It's not as small and square as the "Dutch" pieces and may well have been a rug woven for a baby.
Patrick Weiler

Thanks for the decoding analysis, Patrick.

I am settled on the Khamseh attribution, still moreso after your post.

The only think that gives me pause is the nature of the orange color / dye. I am not sure I have encountered that in another SW Persian piece, but perhaps that reflects my relative lack of exposure to that genre.

James

Orange is the new orange
 

James,

I have sent in a couple of pictures for posting, to the Turkotek Nerve Center on a remote island in the Mediterranean Sea. They located it there so it wouldn't be affected by war, pestilence or nuclear disaster.
The pictures show a couple of small Khamseh rugs with orange dyes. You may have noticed that first picture in my previous post, with mostly orange dyes. Khamseh weavers have had a tradition of using orange, but they didn't seem to slip wholesale into that radioactive orange as enthusiastically as the Qashqai did. Even though Shiraz was the market center for both tribes, my sense is that the Khamseh - on the eastern edge of the Zagros mountains, may have accessed Kerman sources for their dyes and/or dyed wool. Afshar weaves are resplendent in orange dyes also.
There is often a fine line between acceptable and detestable orange in rugs woven in the transition era after synthetic dyes became available and before chrome dyes matured.

Patrick Weiler

^natural orange^

While anticipating orange
 

Hi James and Patrick,

While we wait with expectant anticipation those orange-tinged Khamseh images

I've always figured this bag for Afshar (?). And it sure does have that orange.







Joel

Hi James, Patrick, Joel,

Then who made this rug, and many, many more with the same minor border?




The Khamseh? Now if you had said the Baluch, I would have believed you, of course...

The Kurds also regularly use that same meander, and a very similar cross (more floral):




For the arrow they don't need any refinements or simplifications, they've got it. Usually on its own, but also in combination with another motif:




I don't know much about Anatolian rugs, but as James says, they have the purple and the orange, and also that dice border, plus main borders that have similar elements. From Joel's Yuruk Salon











The ones above even have a field pattern that if necessary can be scrunched down in to the stars and hexagons. But Tom Cole shows an Anatolian star pattern in his article about the relationship between Baluch and Anatolian weavings. It is not on line any more, tomorrow I can send in a picture to Filiberto, and at the same time resize the first two pictures in this post. They came out larger than the original... Sorry.
There is also this rug, with a border that can be transformed into the arrow and star, if we want it that way:




I think Anatolian or Anatolian Kurdish are at least still in the running.

Dinie

Hi Dinie,
Done

Pat,
I hope you are right about war, pestilence or nuclear disaster… Iceland would be a safer bet. Too cold, though.
Here are your pictures:

Wheat from the chaff
 

James,

Could you post a close-up of the back of your mat? The Turkotek mill could use a bit more grist.

Joel

Checkmate
 

Dinie,

I told you that those door to door Khamseh salesmen were very good.


And old Anatolian rugs have the absolute best orange dyes of all.
The two rugs Filiberto posted from Iceland :cool: show an interesting and striking juxtaposition between a rustic, rural rug with some goat hair warps, chickens with cut-off tail feathers and several tribal devices, with the more refined, likely village-woven rug with perfectly placed motifs, soft wool and a precise and exact structure. And both have some orange dyed wool. The rustic rug may be Luri. At the bottom half, the weaver used one brown and one pink weft. They can be seen as a "barber-pole", plain selvage comprised of two sets of four warps. The upper half uses only dark brown wefts. The orange is quite light, as are the pink and yellow and green. Surely the sun has worked its charm on this piece.


Some Khamseh Confederation tribes had Luri components. Opie says the Lurs may be the progenitors of the chicken designs made famous by Khamseh weavers. The Khamseh rug has no inconsistencies and presents a very refined appearance. The orange is subdued and deep, not bright or harsh. Yes, a few polite birds and two dogs appear, but they are restrained and well-behaved. So orange is not a contraindication of Khamseh weavings.


Patrick Weiler

Hi Joel,

Unfortunately, I am traveling right now and don't seem to have a picture of the back with me on my system. I'll try to remember to get a picture of the back and post it when I return home.

James

In the meantime...
 

While we're waiting to examine the back of James's mat for clues
I thought I'd throw this on the ambiguous pile. It has a funky version of a design that appears on more formal looking Afshar rugs. However, in addition to the free form drawing, this one has warps that range from undyed brown through mixed to ivory. The wefts are light orange. I always just figured Afshar, but now... :confused:







Joel

Afshure
 

Joel,

It looks like an Afshar piece, especially with the depressed warp, rectangular shape and Afshar-looking design. The warps of different colors may just indicate a rural provenance, or Buchaqchi!!!

Patrick Weiler

Op. Cit. Rug redux
 

Back in Post #2 of this thread I wondered who had woven this rug:







Well, whoever it was, her cousin must have woven this one:














Joel

Color, color, color
 

Joel,
Cousins in SW Iran can be more closely related than we think.
In Iran, "The overall rate of consanguineous marriage was 38.6%" in a 2004 study.
These two pieces do not appear to be quite that close, but the birds are similar. They aren't the typical Khamseh birds, but the borders, colors and design interpretation are probably identifiable as Khamseh. The minor borders, "gul farengi" interpretation of the floral elements, non-depressed and darker warp, stepped-medallion field perimeters and colors coalesce into a collection of comparative consistency.

Patrick Weiler