Yale University Library

39002032482870

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
From the Estate of
John K. Beach

(MALM

BY

JOHNKIMBBRLYMYMFORD

NEW-YORK
CHARLES' SCRIBNER'SMS
MDCCCCII

Copyright, 1900, 1902, by
Charles Scribner's Sons.

All rights reserved.

PREFACE
T^HE volume here presented goes, the first, into a field
as empty as it is extensive. It is the result of several
years' study, and the author hopes that it will serve
well the purpose which prompted its creation.
The maker of books of this sort is, after all, only a
weaver. The sum of what he can accomplish is to produce
a fabric sound, thorough in workmanship, grateful in design,
and true in color. If it shall prove serviceable, survive the
effects of wear and time, and perform throughout its term of
endurance some office of aesthetic gratification as well, that
is about all the weaver can hope for. His first concern, it
would seem, is firm foundation. The warp and weft of fact
are paramount. These the writer has sought assiduously,
wherever they were to be found, including, naturally, the
mysterious, contradictory East. It is only in the Orient,
where these rugs are born, — that Orient which does not
know itself or its neighbor, scarcely its resplendent past and
certainly not its enigmatical future, — that one can understand
how complex, how interlaced, how confused and confusing,
is the subject which the writer has here attempted to systema-

PREFACE
tize and present in comprehensive form. Only there does
one see clearly why the labor was not undertaken long ago.
Out of the years spent in the work little time has been
devoted to the fanciful or imaginative side of the subject.
Its poesy and romance have been in a measure accepted as
corollaries, assumed as among the reasons for the book's
existence, and, therefore, perhaps neglected in the presenta
tion. To those who have already come under the spell of
the Eastern weavings this will not be felt as a lack. What
of color has been distributed through these pages is of
more moment to those who are still groping in the dark
belief that rugs are — merely rugs. If too little of tingent
has been employed, it is because the fabrics themselves,
properly understood, provide it in plenty — far better than
can any vocabulary or any thesaurus of poetic imagery. If
foundation shall here have been laid for that understanding,
the work will have been well done, and the worker will be
content. Acknowledgment should be made of contributions to
the book and whatever of service it may render. From Mr.
A. C. Denotovich was received much light upon Eastern
life and manners, together with energetic cooperation in the
collection and classification of technical details. His famil
iarity with the peoples and languages of the Orient, as well
as with the various weavings, was of inestimable value dur
ing the author's sojourn in the countries where rugs are
made. Many facts regarding the Persian textiles were had from

PREFACE
Mr. Hildebrand Stevens of Tabriz, and, upon the subject of
Caucasian and Turkoman fabrics, from Mr. James C. Cham
bers, United States Consul at Batoum, Russia.
In making the examinations requisite to accuracy it has
been necessary, in this country, to resort to large trade col
lections, where many rugs of each variety could from time
to time be compared. For such privilege the author is under
obligation to Mr. L. B. Searing of W. & J. Sloane ; Mr. W.
Mansell Daintry and Mr. J. L. Parker of Arnold, Constable
& Company ; Mr. A. C. Van Gaasbeek of Van Gaasbeek
and Arkell; Mr. F. B. Proctor of Gulbenkian & Company;
Mr. A. H. Campbell of Wild & Company ; Mr. W. H. Banta
of the Oriental Rug Company ; and Mr. A. Blumberg of
Tellery & Company, Amritsar, India.
One further word of thanks must be said. Knowledge
of rugs is best gained by the eye. Rug owners who have
lent pieces for illustration have therefore added to the volume
an element most essential to its usefulness.
With these comments the book is offered, in the desire
that it may lead to a clearer knowledge of the subject, and
stimulate a more exacting taste among patrons of an art
industry which merits a better fate than to be perverted or
destroyed. NEW YORK, November 15, 1900.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
THE belief, expressed when this volume first appeared,
that there was need for it, seems to have found justi
fication. Both the earlier editions were exhausted
within a few months after publication; upon the first, indeed,
collectors and dealers placed a three-fold value before half
a year was past.
In the preparation of the present edition for the press, cir
cumstances have made necessary a change in the illustrative
scheme. The color plates, which, in the preceding issues,
met with such general approbation, had become unfit for
further use, at least mechanically unproductive of results such
as proper illustration of the book required. For the making
of new plates it would have been difficult, even if it had been
desirable, to bring together all the rugs previously used. New
selections have therefore been made, which, it is believed, will
serve even better the broad purpose involved. A wholly new
color series is thus presented.
By permission of the executors of the estate of the late
Henry G. Marquand, five rugs from the collection made by
that gentleman have been taken as subjects for color
plates. Some of these ancient carpets are not to be ex-

PREFACE
celled, either in artistic quality or in rarity, by any fabrics
to be found in the royal or public collections of the Old
World, and that they can be shown here as examples of the
weaver's work in a time when the East was greatest in wealth,
power and artistic development, should be to the reader, as it
assuredly is to the author, a source of great satisfaction. Ad
mirable translation of the inscriptions in the chief of the Mar
quand pieces has been made by Dr. Richard J. H. Gottheil,
of Columbia University.
Two pieces, which appeared as artotypes in the original
book, are now reproduced in color, a promotion of which both
are eminently worthy.
So far as the book has borne upon the rug industry there
is apparent no change of condition sufficient to demand
serious modification of what has been said, save, perhaps, in
the case of the Indian weavings, in which, as is plainly enough
remarked in the text, constant betterment has been visible from
the day when American firms began to control labor in that
weed-grown field of manufacture.
The writer cannot conclude this small foreword without
expressing profound personal pleasure that the work, offered
at the first with desire that it might be a means of uplift as well
as of diversion, has been received with such unfailing favor,
from those best qualified to sit in judgment.
New York, October i, 1902.

CONTENTS

Chapter I

Introduction .

Page i

Chapter II

History .

Page 1 1

Chapter III

. The Rug-weaving Peoples .

Page 2 1

Chapter IV

Materials .

• Page 33

Chapter V .

Dyers and Dyes

Page 42

Chapter VI

Design

. Page 56

Chapter VII .

Weaving

Page 80

Chapter VIII

. Classification

. Page 98

Chapter IX .

Caucasian

Page 101

Chapter X

Turkish .

. Page 132

Chapter XI .

. Persian

Page 160

Chapter XII

Turkoman

Page 226

CONTENTS
Chapter XIII . . . Khilims . . . Page 246
Chapter XIV . . Indian . . . Tage 252
Textile Tables  Page 268
Index  Page 269

MAPS
(1) Asia Minor and the Caucasian Region . . At end
(2) The Asiatic Rug-producing Countries . . of volume

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

REPRODUCTIONS OF RUGS

COLOR PLATES AND ARTOTYPES

Plate I Royal Persian Rug, Fifteenth
Century  Color Plate iii
Plate II Lesghian Strip of the Caucasus . Color Plate 8

Plate III Kazak Rug
Plate IV Baku Rug
Plate V Bergamo Rug
Plate VI Antique Silk Persian Rug
Plate VII Shirvan Rug
PlateVIII Kurdish Rug .
Plate IX Old Kirman Rug

. Color Plate 24
. Artotype 32
. Color Plate 40
Color Plate 56
A rtotype 64
Color Plate 72
. Color Plate 88

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Plate X Saruk Sedjadeh .... Artotype 96

FACING

Plate XI Ispahan Carpet, Sixteenth
Century .... Color Plate 104

Plate XII Old Sirab Rug .
Plate XIII Kulah Prayer Rug
Plate XIV Laristan Rug

Plate XV Sehna Khilim

Plate XVI Herez Prayer Rug

Color Plate 1 20
Artotype 1 28
Color Plate 136
. Color Plate 1 52
Artotype 160

Plate XVII Very Old Persian Prayer Rug Color Plate 168
PlateXVIII Mina Khani Kurdish Rug . Color Plate 184

Plate XIX Feraghan Sedjadeh
Plate XX ShirazRug
Plate XXI Tekke Prayer Rug

Artotype 1 92
Color Plate 200
Color Plate 224

Plate XXII The Mosque Carpet of Ardebil Artotype 2.6^
PlateXXIII Yomud Turkoman Rug . Color Plate 252

Plate XXIV Samarkand Rug

Artotype 260

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PHASES OF THE RUG INDUSTRY
PHOTO-ENGRAVINGS
FACINO
Shepherds of Northern Persia  16
Anatolian Women Washing Wool  48
Yarn Workers at Home ... . . 80
East Indian Factory: Stretching the Warp . .112
A Nomad Studio  144
Kurdish Girls at the Loom  176
Boy Weavers of Tabriz  . 212
A Rug Market in Iran . ...... 236

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES
Plate I. Fifteenth Century Royal Persian
ii. 10 x 6.1
From the Collection of the late Henry G. Marquand
THIS is probably as near perfection as the woolen carpet of the East
has ever come. It was a gift from the Emperor of the Persians, pre
sumably to the Emperor of the Turks, for an authenticated record in
the possession of its late owner set forth that the rug was among the effects of
the Sultan Abdul Aziz of Turkey at the time of his death. The only pieces
of this extraordinary character which have passed out of possession of the
Oriental rulers and satraps who owned them are now locked in the treasure
chambers of other princes, or displayed in the public or private galleries of
Europe. In point of design this piece is closely kin to that owned by Prince Alexis
Lobanow-Rostowsky, a reproduction of which in colors was published as Plate
XI in the Vienna Museum's work " Oriental Carpets."
Beginning with the matter of color, there appears here in the medallions
of both centre and border the uncommon shade of wine red which is found in
Plate XI. The green, instead of being used as a ground color for the border,
is applied to the production of a higher and infinitely more artistic effect.
Upon a black central ground is spread, after the fashion of the Sufi times, a
bewildering but perfectly balanced and coSrdinate display of moss-green
creepers. The parent stems, which are the framework of the vine structure,
are in a deep shade of orange, outlined with more pronounced red. Even these
are slender and curved in the most graceful manner ; but the green branches,
leaves, tendrils, and even flower shapes which grow out from them, are of in-

ORIENTAL RUGS
credible delicacy and profusion. Here and .there, at regular intervals, and in
corresponding positions on both sides and ends of the field, are tiny natural
flowers, in glowing colors, similar to those seen in such plenty in the Ardebil
carpet (Plate XXII), save that in number and size they are reduced to a mini
mum in order not to distract attention from the more essential animal figures
which inhabit the field.
In the centre is a medallion, with what for the sake of clearness may be
termed " escalloped edges," and depending from this, toward each end of the
rug, though with no pretense at actuality, are the temple lamps. Medallion
and lamp simulacra are both grounded in what has been called the Ispahan red,
and upon this, in pink — a faint, unobtrusive, but withal beautiful contrast —
other fragile interwoven vine traceries.
This serves merely as a composite background for the superb arabesque
design worked in silver thread, the pile yarns apparently having been omitted to
allow the metal threads to be attached directly to the warp, in what closely re
sembles the Soumak or tapestry stitch. A very similar device is also found in
the centre of the Ardebil carpet.
In the innermost space of the medallion, symmetrically grouped, are four
birds, evidently of the hawk tribe, drawn with much skill and considerable
veracity. Outside the medallion, disposed amid the green in the most lifelike
attitudes of flight, pursuit, combat, etc., are the animals which play such
prominent parts in the Moslem allegories, and which were, in fact, endowed
with such large mythological significance by the peoples of Asia long before
the rise of Mohammedanism. The profundity of meaning which attaches to
these divers beasts, and even to their sundry attitudes and occupations, is
hard to come at ; but it is impossible to overlook the difference in posture and
relation to one another between the animals in the Lobanow-Rostowsky rug
and this. It is quite to be credited, too, that these changed attitudes and re
lationships, coupled with the wholly dissimilar color scheme, are meant to
convey a different meaning, to depict another state of feelings, another stage
in the progress of the endless contest between right and wrong that the animal
entities are supposed to typify.
Without endeavoring to expound the beliefs of which the animal king
dom provides visible symbols, it will suffice to repeat that the beasts of prey
generally represent light, victory, glory, right; and such as deer, gazelles,
sheep, goats, and the like, the opposite. In the Lobanow-Rostowsky rug the
central field is of a lighter color, verging on yellow, and corner spaces are for
mally set off, occupied by the heron and other birds. Here the corners are
abandoned, and the birds included in the centre medallion, the heron, usually
xviii

ORIENTAL RUGS
an emblem of long life, being omitted. It should be noted that the birds of
the hawk tribe have been in all lands and ages suggestive of victory. The
coincidences in color and design here are scarcely to be dismissed. They sug
gest much. The heron is left out ; the hawks, which occupy the corner space-
in the other rug, are here transferred to the centre of the carpet. The backs
ground is laid in funereal black, but traversed and overspread with the nascent
green which is emblematic of renewal, perpetuity, and great spiritual joy.
Thus, without translating the inscriptions on the rug, which will be re
ferred to later on, there is a suggestion of death, coupled at the same time
with repeated symbols of victory, and a suggestion of fierce prosecution of the
endless struggle between right and wrong, light and darkness.
But the contest as figuratively set down in this carpet seems to have pro
gressed to the point of partial conquest, since the panther has captured the
fawn and bears it down, whereas in the Lobanow-Rostowsky rug the move
ments of pursuit and flight among all the animals seem to have just begun.
Jackals still follow the track of the deer; the leopard, a bold and fierce figure
crouches in his thicket of green, ready to spring upon the he-goats, warring
powers of evil. The huge red lion, Persia's own symbolical beast, an element
not shown in the other rug, roars on the trail of the spotted stag, which turns,
terrified. In deep thickets, close to the lairs of lions and leopards, the timid
rabbit hides in dread, or elsewhere takes refuge in flight.
Yellow has in all ages been expressive of joy and victory. It is royally
displayed in the broad borders of the rug, overspread with fine vine patterns
in a monotone of orange. In the border of the Lobanow-Rostowsky rug there
are, all told, six cartouches, grounded in black, of the same shape as those
found in the Ardebil carpet, and joined by escalloped medallions in the same
manner. But here there are twelve of these cartouches, instead of six, and
they have a ground color of the Ispahan red, inlaid with pink vines, similar to
the medallion in the centre. Again the idea of immortality is to the fore, as
that is the ordinary significance of the cartouche.
Thus, from first to last, in spite of the black centre which suggests a
mourning carpet, there is the note of triumph, joy, and immortality. In view
of the intermittently hostile relations maintained between Persia and Turkey
during the era when the rug was unquestionably made, all that is to be read
in its design is most vital, and seems expressive of some phase of history,
which was then making so vigorously.
Whatever temporal significance the carpet may have borne, as a gift from
one monarch to another, the general interpretation outlined in the foregoing
is amply sustained by the inscriptions in the border, a most sympathetic trans-

ORIENTAL RUGS
lation of which has been made by Dr. Richard J. F. Gottheil, of Columbia
University. With his permission it is here given.
O Said, the zephyr of the Spring is blowing now ;
The rose has become fresh and luxuriant.
The drops of the dew are like pearls in the cup of the tulip,
And the tulip unfolds its glorious flag.
Narcissus keeps its eye on the stars,
Like the night-watch throughout the night.
To sit alone in the desert is not
Isolation with the company of wine.
When Saki passes the beautiful cup around
The rosy cheeks of the beauties become
Violet for the love of the rose,
And look like the purple robe of a horseman.
The lines, though it is difficult to locate them precisely, are, like nearly
all the inscriptions found in Persian fabrics of whatever age, a quotation from
one of the poets of that most poetical of all eras, and perfectly illustrative of
the high artistic impulse which centuries of war, pillage, gradually waning
power and swiftly increasing poverty and suffering have failed to eliminate
from the Persian nature. — From the Author's Notes as set down in the Catalogue
of the Marquand Collection.

I
INTRODUCTIO N
" Although we have every reason to believe that the art of carpet weaving dates back to the be
ginning of history, there is probably no industry about which we know less bibliographically, and the
paucity of reference is more extraordinary as it is not confined to the works of remote ages, but is con
tinued to our own time. A visit to any of the leading carpet merchants of the principal cities of
Europe will illustrate and confirm this statement. Beyond such broad terms as ' Persian,' ' Turko
man,' ' Smyrna,' they know little of the old carpets in their stocks, whilst the exigencies of compe
tition force them to conceal the names of the localities of manufacture of modern carpets, excepting
certain well-known factories." — C. Purdon Clarke, Assistant Director of the South Kensington
Museum, THE purposes of this book are: First, to consider the deep
and enjoyable meaning of Oriental floor coverings ; second,
to throw light upon the life and work of the weavers ; third,
to dispel, so far as lies within the power of the author, the obscurity in
which the subject has hitherto been involved, and place the reader in
possession of such information regarding the rugs, both genuine and
spurious, now generally offered for sale in American markets, as shall,
in a measure at least, deliver him from the mercy of the decorator,
the salesman and the auctioneer ; fourth, to emphasize the superiority
of the old vegetable dyes, the true Oriental coloring ; finally, to give
an idea of what constitutes true value, of the comparative worth of
the various Oriental weavings, and the means of distinguishing them.
Heretofore, no work has been obtainable which even pretended
to the performance of this needful task. Publishers and booksellers

ORIENTAL RUGS
who many times in each year are compelled to answer no, to requests
for such a manual, will confirm this assertion. In view of the enor
mous sales of rugs — those actually made in the Orient, both good and
bad, and those turned out by millions from factories in England,
Germany and America, it seems incredible that there should be noth
ing in form of print to tell the purchaser aught of the commodities
upon which, whether as collector or householder, he expends large
sums of money. Both upon artistic and hygienic grounds the use of
Oriental forms of carpeting has become widely prevalent in the United
States during the last ten years ; and yet, to this day, no man may
know more of the class to which his rugs belong than his dealer or
his purchasing agent chooses to tell him.
The fact that the importation of Eastern fabrics on the one
hand, and the manufacture of American imitations and substitutes on
the other, have so fabulously increased during the decade just passed,
is of much significance in connection with the lack of all definite pub
lished information upon the subject. Rug dealers have been un
willing to reveal the secrets or, in truth, any of the real working
knowledge of their trade, and the guarding of the mystery has been
distinctly worth the while.1
The only books treating of the subject, hitherto, with practical
intent of any sort, have been the splendid publications bearing upon
a few ancient and almost priceless pieces in the European collections,
and the advertising brochures of rug-selling firms — pages fertile in
word-painting and tempting in construction, but sterile in practical
information. These have dealt chiefly in the glamour of the theme,
but they have prospered in the thing whereto they were sent.
The sentences of Mr. Purdon Clarke, cited at the beginning of
1 Custom House statistics show that while prior to 1892 there were brought to this country only
$300,000 worth of Oriental rugs annually, the value of the importation has grown, even under the most
deterrent tariff schedules, to more than $3,000,000. The manufacture of American machine-made
rugs has increased ten-fold in the same time.

INTRODUCTION
this chapter, were written of the European rug trade ; but they apply
as accurately to much of that of the United States. To illustrate :
The writer saw, among five hundred fabrics in a New York establish
ment, a dark, stout rug, perhaps five feet by ten. The befezzed Ori
ental who was in charge urged its purchase.
" It is a fine rug, that," he said ; " a very rare variety."
" Of what variety is it ? "
" That," he responded with impressive gravity, " is a Lute."
" Ah ! A Lul^. And from what does the name come ? "
" From the old city of Lute in Persia," he answered ; " my father
was born there ; it is a fine old town."
It was plain he was going on to tell the threadbare narrative, as
venerable as the city of Lute, and as fictitious, of how this particular
bit of carpet was more than a century old— was, in fact, an heirloom
in his family ; of how his father had died just after bringing it all the
way to this country, and it could now be had for the wretched sum of
»
fifty dollars, because its associations made him so sad.
As a matter of fact, the name " Lute " is a corruption of the
French roulez, and is given by Levantine dealers, whose business is
largely transacted in Gallic, to a class of carpets so thick, so tightly
woven, that they cannot be folded, but must of necessity be rolled up
for shipment. But the part of this anecdote most germane, perhaps, to the
present discussion is that the rug was not in the least a " Lute," but a
somewhat down-at-heel Kurdish product from the sand-hill districts
of Mosul. The ignorance of this particular vendor happened to be grossly
patent ; but the incident illustrated, as well, the too common custom
of beguiling the buyer with egregious tales, a custom against which
the average person is unarmed. There is probably no place in the
world where a man with no leg of actual knowledge to stand on will

ORIENTAL RUGS
prove so helpless as in the midst of a stock of a thousand or more
Oriental rugs. The floors are carpeted with them, the walls and
ceilings are hung thick with them. Those for sale are flashed before
his eyes, often without classification, and with a rapidity of succession
which is deadly, even to expert judgment. The swift kaleidoscope
of diverse and unfamiliar patterns, coupled with an array and arrange
ment of colors the like of which is not elsewhere, produces a dazed
condition akin to hypnosis ; the faculty of selection is benumbed.
But, lest these observations be misapplied, it should be said
promptly that in this maze there is much to confuse the most expert.
There are rugs in every trade collection which defy identification.
The elements to be considered are many and complex, since the
people engaged in rug-making number into millions, all with wills
and inspirations of their own.
Were it not for this, conformity to local habits of texture and
design would establish a rug's origin ; but both are apt, nowadays, to
mislead. The weaver in a tribe whose fabrics have for centuries
been built upon a woollen warp and weft may substitute cotton or
goat's-hair for one or both, either from necessity or caprice. It is
conceivable, too, that some wild leader in the North may on a day
have revealed to him a new and extraordinary design. To the thou
sands of his clan he may issue an order to abandon the old patterns,
and to fashion in their stead this new figment of his imagination, to
his own glorification and their profit. A year later the bales will come
to market, in place of the customary products of the tribe, and deal
ers will wrangle mightily over them. Scorn will be visited upon him
who shall make bold to say that he knows these strange creations to
be — let us say — Kazaks, even though he bought them from a Kazak,
or, for that matter, saw them wrought.
The latitude for error is boundless, even to the best judges, since
manufacture for market has become the rule instead of the exception,

INTRODUCTION
and European and American designs have been sent to the Oriental
weaver for working. There is, perhaps, no art in which opinions as
to the origin of products differ so widely, and with reason upon
the side of all. Hence no writer, no authority so called, no dealer in
rugs may lay claim to infallibility. Patterns, figures, designs are
largely discarded as a means to identification. The designs are
jumbled to suit a market demand, and it is, of course, impossible to
identify a nondescript. Turkish, Persian and Caucasian elements are
wrought into one and the same rug by prisoners in the East Indian
jails. Many designs, too, have come into common use over a wide
extent of territory. In a Persian bazaar I have heard two Hamadanlis
disputing for half an hour as to whether a certain pair of runners
came from Kara Geuz or Kengawar.
Nevertheless the craft is not wholly debauched ; types are not
yet wholly annihilated. It is with types that this book essays to deal,
and with this understanding the textile tables and specific descrip
tions of various rugs are presented. They are formulated from the
results of personal experience in the manufacture, collection, buying
and selling of rugs, and upon the author's own studious examination,
both in America and in the Orient, of many specimens of each class
discussed. The divisions are more minute than those ordinarily made by
rug sellers. The significance of this is made plain in the quoted
remark of Mr. Purdon Clarke. The names here employed are those
in vogue among the rug traders of Smyrna and Constantinople.
Some are provincial ; some indicate a town, oftentimes merely the
market-place; some, a tribe ; some have no discoverable origin. Others
still are inventions of recent time, devised solely to mark a quality.
Many of them all are wholly misleading, and not understood in the
districts where the carpets are made. 1 1 seems best, however, to adhere
to them rather than to bring about confusion greater than that which
5

ORIENTAL RUGS
already exists. There are doubtless many names, adopted for purposes
of trade, which are not to be found here. Hundreds of new and sound
ing titles may be advanced, so long as carpet firms invent novelties,
or shepherd women weave upon their mountains, each as she wills,
putting into their fabrics the glory of the sunset, the bend of the
river where their flocks water, or rude depictions of the sheep grazing
about the foothills.1 But it is unquestionably true, as an English
authority has said, that " the place of production can, within a wide
area, be ascertained with sufficient certainty."
Something must here be said concerning the deterioration in
Oriental fabrics, to which inferential allusion has already been made.
In some districts the decadence in the present product, from the old
standards of design, color and execution, is pitiful. The weavers
seem to have learned from the West the demoralizing lesson of haste,
and have developed, to a sad degree, the attendant vice of careless
ness. At the same rate of retrogression that has marked the last
two decades, the next generation will, perforce, have lost the magic
of its forbears, and the fabrics which have delighted and amazed the
world will have become mere matters of history. The patterns are

1 For example, rugs, chiefly of Persian manufacture, are sold under the names Kinari, Sarpuz,
and Sarandaz. These titles are of no significance as denoting any particular locality of manufacture.
They are applied arbitrarily to rugs of a certain shape or quality. Kinari is the Persian name for
the long strip carpets, the makatlik, or " runners," which form the sides of the triclinium ; Sarandaz
denotes the wider strip which goes across the head of the room, and upon which the lord of the house
sits. Sarpuz, when reduced to English in like manner, means simply a covering. The name may be
applied to any soft, light rug adapted to the uses of domestic comfort.
An anecdote illustrative of the way in which new rug names are secured is told by Mr. W. H.
Banta. It relates to the Bandhor rugs, which are known far and wide throughout this country as a
heavy and rather low-priced quality of Asia Minor carpets. " Many years ago," he said, "there was
ordered by a New York firm a line of stout carpets on the model of the modern Ghiordes, but with
some variations in design. When the first one arrived a gentleman from Boston saw it, liked it, and
offered right away to buy it. A price was named, double what we had really intended to sell it at, but
he didn't balk. When he asked the name of the fabric we had no name to give him, so two or three
of us got out the map of the East, and each selected a name. These, written on slips of paper, were
placed in a hat, and I put in my hand and drew out the paper bearing the word Bandhor. So we
called the rugs Bandhor, and they have been so known ever since.
6

INTRODUCTION
being Occidentalized, if the expression is permissible ; the colors are
already, to a great extent, the product of the laboratory ; the charac
teristic beauty and strength of the Eastern rugs are even now far on
the way to extinction.' All the causes contributory to this condi
tion can scarcely be enumerated, and it would be vain to enter upon
arraignment of the many classes who lend their share of aid toward
it. The question is essentially an economic one. There is involved
the acquisitiveness of the several dealers through whose hands the
fabrics pass, and even the weaver himself is not exempt from dis
credit, since he yields to the temptation to produce much, though of
poorer quality, that his gains may be greater. Unless the human
fames auri can be allayed, the evil will continue.
But aside from this phase, it must be seen that at the root of the
matter lies the demand of the West for these fabrics, a demand born
of the growing artistic tendency — or, possibly, the " Oriental fad " —
of Western peoples. The centre of population changes. The races
left in the Orient, mere remnants of the millions who swarmed there
of old, are unequal, with their slow methods, to the task of carpeting
the homes of the teeming West and yet maintaining the quality which
prevailed when there was no demand save that created by their own
necessities. There are industrious sales-gentlemen who will stoutly and un-
blushingly deny the deterioration. They will contend, whether sin
cerely or not, that innovations have been solely in the nature of prac
tical improvement. They may even defend the substitution of aniline
dyes for the old vegetable mordant dyes of the East, upon the grounds
of "facility," "brilliancy" and "scope." But such will hardly find
solace or corroboration in a comparison of the antique and modern

1 " Possibly there may be a resurrection of the Persian art, but in the meantime aniline dyes,
tawdry European imitations and western models, without either grace or originality, are doing their
best to deprave it." — Mrs. Bishop : "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan."
7

ORIENTAL RUGS
Feraghans, or make bold to place the old-time Ghiordes beside much
of the rubbish turned out to-day from that ancient home of fine work
manship. As to the precise meaning of the word " antique," as applied to
Eastern carpetings, interpretations differ. For the purpose of the
collector, an " antique " has been defined as a fabric which has not
less than fifty years of actual age. But the number of these
arriving in this country constitutes such an infinitesimal proportion
of the entire importation of fabrics offered for sale by that name, and
artificial methods are so efficacious in producing the appearance of
age, that rug dealers, for business purposes, have come to count as
" antiques " all fabrics which, in respect of dyes, materials, patterns
and texture, are constructed in anything like similarity and equality
to the rugs of half a century back.
The almost fabulous demand which has grown up in the last
twenty-five years has in many lines cleared the market of antiques,
and given rise to a reckless outpour of inferior stuff, such as can be
thrown together in a minimum of time and sold for the lowest price.
Working overtime, and with unlimited employment in view, the Ori
ental, happy that there has arisen such a call for his handiwork, does
not dream how near is the "demise" of the goose which has laid him
this golden egg. The great firms of Persia, on their part, have seen
the handwriting on the wall, and the concern which controls the vast
output of certain of the looms at Sultanabad has begun, by a rever
sion to the old painstaking, to restore the Feraghans, which once
ranked among the best fabrics in Persia, but have of late years, fallen
to the job-lot level.
But although the weaver's art has, under stress of temptation, be
come in a great measure an industry, pure and simple, it should not be
judged by any extreme example. Wisdom seems not to have waned
so easily in all parts of the Orient, for there are rug-producing neigh-
8

Plate II. Lesghian Strip of the Caucasus
II. 2 X 3. II
Loaned by Mr. F. B. Proctor
A considerable number of rugs proceed from the middle section of the Cau
casus, in which yellow and blue prevail almost as largely as they do in the sed
jadeh and prayer carpets of Kulah. They are marketed chiefly in Tiflis and
Elizabetpol, and are attributed to the Lesghian tribes, scattered all along the
foot-hills of the range. They show less of conformity to the strict letter of Cau
casian desigh than those of the sections farther East, but like the rug here
reproduced, seem to pursue in part a symbolism of their own, and in minor orna
mentation lean toward the Persian teaching. They are bright, wholesome' and
serviceable and in certain surroundings most desirable in point of color.

INTRODUCTION
borhoods where the standards of design and workmanship have been
more scrupulously upheld. Whether, in adhering to ancient methods
the weavers of these parts had foreknowledge of the penalty which
waits upon retrogradation, may not be clear, but the logic of the mat
ter is apparent in the prestige and the compensation which in every
rug market wait upon this staunch devotion to classic models.
But even the best of modern products are forced to pay tribute
to the infatuation of the West for what is or seems to be of great age.
The astute vendors of the East, and undoubtedly some in this coun
try, take shrewd advantage of every blemish in a rug, and employ
unnumbered tricks of chemical and other treatment, to add the ap
pearance of age, and consequent value, to fabrics which left the
looms perhaps not more than a year ago. It may be that your
"antique," which you brought home yesterday in all the proud joy of
ownership, has within its brief twelve-month of existence been made
to undergo many processes. It may have been treated with lemon
juice and oxalic acid, for example, to change its flaring reds into old
shades, or with coffee to give it the yellow of years. Its lustre may
be born of glycerine. It may have been singed with hot irons.
Its hues have perhaps been dulled by smoke. It may have been
buried in the ground and then renovated, sand-papered back and front
to give the thinness of old age, and for the sheer decrepitude of an
almost sacred and invaluable antiquity, hammered and combined at
the sides and ends, and on spots over its surface. There is no end to
these devices, and not much cure for them.
On the whole, it is to be well considered whether, with these
facts in view, the wisest course in selecting Oriental rugs, for all save
the most opulent buyers — the " collectors " — is not to abandon the
rather bootless search for genuine antiques, and purchase fabrics con
fessedly new, but which conforms minutely to the highest standards
which have the requisite number of knots to the square inch, the col-

ORIENTAL RUGS
ors of which will not run when attacked by water, the patterns of
which are purely the patterns of the East — what may, to identify
them, be called practical antiques.
The money paid for artificial age would secure all these merits in
a new fabric ; the amount of service and genuine comfort derived
would prove greater in the end, and as heirlooms — for they will out
live the buyer by generations — they would be dearer than if they had
come into the family with what may accurately be called a " doubtful
past." In any event it is best to recognize, first as well as last, the indis
putable fact that you cannot now secure desirable Oriental rugs for
a song. Even though they be sold in the Orient at what we should
consider most reasonable prices, it must not be forgotten that the
duty upon them is forty per cent, ad valorem, and ten cents per square
foot direct. When transportation, the ordinary expenses of business,
profits of jobbers, et cetera, are counted, the foreign fabric necessarily
calls for a substantial price, and it is safe to rest assured, generally,
that who sells an Oriental rug very cheap, is selling a very cheap Ori
ental rug as well.

II
HISTORY
CARPET, as it has long been understood, is a narrow word.
It has meant, at most, merely a floor-covering. It is only
in recent years that the Oriental fabric, lying loose upon
the floor, has been designated by any other name than rug, no matter
what its dimensions, nor how nearly it covered the entire floor space
of the apartment. In our terminology nails have always been re
quired to make a carpet, even of a rug. Our multiplication of pieces
of furniture has so subordinated the carpet that it has had merely the
value of background.
In Eastern life this is not so. The carpetings, in strictly Orien
tal furnishing, have always constituted well nigh the whole equipment
and adornment of the apartment. They cover the floor, they cover
the divans, which, save for small inlaid octagonal tables, are about
the only furniture ; they take the place of ceiling and wall paper, and
their picturings have always been employed to do what paintings,
placques and etchings do upon our Western walls.
The reason for the last-named utilization of the carpet may be
found, in part at least, in the embargo which the Mohammedan canons
lay upon the use of pigments, and further, in the even more stringent
rules of the orthodox portion of Islam, which forbid, as well, all de-

ORIENTAL RUGS
piction in art of the human figure, or even of birds and beasts. Thus
the art of the East has been mainly confined to textile fabrics, and
except in Persia and parts of Central Asia, where the rigorous Sun-
nite doctrine does not maintain, its expression has not gone outside
the realm of conventional and cabalistic designs. The Persians, be
longing to the Shiite sect of Mohammedans — the " loose construction
ists" — accepted with readiness the grotesque animal figures of the
Chinese— many of them, like the deer, leopard' and dragon, having
their own religious significance, and even carried to an advanced degree
of perfection the representation of human figures and the sprites of
their mythology.* But for the most part the Mussulman populations
have heeded the prohibition, and restricted themselves to such results
in depiction as are vouchsafed by wool and silk. It is small wonder,
then, that the fabrics are rich and varied. They embody, perforce,
all that the Oriental knows of color, form, symmetry, the exaltation
of faith and the delight of living.
1 The figures of the lion and deer, or leopard and deer, seen so often in conjunction in the cen
tral fields of Persian rugs, are of very ancient origin. Scholars' opinions vary as to their precise deri
vation ; while they are believed to have been brought from China, in the ancient religion of which
similar portrayals had a definite significance, kindred shapes are, nevertheless, found in gigantic relief
upon stone porticos in the ruins of Persepolis, so that their importation from China, if that be indeed
their birth-place, and their inweaving into the symbolism of the old Persians, must have been accomp
lished at a very remote period. Aside from all doubts as to their origin, it is generally agreed among
Orientalists that the feline shape represents daylight, and that of the deer, or antelope, or whatever
species of the family it may be, darkness. Invariably, the lion preys upon the deer, and, by a figurative
interpretation, has come to be regarded in this connection as symbolic of victory or glory. It is perhaps
imaginative, but, for all that, not wholly without reason, to believe that here, in some sort, is the
foundation of the story that —
11 The lion and the unicorn were lighting for the crown,
The lion chased the unicorn all about the town.''
This derivation is not unlikely, since in some of the ancient depictions the vanquished animal is plainly
seen to have the single horn growing from its forehead.
2 " The religion of the Prophet forbade any representation of the human figure. This prohibi
tion does not appear to have been long observed, for we find that the walls of palaces and of the
houses of the rich were covered with paintings. There was a school of painting at Basra [Bassorah,
on the Shat-el-Arab], and a historian gives us the names of two painters of high celebrity in their
art." — Professor Stanislas Guyard.

HISTORY
The custom, prevalent in the Orient, of removing the shoes be
fore entering the doorway of a mosque or the habitation of a fellow-
being, warrants the construction of fine carpets, in delicate tints and
of dainty texture, for domestic use as well as for places of worship.
But it is by no means certain that the first use of these was to be trod
upon. It would seem, rather, that they were, in the beginning, em
ployed as hangings.
How remote the time in which these strange textile devices were
born is a matter for archaeology to determine. In a dozen different
families of Oriental rugs are to be found the patterns of the stone
carvings on the ancient Maya temples in Yucatan, which, if students
of Mexican antiquities are to be believed, were built when Egypt was
a wilderness, and abandoned centuries before Confucius. These
Mayas were the people whose missionaries, it is averred, crossed the
Pacific to settle in the Deccan, and journeying over Asia taught to
infant Egypt the fundament of the Mysteries, and handed down to
Judaism and Christianity, for future use, the story of Cain and Abel,
and even the older one of the tempted Eve.
There is needed no effort of imagination to believe that in the
gay carpets of the East there lies written, though now probably un
translatable, the record of the universal mysticism. That they were
made in prehistoric ages, and that their first value was religious or
regal, rather than utilitarian, seems beyond doubt. Even in its
rudest forms the art was sumptuary. It is coeval with the first up
lifting of one man above his fellows, whether the exaltation was reli
gious, pecuniary, or physical.
It is not the purpose here to transcribe the historical record of
this branch of the textile art, save in so far as shall serve to suggest
forcibly the deep significance of Oriental fabrics, as embodying the
natural religions which preceded all known or recorded formulae, the
kinship of races now accounted alien to one another, and the trend
13

ORIENTAL RUGS
and tenor of Eastern life, which through centuries of invasion, tur
moil, and wandering to and fro, has retained the forms which were
taught it in the morning of the world.
The skeptical — necessarily a synonym for practical — will be
grudge to rugs this measure of dignity or import. It is not, how
ever, claimed that these carpets relate in legible form the specific oc
currences of history. They do not specify. They are not even
cuneiforms. They array no names, no dates. They do, nevertheless,
when studied collaterally, tell an edifying story of a widespread and
almost universal faith whose forms are lost, and of peoples of which, in
this age of atomics, there remains little save the names. It is the in
dubitable identification of modern rug designs with the solemn and
mysterious emblems of the " unrecorded time," the proven fact that
the archaic systems of weaving were the same as those in vogue in
the East to-day, that compels the thoughtful modern, of whatever
race, to view these fabrics, as Sir George Birdwood says, as " works
of art, and not manufacturers' piece goods produced at competition
prices."1 There is thus far, it seems, no means of establishing, positively,
an origin for these fabrics more ancient than the Egyptian. Certainty
halts there, perforce, until some new light shall rise to reveal clearly
an older civilization than that in the valley of the Nile. But there
the weaver, laboriously, as he does to-day, wove his threads into the
same mystical, universal shapes which come now in the rugs consigned
from Smyrna and Stamboul. And yet, Heliopolis is a straggling
ruin. Grass overgrows the foundations of the temples in which great
1 This is in striking accord with the utterance of Adelbert de Beaumont, in his essay, " Les
Arts Decoratifs en Orient et en France.'' He says: " Cachemires de l'lnde, bijoux de Lahore, ivoires
et porcelaines de Chine et Ispahan, gazes et mousselines d'Agra, armes et tapis de Kurdistan, etc., sont
tellement superieurs a ses imitations de fabrications modernes, par la qualitede lamatiere, par la beaute
des dessins, l'harmonie des couleurs, la solidity, le bon marche, que tout homme eclaire et de bonne foi ne
saurait un seul instant hesiter dans ses preferences, qu'il se place au point de vue de l'art ou a celui de
l'industrie." M

HISTORY
tapestries once hung before the shrines of the Phoenix and the sacred
Mneh. The glowing fabrics which made beautiful the altars of Isis
and Osiris are dust, and in Cairo shrewd traders charge the Giaour
travellers from Europe and the Americas ten prices for sedjadeh
shipped over from Constantinople or Smyrna for the purpose, or for
the scattering prayer-rugs and grave-cloths which come out from the
districts beyond the desert. The Levantine merchants, if you ask
them about the rugs from Damascus or Baghdad, will shrug their
shoulders and shake their heads in negation ; ' but many skilful
hands once labored at the looms in these cities, and the fabrics of
Thebes, Tyre, Memphis, and Sidon were doubtless worth at one time
almost their weight in gold.
Assyria and Chaldea stand next to Egypt as ancient homes of
carpet-making, and though no specimens of the early Assyrian re
main, the character of the designs is known from the wall reliefs
found at Nineveh, which now have place in the British Museum.
Professor J. H. Middleton, of Cambridge, says of these: "The
stuffs worn by Asur-Banipal are most elaborate in design, being
covered with delicate geometrical patterns and diapers, with borders
of lotus and other flowers, treated with decorative skill. A large
marble slab from the same palace is covered with an elaborate textile
pattern in low relief, and is evidently a faithful copy of an Assyrian
carpet. Still more magnificent stuffs are represented as being worn
by Assyrian captives, on the enamelled wall tiles from Rameses II.'s
palace (fourteenth century B. C.) at Tel el Yahudiyah. The woven

1 There are made, in parts of the Baghdad district, and shipped from Baghdad, coarse nomad
rugs following the lower order of Iran and Mosul designs, but Baghdad is not recognized as a home of
carpet manufacture by the most of Levantine dealers. That its industry should have so fallen away is
incomprehensible, since even down into the first quarter of the present century carpets were produced
here which took rank with the best of Persian fabrics. They were, it is true, marked by many of the
Chinese elements, an inevitable consequence of the long period of Mongol occupation. The textile
product of the district nowadays takes principally the form of djijims or portieres, and other embroi
dery, for which materials are abundant in the outlying country.
15

ORIENTAL RUGS
patterns are most minutely reproduced in their different columns, and
the design, special to Assyria, of the sacred tree between two guar
dian beasts, is clearly represented, though on the most minute scale."
This paragraph contains much in substantiation of the claim that
modern Oriental carpets are identical with the earliest fabrics pro
duced in Egypt, for the " delicate geometrical patterns and diapers,
with borders of lotus and other flowers," will be found reproduced
with scarcely any modification in many Eastern rugs to-day. And
touching the marble slab here referred to as " a faithful copy of an
Assyrian carpet," it is agreed that many of the Babylonian designs
are found in their completeness in the modern Persian pieces. " The
preeminence of the ancient Babylonian weavers," says another writer,
" does not appear ever to have been lost by their successors, and at
the present time the carpets of Persia are as much prized and as
eagerly sought after by European nations as they were when ancient
Babylon was in its glory."
As for the " design, special to Assyria, of the sacred tree be
tween two guardian beasts," referred to by Professor Middleton, it
was found by the writer in New York City, no longer ago than
December, 1899, in a Persian silk rug of beautiful workmanship and
high value. The Armenian dealer laughed at it as uncouth, and said
he had no idea of its meaning. Yet it linked the immediate present
with the life of oldest Assyria, across the abyss of more than thirty
centuries. Truly, " Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams." Pliny speaks in highest praise of the skill of these Assyrians in
weaving, wonders at their artistic blending of colors, and records the
fact that all this sort of work had come, long before his era, to bear
the name of "Babylonica peristromata " — the seal of its most perfect
masters. To this day, among the peoples of the Levant, that old
Greek name lingers, and the traders of the Mediterranean fully be-
16

:i,I \>i3ii.i.M()\t to siiM.nt.ians

HISTORY
lieve that the whole art of rug-weaving had its earliest beginning, as
well as its greatest splendor, in Babylonia and Chaldea.
Of the Phoenician and archaic Grecian textile patterns the only
knowledge to be had is in the designs of the pottery, which show in
detail a multitude of patterns, both separate and consecutive, which
appear in the rugs of Asia Minor and the Trans-Caucasus to-day,
in perfect integrity. Professor Middleton refers to them in this wise:
" Simple combinations of lines, arranged in designs obviously sug
gested by the matting or textile fabrics." He says further : " Some
of the designs of this class seem common to all races of men in an
elementary stage of progress, and occur on the earliest known pot
tery, that of the Neolithic Age."
As time went on, this primitive ornamentation grew more pro
fuse. Greece and her neighbors borrowed the floral-geometrical pat
terns, chiefly the lotus and attendant shapes, from Egypt and
Assyria, and made them part of their system of ornamentation, at the
richest period of Greek predominance. This loan, it will be seen
later, Greece and her pupil Italy repaid with interest to Persia, heir
of the Assyrian art, centuries afterwards.
While, after the perfection of the floral forms, Greece was wid
ening the field of her textile decoration, the far East, too, developed
a newer richness in its weavings, the renown of which is so abund
antly preserved. How prominent a feature the carpets were of all
the life of the Orient, plain and hodden in its poverty, bright and
sumptuous in its splendor, the literature of all its eras shows. The
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is filled with allusions to them.
Their colors brighten the pages of Homer. Herodotus and Strabo
bear witness to the use of gold and silver carpets upon the floors in
Persia. The chroniclers of conquest pause in their narratives to
tell of the fabrics which were like a sunrise of gold upon a world
strewn with blossoms. Every author of antiquity whose writings
17

ORIENTAL RUGS
the hand of Time has spared has left record of those splendid
weavings. For centuries, down into the Christian era, the fame of the
Persian carpets grew among the people of the West, and vessels ply
ing the Mediterranean carried rich freights of textiles to golden
Rome. Fortunes were lavished on them. Upon their conquest of
Byzantium the Romans appropriated much of its civilization, but
again receding, left its art almost unaltered by their presence. The
East has remained the fountain-head of harmony. Even war and car
nage had no power to quell the spirit of its art. The Crusaders
came home with their wonderful stories, and wore on their shields as
heraldic devices the dragons and griffins and nameless birds which
Egypt had centuries before wrought upon the tapestries of its tem
ples. The Troubadors sang, and the spirit of the East had entered
into their singing. Europe went Araby mad.
The Saracens, swarming into Spain, took with them the East
ern looms and patterns and hues, and wove in Cordova and other
towns carpets like those of the Orient. Through all Europe, in this
fashion, went the famous " carpets of Baldechine " ' and with them the
legend and poesy and mysticism of the land where they were born.
While the influence was spreading along the shores of the
Mediterranean, another track had been opened by which- notions of
this dyeing and weaving and other Oriental handicrafts had been
making way overland as far as Scandinavia, leaving all the way a
trail which is plain to the present time. There have been found in
towns on the Norse islands coins which show that commercial rela
tions existed between those parts and the Orient early in the Chris
tian centuries, and the southern races, exploring the Norseland long
afterward, were amazed at the skill of these snow-girt nations in the
dyeing of wool and the weaving of carpets and coverings.
1 Baghdad, 18

HISTORY
But the Eastern textile industry as planted in turn in Spain,
Sicily, and Venice, retained better its characteristic form, for the
Mediterranean merchants took to their cities the most skilful weav
ers from the looms of Persia, and, first from Cordova, then from
Palermo in the twelfth century, and from Venice in the fourteenth,
Europe was supplied with carpets of the true Oriental pattern and
method, to spread in its cathedrals, in the throne-rooms of its royalty
and the boudoirs of its great ladies.
So far had Italy progressed in the sixteenth century that the
Shah Abbas, whose reign marks the climax of development in Per
sia, sent from his court, in order to demonstrate his antagonism to the
Central Asian influence, so strong after the conquests of Genghis,
Tamur, and their successors, a company of young men to study art
under Raphael. It was in the lessons brought back by these that
the seed was sown of the ornate, Italianesque touch in decoration,
which is traceable in the rich Kirman and Tabriz rugs of the present
time, and others made in imitation of them.
The same era marked the establishment of the French factories,
for the manufacture of " Turkish carpets " at Arras, Fontainebleau,
Tours, the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Faubourg de St. Antoine, and
the Savonnerie, culminating in the setting up of looms at the Gobe
lins', Beauvais, and Aubusson by Colbert for Louis XIV.
With these we have naught to do, save to note that at Beauvais
the tradition and theory of the Persian carpets were long lived up to.
At Aubusson and the Gobelins' the Babylonian richness has given
way to Gallic vanity, and the harmonious and meaning designs of
the sixteenth century Persian have been replaced by the panoramic
untruth of French classicism. The method in vogue at the Gobe
lins', known as the Gobelin technique, is not that generally employed
in the carpet-making districts of the Orient. The closely trimmed
pile, prettily termed "a mosaic in wool," is exchanged for the pro-
19

ORIENTAL RUGS
duction of complex color effects by the working of dyed weft-threads
across the warp in true tapestry fashion. The crude beginnings of
this system are discovered in the hard, wiry coverings called khi-
lims, made chiefly in Kurdistan, Merv, Sehna, Shirvan, and among
the nomad population in Anatolia; a further development of it
appears in the pileless Soumak rugs of the Caucasus.
Great Britain had its first real knowledge of the Oriental carpet
for domestic use, from Eleanor of Castile and her retinue, who
brought with them on their journey into England in the thirteenth
century the splendid pieces which Saracen weavers had turned out
from the looms in Cordova and Granada. James I. established
looms at Mortlake in Surrey, but the Civil War put an end to their
operation, and only after the Edict of Nantes, when French dyers
and weavers skilled in the Turkish colors and patterns took refuge
in England, was the work there resumed with any measure of
success. It was three hundred and fifty years ago that the "Turkish
carpet " looms were set up in France, then leader in every art. Year
after year, through the intervening centuries, spinners have spun
and dyers have mixed their dyes, and weavers have labored patient
at the loom in many lands. The iron age has contrived machinery
to do the work of myriad fingers, and designers, the best the schools
of two continents could furnish, have fed gorgeous patterns to the
flying wheels, in hope to conquer the judgment and favor of the
world. And still the dusky weavers of Daghestan, Kirman, Sehna,
Kurdistan, and Tabriz are knotting before their rude frames the
most splendid fabrics on the globe, and the Occident, coin in hand,
waits upon their weaving.

Ill
THE RUG-WEAVING PEOPLES
IT is hard not to put questions to an Oriental rug when you are
alone with it. What of this little web, which in its gay Eastern
coloring seems so much more like a silent, smiling guest than a
property ? Was it born in a shepherd's hut in the pillared mountains
of Central Asia, with the snow whirling about the door, and the sheep
and camels huddled without ? Or did the birds sing among the roses
of a Persian village to the weaver as he tied the stitches in ? From
what far defile in Afghanistan did it jojrney on camel-back to the
sea, swept by the sand-storms of the desert, scorched by the Orient
heat ? Was it paid to a mollah for prayers at the shrine of Mecca or
Meshhed ? Did it change hands in fair barter in the market-place,
or did it pass over the dead body of its rightful owner to the keeping
of the swarthy man who sold it to the dealers from Stamboul ?
It has been maintained, in another chapter, that Oriental rugs,
studied collaterally, tell much of bygone peoples and religions. Con
sidered in the same way, they are even more eloquent of the charac
ter, customs and conditions of the Eastern life of to-day. They have
an inestimable value in suggestion.
This volume cannot pretend to describe, even cursorily, the mul
titudinous tribes which populate the rug-making countries. They are

ORIENTAL RUGS
spread over a great territory. Many of them are alien to one another
in origin. Many have undergone changes in speech and habit, both
by conquest and peaceful assimilation, which make them seem kin
when they are not kin at all. Others have preserved character, cus
toms and language, unaltered through centuries, and are to-day prac
tically what they were in the time of Moses. Some there are, dwelling
in far fastnesses which look down over all Asia, whose province the
modern geographer has scarcely invaded. Their highways bristle
with armed men, and almost the only knowledge got of them is from
the fabrics which. are sent through the merchants of the neighboring
and more pacific tribes to the great trade centres and the fairs in the
low countries. Every populous district throughout the East holds fair, for the
purpose of local traffic, one day in the week. Fair day is as much an
institution with them as is the Sabbath among the people of New
England. These fairs are rotatory. They are held in the different
towns of the district, each having its regular day. The greater fairs
are held once a year, and the traders of all the East journey to them.
At Baluk-Hissar, near Broussa, Asia Minor, the fair is in May.
August brings the famous gathering of Yaprakli, fifty miles north of
Angora, in the vilayet of Kastamuni. A collection of log-houses is
there, great, flimsy buildings reared only for the purposes of the fair,
and during all of August they are packed with men and merchandise.
The remainder of the year they are empty, and all the country round
is unpeopled as a wilderness. Another big fair is held near Mosul,
the mercantile centre of Mesopotamia.
These exhibitions are to the South, in a small way, what that of
Nijni Novgorod is to Russia. But more significant, in the present
discussion, are the great fairs farther to the eastward, in the Persian
and Turkoman towns. There for weeks the life of every quarter of
Asia and Asia Minor may be seen at its gayest and best. No dis-

THE RUG-WEAVING PEOPLES
tance is too great for the trader to travel to show his wares. Mon
gols and Tartars of the Central Asian hordes, Tekkes from Merv
with a pigtail down each side of the head, men from Bokhara, clad all
in white, with shawls swathed about their loins, and the many-
tongued kashbag dangling from their waists, fierce Kurds, descended
from the Medes and Chaldeans of old, who can trace their pedigrees
back in unbroken lines for a hundred generations, wandering Hats,
bearded Kazaks from the Kirghiz wastes, timid, indolent, astute,
mendacious, dreamy-eyed Persians, greasy Afghans and Beluches
whose most ecstatic joy is in bloodshed, East Indians, in whose de
meanor is the calm of centuries, Syrians, Arabs with horses as proud
as themselves, Anatolians, wheedling Armenians, resourceful Greeks
and the inevitable Jew — they are all there, bargaining away for dear life.
All the ways leading to the great bazaar are dusty from the end
less procession of heavy-laden asses and camels. Even from distant
China come the caravans, and almond-eyed merchants exchange their
bales for print-cloths, clocks, and jewelry of the Mediterranean.
Here one may learn how wide is the field of Oriental carpet manufac
ture. To this omnium gatherum are brought, along with other
wares, the woven products of remote districts, and the rug trader
who has brow-beaten the people of his own village sharpens his wits
here against those of rivals as shrewd and heartless as himself. But
with all this mixture of peoples whose promise would not stand for
an hour with an American shop-keeper, every man's word, in a busi
ness transaction, is as good as yellow coin. Their dealing is almost
all in the nature of barter, and obligations are held good by word of
mouth until the vendor can collect his debt in some commodity he
needs, from a third, fourth or fifth person who owes the purchaser.
No checks are drawn, and little ready money passes.
At night, while the fair lasts, bonfires are lighted in the hasar or
yard of the caravanserai — in Turkey it is called avluh — and in their
23

ORIENTAL RUGS
weird light jugglers and mountebanks perform. Wandering trouba
dours, blind men as a rule, or Dervishes, contest in improvisation, as
singers were wont to do in Europe centuries ago. When their rhym
ing is ended, both rise from the little rugs which they carry for use in
such engagements, and go about among the company, collecting coins
in their shells or great horns. These receptacles are rudely mounted
with silver, and are usually swung by a chain. Shooting, racing, mock
fights, wild music and such dancing as surely was never seen out of
Asia, make up the programme of the time's delights. Then the
camels, which came bearing Western trinkets, return homeward laden
with the carpets of Persia, Afghanistan, and the Trans-Caucasus.
Contracts have been made, and the middlemen from the rug districts
go away with orders tucked snugly in their girdles. Then follows a
new buying of wool, a new dyeing, and warps are stretched for a new
season's work, upon looms worn by the hands of many generations.
The whole business of rug-making throughout the East, except,
of course, where it is conducted by large firms, is controlled by the
head merchant of the town. This extraordinary person has a finger
in every enterprise. He is in many cases mayor, storekeeper, lawyer,
notary, farmer, and whatever else offers a margin of money and influ
ence. Upon the verandah of his house are as many looms as there
is room for. The folk of his own household and the wives and
daughters of his neighbors find employment there. Early morning,
after the first prayers at the mosque, sees them skurrying to the
" factory." They work at so much a " pick " of twenty-seven inches —
or in Persia by the arshin, a somewhat larger measure, varying in
different localities — but the price is merely nominal, for the earnings
are invariably taken out in trade at the store. The local potentate
thus manages to hold them forever in his debt, and when a debtor
dies the obligation passes on as a legacy to the heir.
People who make rugs in their own homes are none the less in
24

Plate III. Kazak Sedjadeh
7.2 x 5. II
Loaned by Mr. Lewis S. lligeloiv
The bold character of the Kazak nomads, to which some reference has been
made in the text, is quite plainly expressed in this heavy fabric. The massing
of color is infinitely strong, and it is fearless as well — witness the heavy trian
gular spaces of green and blue thrust again.st one another in the border. How
rude these people are may be seen by comparing this version of the wine-glass
border with that found in the black and white reproduction of the Shirvan rug
(Plate VII).
The octagons in the field, with their rough adornment of stars, as well as
the larger medallion and the tarantula affair in the centre, are all recognized
marks of Turkestan, whence these people long ago took their origin. For in
dication of their artistic skill, as compared with that of the rovers of their par
ent plains, contrast the drawing of all these figures in the central part of the
rug with that found in the Tekke carpet exhibited under the title Yomud
(Plate XXIII,, and in the small Tekke prayer rug (Plate XXI).
The nomad tendency to scatter small bits of color through a space other
wise unoccupied may be seen in its freest indulgence here. But when consid
ered as a savage display of strong color, perhaps no carpet in the collection ex.
eels this. The shading of the blues and greens, a trick which these half-bar
barians seem to have caught from the Kurds with whom the}- are in constant
contact, should be noted. The wool from which the rug is made is of the finest
and its lustre is admirable.

THE RUG-WEAVING PEOPLES
the tudjars power. He provides them with wool, sees to the paying
of the dyer, advances to them whatever groceries and other supplies
they need, and keeping a studious eye on the progress of their work,
appropriates the carpet when it is finished, and adds it to his store of
merchandise to be taken to the next fair for sale.
Monotonous and profitless and hopeless as this system is, the
Oriental people cling to it. They have a weavers' guild — esnaff, the
Turk calls it — but it never undertakes to regulate wages. Its chief
function is to protest — and that heartily — against any innovation
upon this old method of procedure, to lift up its voice in rebellion
when any mention is made of the importation of European machinery
to aid in the spinning or dyeing of the yarn.
The burden of the rug-weaving, in all the carpet countries, save
India, falls to the women. They are patient, nimble-fingered, and
learn the patterns quickly. In some parts of Anatolia and Persia the
great demand in Western markets has driven men to the loom, and
in the cities of Persia where rug-making has flourished for centuries
under the personal tutelage of royalty and nobility, the best artisans
are men. But in the more remote sections, and among the nomads,
the women do all the weaving. They are the designers, too. They
invent from year to year all the modifications of the old patterns.
The head woman, the traveller Vambery relates, makes a tracing upon
the earth, doles out the wool, and in some of the tribes chants in a weird
sing-song the number of stitches and the color in which they are to
be filled, as the work goes on.' As little girls of six or seven years

1 This "rule o' thumb" method of designing is not confined in the Orient to rug-making
nomads. It is common throughout Asia Minor, even nowadays, to see builders, who are their own
architects as well, tracing on the ground the plans for successive steps of the work they are engaged
upon. No general plan is made in advance, except in the case of a great palace, bath or mosque,
where a miniature made by the master builder himself is used. Ordinarily, he plans as he goes. The
design drawn on the ground is carefully studied. If it bids fair to come out all right the quarrymcn
and stone-cutters are ordered to cut according to it. The only measure employed is the primitive one
of the "hand's span." 25

ORIENTAL RUGS
the women begin to work about the looms, rolling and passing the
yarn, then learning to beat down the rows of knots after the weft has
been thrown across. The first actual weaving they do is on the
broad central fields of solid color ; and from that they work up to the
handling of complex patterns. The borders are the final test of skill.
The girl's first earnings are spent in self-adornment — the purchase of
ornaments such as she must wear her whole life through. At sixteen
she must be skilled enough at her trade to begin thinking of a hus
band. It would be harsh to say that the girl is sold into the servi
tude of providing this lord with food, clothing, and his modicum of
tobacco and raki, but the terms of marriage make clear the purely
business nature of the transaction. A contre dot, to phrase it mildly,
is paid by the husband to the father of the bride. If her first spouse
be called away by death from the enjoyment of such an arrangement,
the next who weds her must pay more. Repeated bereavement only
serves to augment her value. This rule is plainly based on the
theory that with each new year of experience at the loom, she be
comes able to earn more money by her weaving.
In some parts of Asia, notably in Kurdistan and Eastern Turke
stan, and among the Yuruks of Anatolia, the women enjoy some mea
sure of emancipation. They go abroad unveiled, and laugh at the
slavery in which their sisters in other sections are held. But the
Turkish or Persian woman of the weaving class is content. Her life
mission is to work for her husband ; she does it uncomplainingly. He
helps her in the handling of the wool, and maybe in spinning and
dyeing. In his spare time he tills a little land, raises some wheat
and vegetables, tends a small vineyard or has a field of dye products.
This last was a famous occupation for men in the Orient, until
the chemical dyes began to be imported. Since then it has declined
until there is no longer any profit in it. With digging alizarin root
in the winter months, when the sap is down, gathering the yellow
26

THE RUG- WEAVING PEOPLES
seeds, valonias, and gallnuts in the fall, and the many flowering
shrubs and berries in their seasons, the weaving woman's husband
could fill in a good share of his year, and, if he was saving, add
a pretty penny to her earnings.
But the old dyes, especially in the sections most accessible from
the coast, are out of fashion. The anilines, which have been indus
triously pushed by invading agents, are about six-sevenths cheaper,
and require no long process of compounding. Alizarin, when veget
able dyes were universally used, sold for twenty dollars a hundred
weight. It has now fallen to three dollars or less ; and not only is it
an unprofitable crop, but the land where it has grown is thenceforth
ruined for any other purpose. The Oriental farmer spends, in clear
ing his fields of the tenacious roots, more than he has ever made by
their cultivation. So the male of the carpet-making family idles, and
is happy therein.
For education, there is little of it. In some districts the authori
ties, spurred on by the missionaries and by the Western cry for
reforms, have in late years opened schools. But the work of instruc
tion lags. Reading and writing are about the extreme limit of eru
dition. Besides these schools, the village priest, who is also village
schoolmaster, teaches children to sing verses of the Koran. In parts
of Persia learning is more prized. There is rather more inclination
to educate the young than in Turkey. The low-class Turk seldom
knows even how to read or write. Information of an official sort is
conveyed to him not through the medium of newspapers or placards,
but by the government herald, or town crier, who goes about clanging
a lusty bell, and shouting, " Bou gyun Allah couveti Han"1 — the
solemn formula introductory to his errand.
The Greek and Armenian populations are wiser in their day and
generation. They make their lives and customs conform to progress.
1 " To-day with the help of God." 27

ORIENTAL RUGS
They utilize every innovation, turn every invasion to their own profit.
They are wedges which are helping, by slow degrees, to open Asia to
the commerce, learning and freedom of the West. In the schools
of their communities, found in most of the large towns, the pupils are
taught the handicrafts, the making of embroideries, cushions, counter
panes and slippers from European patterns. This sort of kindergarten
training has large practical value. It makes them apt at following
strange designs, and secures them employment upon the high-priced
fantaisie work which is all made upon orders, and which the Turkish
women are unable to master.
In the mind of the Turk there is a deep-seated distrust and dis
like of the European and his improvements ; among the even more
conservative races farther East this antipathy is a passion. In the
mountain regions there are tracts where safety for the " Frank " — as all
Europeans are called — is a thing unknown ; where his life and valuables
are almost certain to be taken by the first roving company that spies
him, unless, indeed, he be held for ransom. His only absolute safety
against molestation is in an Oriental escort, backed up by a passport
and tezkereh, with instructions mandatory upon all officials along the
line of his journey to see to it that he goes unharmed.
There is usually, however, a warm welcome for the native way
farer from the Mediterranean coasts, and it is a red letter day when a
traveller comes to one of the hamlets which, for the sake of safety
from marauders, are formed by the huddling together of the farmers
who till the fields for a distance of perhaps twenty miles about. The
son of the mukhtar (mayor) holds the voyager's bridle. The mukh-
tar himself helps him to dismount, leads him into the house, and
makes him the central attraction of the place, as long as the sojourn
lasts. The foremost of the townsmen come to add their greetings,
and, incidentally, to look the newcomer over, and see if he have not
some new wonder to tell or show. It is an imposing ceremony, f or
is

THE RUG-WEAVING PEOPLES
mal as a court function, and yet fraught with all cordiality. The host
lights the fire in the mussafir odasi, or guest room, and spreads be
fore it the hearth rug, proudest possession of the household. Chairs
there are none. Along the sides of the room heavy felt divans are
arranged, and over them are spread rugs of fine quality, with rich,
rug-covered pillows for comfort's sake. At the head of the apartment
sits the host, with the guest at his right hand.
When the salaaming is over and all are seated, the first of the
callers takes from some recess of his raiment a little bag of raw cof
fee-beans. This he hands to the village dandy, an indispensable per
son on such occasions, who goes to the fire-place, and sitting cross-
legged on the odjaklik, browns the berries in a long-handled pan,
which he shakes over the fire like a corn-popper. This done, he places
them in a wooden mortar, and with an iron pestle begins to crush
them, droning a chant of welcome meanwhile, and beating time upon
the coffee as he sings. Then he puts the jezveh or coffee-pot on the
fire to boil. While this solemn proceeding goes on the guest, if he be
versed in the customs of the country, passes his tobacco among the
company, who roll cigarettes ; and then the coffee comes. Thus
amid the soothing fumes, and the even better-loved incense of talk,
the night wears away. Each visitor in his turn produces a bag of
coffee, and before the company disperses half a hundred cups may
have been swallowed by every one of them, in case this traveller
be what every good traveller should be, and what the Oriental loves
almost as well as himself, a story-teller.
A session of Heidelberg examiners could not quiz him more in
dustriously than does this room-full of villagers. Despite the stub
born resistance of these communities to industrial innovations, their
interrogatories show the consuming interest they feel in the progress
of the outside world. Steam, electricity, all manner of Frankish cus
toms, inventions, agriculture and its mechanisms, methods of trade,
11

ORIENTAL RUGS
prices — these are the things upon which their interest centres. But
there is in their questioning, for all its closeness and persistency,
naught of intrusion or discourtesy ; they never pry into the visitor's
religious, political, or family affairs. The comfort and safety of a
guest are paramount. He abides there as long as it pleases him, eats
his fill of the family comestibles — thin bread and sheep's-tail (at,pilaff,
or whatever there may be — and goes on his way without mention of
recompense from the host. A wrong done to him is a wrong done to
the head of the house where he is harbored, and personal redress is
tolerably sure to follow it. Not alone is this true of the more cul
tured part of the population. Even among the wind-swept habita
tions of the mountaineers, whose hoard is little, and to whom a human
life is so much chaff, guesthood is sacred.
There are many Christian weavers in the Orient, yet there is an
utter absence of rugs betokening the Christian faith, save that the
Greek cross, doubtless without any religious intent, is worked in the
body of the Kazaks and in some Tzitzis. It must be remembered
that the Christian teaching is nineteen hundred years old, but with
this single exception its emblems are not found in any Oriental rugs
made for market, though Indian and Mongol have wrought their creeds
in wool, and every sect of Islam has given its belief expression in its
fabrics. The desire for money has, of course, lured them to sell these
almost sacred things, and carpets inwoven with the Koran have been
smuggled out in spite of the governmental prohibition, to be trod by
the foot of any infidel who was rich enough to buy them.
In a letter to the writer, Mr. L. A. Springer, European corre
spondent of the United Press, who travelled all through south
eastern Europe and the Levant during and after the Graeco-Turkish
war, has thrown light upon this absence of the Christian emblems
from the rugs imported to America. He said :
" I have just come from Novi Varos, a little place in the Sanjak
30

THE RUG-WEAVING PEOPLES
of Novi Bazaar. It offers a fair specimen of what the Mussulman
policy is doing for Christian communities in the Turkish dominions.
Years ago Novi Varos throve by the manufacture of curious rugs.
They were sent to Paris and London, and found great favor with the
amateurs. But Novi Varos was almost entirely Christian, so the
Porte put a ' last-straw tax ' on the inhabitants and ended their mak
ing of rugs for the trade. To-day the little town, straggling in the
depths of its valley, has about half its former population. Houses
stand vacant, and the Greek church, which was begun in more
prosperous times, is unfinished. The Turkish law, fortunately for
the Christian pocketbook, forbids bells, and the congregation is
called to service by the clapping together of two boards. Every
girl is still a weaver of rugs, but not for market. Her rug is her
dowry. She spends all her girlhood weaving it, that it may cover
her marriage bed.
" I went with the village priest into some of the houses. They
are very poor and squalid, but in almost every one is hidden one of
those superb rugs. Their beauty, as the women brought them out
from the chests in which they are kept, made a striking contrast with
the mean surroundings.
" The nap of these rugs is wool, but hemp is used for warp and
weft. The people make their own dyes from barks. The designs
are almost wholly of a religious character — the symbols of the
church. Upon one was woven the figure of the Virgin, in the pecu
liar Byzantine style of the pictures in the Greek chapels. Another
represented a priest in his richest robes. Others were a mingling oi
patterns from vestments.
" These people have absolutely no idea of drawing, or of form.
as taught in schools ; many of them have never seen a picture, ex
cept those in the village chapel, nor a rug made anywhere else than
in Novi Varos ; yet their weavings are all artistic, and the colors
31

ORIENTAL RUGS
tastefully chosen. The body of the rug is almost invariably white,
the principal border red, relieved with tints of blue and green, and a
deal of brilliancy is lent to them by the use of the most flamboyant
yellow."

32

Plate IV. Baku Rug
15. 1 x 4.S
Property of the A itthor
This rug might well be declared a thoroughgoing Kabistan, save for small
discrepancy in the finishings. Instead of the broad cotton selvage shown
by the Kabistans the weavers of the old Baku Province just to the East along
the Caspian coasts, affect a single cord edging, after the manner of Shirvan,
which in turn adjoins the Baku district on the South. In design and color the
piece is almost perfect Kabistan, even to the birds in the corners, but a small
streak of dull brown, probably camel's hair, thrown across the blue ground at
the top, out of deference to superstition, immediately suggests the Baku

IV
MATERIALS
IT is pleasant to believe that warmth of temperament, deep love
of nature, delicacy of feeling, and an inherent sense of harmony,
coupled with monumental patience, are the causes of the long-
continued supremacy of the Easterns in the making of textiles. But
there is another reason, which must by no means be lost sight of.
The venerable recipe for making rabbit pie, which involves as a
primary ingredient the capture of the rabbit, is in point. Nature has
indeed endowed the Oriental with all the essential qualities of an
artist, but Divine generosity and consistency are more clearly dis
played in the fact that there has been placed at his hand every ma
terial needful for the prosecution of his art. All the Eastern coun
tries, which may be called in this connection the rug-making coun
tries, reaching far north of the constantly advancing Russian border,
and from the Mediterranean to the Great Wall of China, are natural
homes of the animals which yield textile filaments.
One can easily understand, in this light, how the Caucasian,
Turk, Persian and Tartar, equipped with the faculty and supplied
with the means, have held their own, and more, against the artisans
and designers of the West, and the unlimited machinery with which
science has striven to outdo them. These lands of the West, com-
33

ORIENTAL RUGS
manding in altitude, benign in climate, in great part bountifully wa
tered, seem to have been providentially mapped out for pastures.
Parts of the vast plateaus and sweeping foothill regions, distributed
over Asia Minor, the districts of Kurdistan, western and southern
Persia, Turkestan, Beluchistan and Afghanistan,' are in truth good
for little else but grazing, and for this they are peerless. Divided by
great water-courses, and laced by lesser streams, they are, save in
some few unfavored parts, not afflicted by trying rain periods, and
heaven tempers the winds, even of the Kirghiz steppes, to the lamb
whether shorn or unshorn. Sheep, goats, camels, vast herds of them,
roam these uplands, where they find a quality of nutriment for which
chemistry has not yet been able to devise a wool-making equivalent. l
There is no quarter of the world which has not heard the fame of the
goats of Angora and Kashmir. No country, save perchance the up
lands of Spain, has produced wool equal to that shorn from the sheep
herding about the salt lake of Niris in Farsistan.
That there is something, either in the grass upon these plains, or
in the climatic conditions, which affects beneficially the growth of
wool, has been demonstrated by the utter failure to raise the animals
of these localities elsewhere with an equal degree of success, although

1 The volume of the wool product of Afghanistan is enormous. Yule says that besides fur
nishing wool for the Afghan carpets, the flocks of these mountains and plateaus supply to a great
extent the demand of India, and in addition a great quantity of Afghan wool is exported to Europe
by way of Bombay.
5 " In the manufacture of carpets, although all are made upon one general plan, certain peculi
arities mark each country and each district. For example, in some places the foundation upon which
the pile is woven is of cotton ; in others, of wool ; and in others again, silk is used. In Kurdistan,
the foundation is usually made of wool, and the pile of goat's-hair or camel's-hair. Great differences
exist in the quality of these materials in different places. The wool of the sheep, as is well known,
changes its character according as the habitat of the animal is a warm, a cold, or a temperate climate.
In Kurdistan and Khorassan the wool is extremely soft, and in some parts very lustrous. This is due
in part to the breed of sheep, and in part to the pasturage on which they are nourished. ... In many
places, also, the fleeces are of varied shades of color, deepening to actual brown and black, and ara
used in the designs in their natural condition without dyeing. This is a circumstance of some techni
cal importance, never as yet, so far as I am aware, much noticed." — Robinson's " Eastern Carpets."
34

MATERIALS
effort has been made repeatedly, and at great expense. Long, fine
wool for the nap is indispensable in the weaving of these knot fabrics,
and a desperately small price is apt to be fetched in the Smyrna and
Constantinople markets by rugs from districts where the pasturage is
poor. In these places the weavers, to uphold the quality of their
fabrics, are forced to use the fine pluckings from the goat's-fleece.
These by lustre and softness, make partial amends for the quality im
parted only by the fine lamb's-wool.
The availability of wool for textile uses is determined by the
construction of the hairs. That which under the microscope presents
the greatest number of serrations upon its surface lends itself most
readily to weaving. In this regard much of the wool of Eastern
Kurdistan excels even the famed Merino of Spain, or the equally
praiseworthy Southdown.
For rugs of the heavier quality, such as the ponderous Oushaks
and Anatolians, the sheep of the Asia Minor plains produce a wool
that is adequate in length, and, while coarse, as it must be, is quite
soft to the touch and very even.
The herding of the multitudes of sheep and goats over three
millions of square miles of territory furnishes livelihood to number
less tribes of nomads, who pass a portion of the year in and about the
towns and villages, and start out upon the ranges as soon as the sea
son is sufficiently advanced. The shepherd, setting forth at morning
with his flock, carries wool, spindle, and distaff, in addition to proven
der and his indispensable arms, and whiles away the hours of the
long day, twirling his spindle and singing to his own delectation the
" songs of Araby and tales of fair Cashmere."
Careful to single out the choice wool for their own uses, if they
be rug-makers as well as flock-tenders, the shepherds pay strict atten
tion to the combing of the young lambs, which, at one season of the
year, shed a fine undergrowth. This, when the clearing up of the
35

ORIENTAL RUGS
wool is made, is placed with the fleeces of lambs sheared for the first
time and choice parts plucked from the wool of the older sheep, and
usually retained for the tribal chef dceuvre. In different parts of
Persia this is called pashim or pasham, and is used in the making
of the finest shawls and prayer-rugs.
May is the shearing-time. These Eastern shepherds are deft
shearsmen, and even more deft at sorting the several parts of the
fleeces, detecting small imperfections in the portions ordinarily
accounted best, and so distributing every handful that the yarn, when
it comes to the weaver's hands, shall possess the evenness only to be
secured by infinite skill and care in the handling of the wool.
After the sale, which follows close upon the shearing, the prepar
ation of the wool begins. It is a complex process, first and last, and
one which requires experience and painstaking almost beyond belief.
The inhabitants of the several sections have different notions concern
ing the treatment. Methods which centuries of experiment have
approved in one district are condemned in another as ruinous. It is
altogether likely that there is that in the wools of the different growths
which demands for them just the handling practiced in the localities
where they are produced.
The first step, after the sticks and other foreign substances have
been dislodged, is the washing and scouring. As to the best way of
doing this, too, opinions vary widely. In Asia Minor and throughout
the Trans-Caucasus the wool is washed many times in cold water,
without being allowed to dry between washings. When cleansed of
dirt, and of the natural grease of the animal, it is placed in large
granite mortars, called tubecs, and covered with a mixture of flour and
water, or with starch. The men of the family pound and mix the
mass thoroughly, with great wooden mallets. It is then taken out,
placed in baskets, and in them washed again for two or three hours in
a running stream, until the last trace of the starch shall have disap-
36

MATERIALS
peared. This washing is of scarcely less importance, in the eyes of
the Oriental wool-handler, than the delicate operations of the dyers
themselves. Much depends upon the quality of the water, and the
superiority of one stream over another has been so thoroughly proven
by successive generations that it is acknowledged without dispute.
Soft water, of course, is the thing sought. Hard water necessitates
the use of potash, which cuts the wool in such manner that when
rugs made of it are brought into service they endure for only a short
space. The washing over, the wool is exposed to the sun to dry. About
this proceeding the Oriental is equally fastidious. A particular degree
of warmth, a precise amount of sun, and wind from a certain quarter
are relied upon to work a marked superiority in the carpet, and where
the wool is intended for fabrics of the first quality, or is ordered for
the execution of a far mats h (made to order), the wool-worker will
wait for weather conditions to his liking. Even in the spreading
there is a knack essential to the best results in the finished goods.
The drying, besides being gradual, must be even.
Refined by all these processes, the wool is weighed up, prepara
tory to picking and carding. There is a sad difference between the
weight of the fleece as it comes from the shearer and of the residue
after all the days of washing, scouring, and drying. About thirty per
cent, is lost in actual dirt and probably thirty per cent, more in ani
mal oil, so that, though the average weight of a whole fleece, newly
sheared, is about five pounds, it is a good one that nets more than
two or two and a half.
The old devices for picking or loosing the wool from the mats
in which it is left after drying are as simple as they are odd. That in
most general use is merely a huge bow, a strong, hardwood pole,
seven or eight feet in length, strung with stout gut. This formidable
weapon, subdued to purposes of peace, is suspended by its middle
37

ORIENTAL RUGS
from the ceiling, so that the cord just touches the heap of wool. The
picker is armed with a bell-shaped mallet, which he plies with period
ical staccato upon the bowstring, and by the vibration the wool is
whipped loose and thrown on the opposite side, wisp by wisp.
Another invention consists of a solid block, or sometimes a heavy
wooden frame, from which protrude upward, in close rows, stiff, per
pendicular pins. The native, man, woman, or child, sits on the
ground, Turk-fashion, and draws the wool again and again over and
between these pins, a process which picks it apart and fits it for the
spinning. This method is used only for wool which is of more than
ordinary length. It was particularly in vogue until lately in those
parts of Anatolia where the material is prepared for working in the
heavy modern carpets. Europeans have now established two mills in
Oushak, each of which cards about three thousand pounds of wool a
day. They have practically done away with the old methods.
The yarn hand-spun by the shepherds, in the open air, as
described, is in great favor with the manufacturers, but the supply is
small, since, as we have seen, the herdsmen, using only the selected
wool, keep the yarns of their spinning for their own carpets. In a
few towns there are shops where many hands are employed, but even
in these the machinery is all of the primitive sort. The old-fashioned dis
taff and spindle are preferred, and the use of a wheel for spinning is as
much of a concession as the Oriental will voluntarily make to mechanical
progress. Attempts have been made from time to time, by European
firms or their Eastern agents, to establish steam mills in connection
with their weaving interests at Oushak and in other places. The
proposition has always met with a loud protest from the wool-workers
of the district, and the government, in paternal regard for its infant
industry, has refused to lend a hand.
The yarn, which is made in three grades, light for the weft,
medium for the warp and heavy for the piling — though in very fine
38

MATERIALS
carpets the light grade is taken for pile — is usually purchased by the
firms for which the carpets are being made, and its cost checked up
against the master of the looms, to be deducted from the money due
on the completion of the work. This refers only to districts where
the entire output is controlled by the European and American firms
or their native middlemen. In the small villages inland, the native
storekeeper, of whom mention has been made, advances the money
for wool, or the wool itself, to his less prosperous townsmen.
The use of goat's-hair in rugs is restricted by its wiry nature. It
is apt to spin poorly, and packs unpleasantly when much trod upon.
To the carpets made by the mountaineers, who employ it most, it
lends a certain wild, shaggy appearance, thoroughly in harmony with
their strong colors and crude patterns. Of late years, experiments
have been made in mixing the goat's-hair with wool, but even thus the
traditional obstinacy of the goat is not overcome, and the Kulah and
Ak-hissar mohairs have not met with the success which such enterprise
and ingenuity merit. The Angora hair, especially, is slippery and
unworkable. There grows, however, on the goats raised in the
lowlands of Asia Minor, the sand hills of Turkestan, and the highlands
of Central Asia, a fine, silky fleece next the skin. It starts in the
autumn, and if not cut falls out before spring." Then, during ten
days or a fortnight, the herd are subjected to the most thorough
combing. With care and attention, perhaps half or three-quarters of
a pound of this down can be obtained from each animal. From the
best of it Kashmir shawls are made, and its use in carpet-weaving is

1 " In Tartary, or Mongolia, the Saiga or yellow goat of Du Halde is found, the hair of which is
much used in their rugs, and there also wander in flocks the argali or wild sheep (the moufion of
BufTon), producing the brown-gray wool of which the foundation is usually made, while the bactrian
camel, whose habitat is in the wilds of Tartary, affords material for some of their most beautiful speci
mens. The camel sheds its coat annually, in the course of a few days, and its fleece is superior to that
of any other domestic animal. The Usbek Tartars, moreover, have the finrat wool of any people, those
of Southern Persia only excepted, for they feed their sheep with great care and generally under cover,
protecting them even when exposed, as we do our horses." — Robinson s " Eastern Carpets."
39

ORIENTAL RUGS
illustrated in the finer Tartar fabrics — Tekkes, Yomuds, and Bokhara
prayer rugs.
Of the real, straight goat's-hair which can be utilized in piling
carpets, by all means the best is the filik, known in European markets
as peloton rouge, and sold in America for camel's-hair. It is of a
light chestnut color, and is used without dyeing, to produce brown
grounds, as, for example, in the Mosul and Hamadan rugs.
Only on the plateaus of Eastern Persia, Afghanistan and Belu-
chistan are camels found which produce a hair suitable for rug-weaving.
They are shaggy beasts, but the undergrowth of their coat forms a
sort of fleece, which, however, must be plucked instead of sheared.
The processes through which this hair passes, to fit it for the weaving,
are similar to those employed in treating wool.
Of silk, little need be said, since the fabrics made of it are not
here considered. It is silk the world over. It is produced in vast
quantity in many districts of Persia, Central Asia and parts of Asia
Minor. In Luristan it is one of the chief exports. In some sections,
especially in middle Asia, the mulberry trees upon which the silk worm
breeds grow wild in forests of considerable magnitude. Among the
products of Samarkand are rugs of raw silk. Trial was made at
Oushak of like material for heavy carpets resembling the woollen
fabrics in size, design, and colors. It met with small success. The
plentitude of silk has led to experiments of this sort in other Asia
Minor districts. The latest has been in Caesarea, where, during the
last year or two, great numbers of silk rugs have been turned out.
They are copied from the Persian and old Ghiordes, or the conceits
of European designers are used. The American market is as a result
flooded with these copies. They can be detected oftentimes from
the fact that the pile inclines toward the top instead of the bottom
of the rug, showing that they have been worked from the top to the
bottom of the design. In copying, the original is turned, back toward
40

Plate V. Bergamo Rug
5.4 x 4.7
Loaned by Mr. Robert L. Stevens
This rug, one of the few specimens of the antique Bergamo, represents
Asia Minor design at its best. The leaf and flower forms are unmistakable, but
have been conventionalized in the manner referred to in the chapter on Design.
In only two respects, so far as one is able to discover, is the Persian influence
at all perceptible. There is something of Persian realism in the flowers which
are stuck about the small medallions at either end of the field, in fact this same
effect, so common in Asia Minor prayer rugs, is found in many fine Persian
fabrics of centuries ago. The nomad element remains in the small separate
flowers in the field, and suggestion of a latch-hook is had in the jagged edges
of the long branches which extend from the central medallion. The rug is
glorious in color, and its combination of red, blue, yellow and pink belongs to
an age that is bygone in the textile art of Anatolia.

MATERIALS
the weaver, to facilitate counting the number of stitches in each
color. The pattern rug is turned upside down because, the prayer
pattern being prevalent, the apex of the arch furnishes a central
point to work from, and the weavers, many of them unskilled, wish
to secure this as early as possible in their progress with the fabric.
The best silk carpets of Persia, patterned after the renowned fabrics
of two or three centuries ago, are wonderful, but, like other light silk
rugs, they are meant and chiefly used for hangings, and deservedly
command very high prices.

V
DYERS AND DYES
COLOR is the Orient's secret and its glory.
These dark-skinned peoples, lagging so far backward
along the pathway of civilization, mastered long ago the
chromatic mysteries lurking in the shrubs of their deserts, the vines,
leaves and blossoms which make these lands radiant, and they have
guarded this subtle knowledge from foreign participation with greater
care and jealousy than they seem to have exercised for their bodily
welfare, or their place among races. The royal purple of Tyre, which
the Phoenicians by some magic won from the molluscs of their seas,
is virtually obsolete now. Science has found, in the refuse of facto
ries, gaudy hues to serve the purpose ; but the old dyes of the East
still boast a splendor and lastingness which chemistry cannot coun
terfeit — a permanence emblematic of the countries where alone the
marvel of their compounding has been understood.
This preeminence in dye-working carries with it, in Oriental
countries, a dignity almost akin to that of priesthood. As a tree is
known by its fruits, the dyer has place among his fellows by his hues.
In proportion as the color he excels in is valued in popular judgment,
the dye-master is honored in his town ; and even if there were a lotion
which could obliterate from dress and cuticle the traces of his trade,
42

DYERS AND DYES
he would scorn to use it. His color is the badge of his ancient and
honorable calling, dear to him as the insignia of rank to the soldier,
or churchly black to the ecclesiastic. He glories in being bedaubed,
and the shades of his particular color, upon hands, feet and raiment,
are earnest of his skill. He is a walking sampler of his dyes ; the
proofs of his proficiency are upon him.
Traversing a village street in the East, you are aware of the
dyer from afar off. Red, or green, or purple from head to heels, he
challenges sight when he is yet half a mile distant. There is the pride
of a sultan in his carriage, and in his soul, it is plain, a chromatic joy
which religion cannot give. He is a fine bit of color against the tame
background of the town. In baggy knee-nethers and white camisole,
his head all swaddled in a mighty turban, and his fat leathern pouch
for pipe, tobacco, knife, money and trinkets, belted about his middle,
he is a type. But add to all these his dye, which in many values of
the same color illumines him, from the crown of his turbaned head to
the tips of his bare toes, and he is a radiant being such as Occidental
civilization has not known, save upon circus days.
The mind of this worthy is pervaded by a profound and, in a
way, justifiable belief that he is the saving clause of the whole carpet
industry. The mainspring of his life is the conviction that he really
lends to the fabrics of his bailiwick, and of his native land, for that
matter, all they possess of high aesthetic value. In his own view, he
is the uplifter of an otherwise slavish and mechanical craft. Through
him weaving becomes an art, and all the processes, from first to last,
are merely incidental to the main affair — his coloring of the yarns.
So he dips and struts his complacent life away, and to be an al boyaji
— a dyer of reds — is to be one beloved of the Prophet.
In great rug-weaving towns the dyers are many, but there is
work for them all. In Oushak, the carpet centre of Asia Minor, there
are probably one hundred and fifty, each with his specialty. If a place
43

ORIENTAL RUGS
be blessed with a stream possessed of the magic solvent property
upon which the excellence of Eastern colors so largely depends, the
dye-houses are ranged close beside its banks, for the quality of
water is even more vital in the mixing of dyes than it has been
shown to be in the washing and scouring of the wool. The superiority
of one water over another has been established by empirical processes
continued over many generations ; and tests of other waters, for the
solution of the Oriental dyes, in European cities, for instance, have
resulted in an utter loss of spirit in the color.
But this must not be construed as detracting from the marvellous
skill of the dyers. The profession is hereditary in the East, and the
tricks of it are handed down as almost sacred legacies from father to
son. Each dyer, or, better, each family of dyers, has some peculiar and
secret method of producing different shades, and there was sharp
rivalry until the European came upon the scene, with his coal tar and
his chemical formulae.1 Since that time the native dyers have been
a brotherhood, of which the pride of every member, and his more
than reverence for his colors are the bond and the creed. Each

1 " Aniline blue first appeared in i860. Less than a year afterward it took ten manufactories
in Germany, England, Italy and Switzerland, to produce this material.
" Whilst the manufacture of aniline colors thus became European, their consumption spread
still farther, and now could be observed this unique fact in the history of commerce : the West sup
plied the East with coloring matter, sending its artificial dyes to the confines of the globe, to China,
to Japan, to America and the Indies — to those favored climes which up to the present time had supplied
the manufactories of Europe with tinctorial products. This was a veritable revolution. Chemistry, vic
torious, dispossessed the sun of a monopoly which it had always enjoyed. . . .
" This reduction in the price of aniline colors is such that all manufacturers who use coloring
matters have found it worth while to replace their former tinctorial products by these artificial colors.
Besides this, the employment of these products has greatly simplified the formerly very complicated and
costly operations and processes of dyeing, so that an apprentice can obtain as good shades as a skilled
workman ; this facility of application has certainly not less contributed to the success of coal tar col
oring matter, than the richness and variety of the shades. . . .
"Everything, therefore, leads one to imagine that ultimately the natural will yield entirely to
the artificial coloring matters. This revolution, the influence of which will be most important, since
it will liberate for the production of food many hands now employed in industrial operations, would
already have taken place if the artificial colors hitherto discovered -were as solid as their rivals." —
Reimaris " Handbook of Anilines." 44

DYERS AND DYES
knows that the aniline dyes of the West are no match and no substi
tute for his ; that many of the glaring hues of the coal tar have
no durability, that in a carpet thoroughly wetted they will run and
ruin the fabric, while his own handiwork will pass through a lifetime
of exposure to sun and snow and rain, and grow in beauty as it nears
the end of its usefulness. He believes, too, that the European is
thoroughly awake to this difference. The great fear of his life is that
by craft or subsidy the intruder will learn the secret. It amounts to a
mania with him, and in all likelihood has some ground. This dread
has a parallel in the anxiety felt by the managers of foreign carpet
establishments, who lie awake at night in fear that the native weavers
have stolen or are planning to steal the newly imported European
designs. It is a perfectly reasonable fear, like that of the Oriental
on behalf of his colors, for the Western patterns have great vogue
among the natives, and the floors of the best houses in many towns,
in Persia as well as Turkey, are covered with nightmares of West
ern color and device, to the exclusion of home-made fabrics.
The colonization of the dyers just referred to is solely to se
cure water facilities, and not for the purpose of defense against intru
sion. Where the town water supply is not of a sort suitable for dye
ing, systems of earthern pipe bring water from some more or less re
mote stream in the hills, and discharge it into a giant basin in the
middle of a square set apart by the municipality for the purpose. On
the four sides of this square — boya khaneh — the dyers have their
shops, with the all-important water in plenty just outside their doors.
Dirty, ill-scented establishments they are, too — long, low buildings,
with front rooms which do duty as offices and sometimes as bazaars
for the vending of small articles. In the rear rooms, in long rows,
stand twenty-five or thirty huge earthern jars, for the dying solutions,
and a few deep copper kettles, in which the boiling is done.
Passing from jar to jar, the dyer and his helpers, if his trade be
45

ORIENTAL RUGS
extensive enough to require more than one pair of hands, dip
great skeins into one after another of the solutions, hanging each on
a hook above the dye-jar to drain, before it is passed on to further
immersion. It is an axiom that to secure the best results dye should
never be wrung from the skein, as this causes uneven distribution.
This system of successive dippings in several colors is one of the
dye-master's secrets — the overlaying of color upon color, a blending,
accomplished in the wool.
The great display of skill, after the actual decocting and mixing
of the fluids, lies in accurate estimation of the length of time that a
yarn should be subjected to each solution. It is upon precisely the
same principle, and altogether as delicate and important a task, as
the timing of a photographic plate. Away at the back of each shop
is a ladder leading from the dye-room to the roof, where the yarns
are hung to dry. How long a dyed skein should hang in the sun is
another question of moment. Passing through the square, on a
bright day, you may see the dyers, sitting on the roofs of their es
tablishments, staring at the suspended skeins. As long as the yarn
hangs there, the master stands sentinel. There is a particular instant
when the sun's work is done, and done properly. When it comes, it
finds the dyer on guard, and he hurries the skein to cover in a twink
ling. A minute too soon, or a minute too late, and the rest of his
professional existence would be "fast gray."
All these complexities of his craft this accomplished artisan car
ries in his head. He keeps no tell-tale book of recipes. In a frame
in the outer room are displayed the different tints of which he is
master. The number of them is bewildering. It is not unusual for
an al boyaji to be skilled in some hundreds of shades of red, any one
of which he can set about compounding at a moment's notice, with
out thought of reference to any " aids " or " authorities."
The price he sets upon his work is small enough. The country
46

DYERS AND DYES
people pay the dyer's charges in wool, but where money is the
medium, the cost of dyeing in the most expensive red is only about
twelve cents to the pound, for blues seven or eight, and other colors
as low as five. The dyer of blacks is at the foot of the craft. The
prices are stationary, and competition never takes the demoralizing
form of " cut rates." When employed upon salary, a competent dyer
receives about ten dollars a month and boards himself. An assistant
— not by any means a tyro at the work — can be had for half that
sum. Women seldom take any part in the dyeing.
It is apparent from the condition of the pile in old rugs, that
some dyes corrode and rot the yarn, and others preserve it. An
Eastern dyer, if blindfolded, can "read" the pattern of an antique
carpet by the touch, as accurately as a blind man reads his raised-let
ter Bible. Blacks seem to be most corrosive, and red, of all the other
dyes, most preservative.1
The basic elements of the dyers' " materia " are known to almost
every Oriental, for they grow in the home fields, and great work is
made of their cultivation, gathering and sale, though the new genera
tion is being educated to use the dyes of Vienna and Berlin. The
shepherds and other inhabitants of remote districts make for
themselves the few simple colors needed in their rough carpets, but
of the methods of compounding for more delicate and fanciful
shades, the every-day Oriental knows nothing, and there are hun
dreds of materials, growths of their own localities, which the dyers
gather and convert into coloring agents, the precise value and use of
which are, to the common herd, among the mysteries.
The distinctive feature of the old Eastern dyeing system was
that nearly every tingent was of vegetable or animal origin, and that
1 In parts of Persia and India dyers habitually wash the yarns in a solution of lime before apply
ing the dyes. The object of this is to increase the brilliancy of the colors, but its principal effect is to
make the yarn brittle and materially lessen its wearing quality. Where this treatment has been cm-
ployed, an expert can usually detect it by feeling the pile of the rug.
47

ORIENTAL RUGS
similar ingredients were employed for mordants or fixatives. The
treatment of the yarn with borax, saltpeter, tartar, copperas and the
like had not been known. The native dyers held to the merits of the
old-fashioned mordants — valonia, pomegranate-rind, sumac, divi-divi,
and the barks of different trees, from which they had for so long ob
tained such renowned results.
In some newly made fabrics, notably those from out-of-the-way
parts of the East, the dyes are found to be thoroughly up to the old
standard, but in most quarters they have been sadly debauched.
The introduction of the chemical mordants was the first fruit of
increased foreign demand, and first step in the decline of quality.
The Eastern governments warred energetically against it. In one
part of Persia it was ordered long ago that a dyer convicted of using
aniline preparations should have his right hand cut off by way of
punishment. The mandate seems, however, not to have made a very
deep impression. The loud, flaring, unnatural colors continued to
appear in plenty in rug consignments, and passed in this country for
vegetable with all save the few who could detect their falsity. In
spite of this, mendacious salesmen have all along declared, in guaran
tee of good faith, that the law was enforced to the letter.
Here is what may, I think, be considered good authority for
declaring that it was not obeyed at all. It is an excerpt from the edict
issued by the Shah of Persia, on January ist, 1900. The necessity for
wide distribution of the law throughout the realm and for its enforce
ment upon the notice of foreigners as well as natives, resulted in its
being printed in French as well as in the Persian dialect. It prohibits
several things. I have translated and transcribed, from the copy given
me in Tabriz, only such portions as bear upon the matter of rugs.
In the name of the Merciful God !
Let thanks be given to that Supreme Being, and praise to His Sacred Prophet,
to the Holy Family and to their Companions. 4s

'IOO.W -IXIHvVAA \MK"A\ NVT'l(i.l.\MV

DYERS AND DYES
We, Mozaffer ed Din, King of Kings, Absolute Sovereign of the Empire
of Persia, Whereas upon different occasions Our Glorious Father, Nasser ed Din
Shah, whose memory is illustrious and revered, desiring to maintain the fine
quality of Persian carpets, the fame of which is universal, forbade the importa
tion of aniline dyes, which certain persons use to give a meretricious coloring
to carpets," And whereas it has come to Our knowledge that these prohibitions, as well
as some others, are frequently disobeyed by Persian subjects as well as stran
gers, and since it is necessary therefore to restate them, and at the same time
give power to punish whoever shall violate them hereafter. For all these rea
sons We utter the present law :
Article I
It is forbidden to bring into the kingdom :
Aniline dyes, whether in dry or liquid form, as well as all coloring materials,
whether dry or liquid, into which aniline enters as a component.
Article IV
Any importation, likewise any exportation or attempt at exportation,
made either in violation of Article I of this law, shall be followed by seizure
and confiscation of the goods.
Furthermore, if the goods prohibited from entrance or exit have not been
declared or regularly presented at the office of customs, or if the said goods
have been hidden among other goods, or concealed in any manner, the persons
transporting them shall incur jointly and without any reference to their claims
upon one another, a fine equal to the value of the goods, independently of the
seizure and confiscation of the prohibited articles, as well as of those which
have served to conceal them.
In case of importation or exportation by routes not running to a custom
house, or at a point upon the coast where no office of customs exists, the fine
shall be double the value of the merchandise, and the means of transportation,
ships, boats, beasts of burden or vehicles, also the other goods imported or ex
ported at the same time, shall be confiscated. Furthermore, the persons,
' "The importation of aniline colors, whose insidious brightness was tending to seriously dam
age the trade, has been prohibited, but it is still advisable for an intending purchaser to apply a wet
cloth to test the fastness of the colors before concluding the bargain.''-^. Treacher Collins . " In
the Kingdom of the Shah." 49

ORIENTAL RUGS
whether authors or accomplices, sharing in the offense, shall be punished by a
year's imprisonment.
Article V
The means of transport, ships, boats or beasts of burden, which have been
used in the importation or exportation of prohibited goods, are specially liable
and subject to seizure as security for fines incurred by virtue of the preceding
article, and in default of payment of the said fines within thirty-one days after
the discovery of the offense, they shall be sold for the purpose of obtaining the
sum due. Article VI
Persons against whom it shall be proven, in any way whatsoever, that they
have participated in the importation or exportation of prohibited goods,
whether in ordering, buying or selling such goods, or arranging for their trans
portation, or in any other way, shall be subject to the same penalty as those
who have directly violated the provisions of this law.
The value of the confiscations and the amount of the fines thus incurred
may be levied upon the movable or immovable property of the offenders.
Proceedings taken under this act must be officially brought to the notice
of the defendants within two years, at latest, from the commission of the
offense. Article VII
Articles of merchandise seized or confiscated by virtue of this law shall
be sold for the benefit of the Imperial Treasury, with the exception :
I. — Of aniline colors. . . . Such articles shall always be burned or
destroyed publicly no later than the day following the seizure, in the presence
of the chief of customs, of the governor or his representative, and of such other
persons as it shall be possible to gather together. A certification of the de
struction shall be made immediately and signed by all the persons present. A
copy thereof shall be sent to the person upon whose complaint the seizure was
made, and another sent immediately to the chief of the customs service at
Teheran. Article VIII
Any agent or employee of the government, any collector of customs or
employee thereof, who shall be convicted of having permitted, tolerated or
50

DYERS AND DYES
favored in any manner whatsoever the importation or exportation of prohib
ited articles, shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not less than one
and not more than three years, according to the gravity of the offense ; and,
moreover, he shall be liable, by his goods and chattels, movable and immov
able, for the payment of a sum equal to or double the amount of the fines and
confiscation provided in the preceding articles against the authors of frauds
of this sort. Article IX
Rewards in money, to be deducted from the amount of fines and confisca
tions, may be given by the Central Administration of Customs to agents and
employees who shall have discovered or furnished proof of violation of this
law, and also to any person who shall have given to the administration infor
mation leading to the discovery of such violation.
Article X
All violations of this law must be established by an authentic certificate
drawn up with all possible promptness, by at least two employees, and this
proof shall be forwarded with all possible haste to the office of the customs
bureau, which shall have power to collect the fines, the amount of confisca
tions, and to exact the corporeal penalties incurred. One of the copies of the
proces verbal shall be sent to the chief offender, who must sign it or acknowl
edge its receipt, and the other copy shall be sent as soon as possible to the
officer of customs, who alone shall have power to grant a reduction of penal
ties if there be circumstances which warrant measures of clemency.
Article XI
This law shall take effect three months after the day of its signing by Us.
We order that it be printed in all the newspapers of the Empire and
that copies be sent to the Ambassadors, Ministers or Charges d'Affaires
accredited by Us, and further order Our Sadr Azame to take the measures
necessary to assure its execution.
Given at the Palace of Teheran, the 15th day of the month Ramazan, in
the year 1317 of the Hegira, Jan'y 1, 1900.
MOZAFFER ED DIN.
By the Shah, The Sadr Azame, Amine Sultan.
How oreat a supply of Persian rugs of recent manufacture, dyed
5'

ORIENTAL RUGS
with anilines, remains to be disposed of, it is impossible to say, but
the Persian government, through its Belgian custom-house officials,
at whose suggestion the edict is said to have been issued, is enforc
ing the prohibition to the letter. Since the law took effect, several
large consignments of anilines have been seized and destroyed.
Unless there be a pitiful backsliding, it is not too much to prophesy
that within two or three years the Persian rugs will be found to have
improved greatly in point of coloring, and it will no longer be dan
gerous, as it is now, to wash them, even in clear water, for fear some
of the dyes will run.
The government's step was a radical one. That it was deemed
necessary is made plain by the fact that this law is the first promul
gated by the present Shah since his accession.
The best expression of the dyer's skill is undoubtedly found, as
has been said, in reds. In what apparently contradictory colors the
yarns are dipped, to lay a foundation for the ultimate shades of red, is
past finding out. Madder, the root of rubia ttnctorum, ground and
boiled, is a basis for a multitude of the reds of the Eastern carpets.
Its flowers, too, are steeped, and the liquid made from them fer
mented, to secure some extraordinary shades of this color. The red
most common in Persian fabrics is made by combining alum-water,
grape-juice and a decoction of madder, and drying the yarn in a par
ticularly moderate sun. Many degrees of redness, from pale pink to
intense and glowing scarlet, can be made from madder alone, by
different treatments, and in combination with other materials it plays
a part in half the hues which appear in Eastern carpets. One of the
oldest of Oriental dyes is sheep's-blood, from which, by secret
method, a rich and enduring vermilion is obtained.
Another material for deep red is kermes, a variety of coccus
insect found upon oak trees about the Mediterranean. The normal
color produced from it is a rich carmine. It is one of the oldest of
52

DYERS AND DYES
Oriental dyes, but it has been supplanted, in a measure, by the
Mexican cochineal, which, after the conquest of Mexico, and the im
portation of its product into Spain and thence into the Orient, took
its place as an Eastern dye. This is used for the most flaming reds, as
well as in combination with other materials to give quality to tamer
shades. It is more brilliant than the native kermes, but the Eastern
dyers say, not so permanent. With the old vegetable mordants, it
produces a comparatively fast dye. In dilution with madder it pro
vides scarlet, cherry and various degrees of pink. There is a min
eral kermes, an artificial sulphite of mercury, which borrowed its
name to fit its brilliant color, and is not to be confounded with the
insect dye. In recent years, many reds have had for basis the dye-
woods — Campeche wood, Brazil wood, and others — which have been
engrafted upon the Oriental system. Rich pink shades are often
had from the rochella or orchil, a lichen which grows on the rocks
around the Eastern seas. Singular reds are also obtained from
onion skins, ivy berries, beets and a multitude of other plants, of
which only the dyer knows the secrets.
The great majority of Eastern blues have for a basis indigo,
which for the hundreds of shades used is compounded with almost
every other dyeing material known in the Orient. In Persia, dyeing
with indigo is accounted as high an art as is the science of reds in
Turkey and Bokhara.1
The principal yellows are obtained from Persian berries, which
although they are indigenous to Asia Minor, attain a greater size and

1 " It seems strange that processes should be lost for producing articles, by a people who
actually continue to manufacture without interruption the very objects into which these processes
enter. Yet we repeatedly find such a result occurring in the history of civilization. There never has
been a time, for ages, when the Persians have not been manufacturing rugs, during all which period
they have been manufacturing their own dyes; and yet within forty or fifty years the secret of making
the superb blue color which distinguishes the finest examples of old Persian tiles, illuminated manu
scripts and rugs, has fallen into disuse, and no one seems now able to reproduce it." — S. G. II'. Ben
jamin: " Persia and the Persians." 53

ORIENTAL RUGS
a more pronounced yellow color in Persia; from turmeric, the extract
of the East Indian root curcuma, and from saffron and sumac roots.
The turmeric yellow is not of itself a thoroughly fast color, but im
parts a life to other shades when used in combination. It serves as a
mordant for certain dyes, and owing to its instant change to brown,
when brought into contact with any alkaline substance, is used in
chemistry as a test for alkalis. Some yellow shades are produced
also by combination of the wood dyes and saffron roots and flowers
and a variety of ochra plant.
Indigo, in combination with the yellows, furnishes most of the
greens used by the old ''native dyers. With the buckthorn, or
rhamnus, it produces the Chinese green, and with turmeric and the
Persian berries, a wide range of intermediate greens, both bright and
dull. The deepest shades of brown are obtained by dyeing with madder
over indigo, as the deep Persian blue is secured from applying indigo
over pure madder. Wood brown and camel's-hair brown result from
the use of madder with the yellows. In Anatolia, this has been ac
complished lately by use of the orange aniline colors. Gallnuts also
¦ enter largely into the making of the browns.
The densest blacks, which are little used except for outlining
"patterns, and defining border stripes, are made chiefly from iron fil
ings, with vinegar and rind of pomegranate and sometimes with the
addition of Campeche wood. Gray shades are secured by the use of
Smyrna gallnuts.
The schedule of purples is one of the richest in the whole realm
of Eastern dyes. The different red ingredients mentioned above are
used in combination with indigo, and the dye woods and the rochella
tincturus play a large .part. The thoroughness with which the Ori
ental dyers have canvassed the whole field of substances to discover a
¦ new material for establishing or modifying colors is shown in the cora-
54

DYERS AND DYES
bination for a popular shade of violet. It starts with a mixture of
milk and water, in exact proportions, then madder is added in certain
dilution, and lastly, the whole is converted by sour grape juice. A
great many shades of purple, heliotrope, lavender and the like are
secured from the bodies of marine insects and molluscs.
This outline will serve to indicate the honesty which dominates
the old Oriental coloring. It can only suggest the great variety
of materials employed, and the consummate skill required in the
blending. Vine leaves, mulberry leaves, myrobalans, laurel and
angelica berries, artichokes, thistles, capers, ivy and myrtle — all things
that grow within the ken of the dyer — have been tried to their utmost
as possible color-makers and color-changers. Many of the growths
are cultivated by the dyers upon their small acreage, in the intervals
of their momentous labor in the shops.

VI
DESIGN
RUGS are written pages. In their maze of design is a symbol
language, the key of which, in its ceaseless transmission
through the centuries, has unhappily been all but lost.
The variation of its forms, in the different classes of fabrics, may be
looked upon as dialectic ; and it must be believed, so far as the very
ancient figures are concerned, that none of the dialects is understood
by the weaver who employs it at the present day.
" Whatever their type of ornamentation may be," says Sir
George Birdwood, "a deep and complicate symbolism, originating in
Babylonia and possibly India, pervades every denomination of Ori
ental carpets. Thus the carpet itself prefigures space and eternity,
and the general pattern or filling, as it is technically termed, the fleet
ing, finite universe of animated beauty. Every color used has its
significance, and the design, whether mythological or natural, hu
man, bestial or floral, has its hidden meaning. Even the representa
tions of men hunting wild beasts have their special indications. So
have the natural flowers of Persia their symbolism, wherever they are
introduced, generally following that of their colors.' The very ir-
1 " The colors white, yellow, green, blue, red, and black, in cases of the dominant color of
deities and sacred animals, of the Sun and Moon, were not chosen haphazard, but according to the
symbolic significance which the Egyptians were accustomed to attribute to each color — the idea of joy
was connected with white and green." — Brugsch: "Mythology."
56

Plate VI. Antique Persian Rug (Silk)
ll.II x 4.10
From the Marquand Collection
While the color arrangement — wine-red ground and green border — is that
common to Isaphan carpets of the Sixteenth Century, the design is of an en
tirely different nature from those emanating from the capital. It is far more
likely a product of middle or northern Persia, for in it, though unlike in colora
tion, may easily be traced kinship to the row designs of Feraghan, which we
know under the names of Herati and Guli Hinnai. In the alternating rosette
and palmette in the border there is clear prophesy of the Herat border. There
are certain textile characteristics suggestive of Sehna, as the shape also is, but,
as I have said in notes upon the Marquand collection, it is impossible to make
hard and fast local classification of a rug woven when Persia was in a state of
such continual change, and artisans in large numbers were being transferred
from place to place, taking with them their methods and designs. The work
may have been done at Kashan or perchance in Resht, but that it foreshadows
the Feraghan and Sehna of to-day there is little doubt.

DESIGN
regularities, either in drawing or coloring, to be observed in almost
every Oriental carpet, and invariably in Turkoman carpets, are sel
dom accidental, the usual deliberate intention being to avert the evil
eye and insure good luck."
This utterance, which, coming from so profound a source, may
be looked upon as revelation rather than poetic license, enables the
lover of Eastern fabrics to weave for himself, from the curious and
seductive shapes and the soothing harmonies which they embody, a
bright and altogether exalted picture of the mental and spiritual life
of the Orient. Abhorring a vacuum, the Eastern, at his highest
mark of artistic capability, filled the blank space which was his bit of
eternity with a fulness of warmth and beauty which spoke for him
then, and as an enduring fabric speaks for him now, as a man whose
intimations of a glad immortality never ceased until his fingers grew
weary at life's loom, and the earth claimed him.
But study of the Oriental of earlier times, by the carpets which he
made, must needs be mainly a study of the upper class, of the nobles
in whose palaces and by whose designers and weavers the finer pieces
were produced. Exhibition, publication, expert analysis and compar
ison of the oldest and most perfect of these carpets, which in any
country and any era must have taken rank as art productions, have
shed invaluable light on the course of artistic impulses in the East,
three or four centuries ago. They have revealed in its most impres
sive phase the high seriousness of Eastern races. They have opened
a field of study which becomes wider and richer with every moment
of consideration. In view of the teachings of these famous fabrics it must for the
more popular purpose be accounted a misfortune that time has left
few if any authentic examples of the commoner rugs of extremely old
date. Actual comparison, therefore, of the fabrics exported from the
East and sold in American markets to-day, with those made for
57

ORIENTAL RUGS
every-day use hundreds of years ago, is practically out of the ques
tion ; but so closely do the very fine modern rugs, particularly some
of the Persians, preserve features of the wonderful old carpets in the
European collections, that it is fair to presume that the rougher and
more common varieties cannot differ greatly, in color and design,
from those of the olden time.
There was, authorities declare, a period of climax in the highest
order of Eastern carpets ; and with equal candor they concede that
even prior to the decline noticeable in our own time, there had been
a marked degeneration, extending possibly over centuries. It was
first manifest, they say, in the decadence of the pure curve, in a ten
dency to leave broad surfaces of ground color, in an abandonment of
the perfect coordination which had given poetic unity and a de
lightful atmosphere of completeness. Then, from many of the car
pets disappeared the central design so essential to artistic composi
tion. Rectilinear drawing of the vines and creepers banished the
softness which had been the chief charm of the Persian fabrics. The
floral patterns gained in geometry as they lost in grace. Over all
was evident a relapse from exalted artistic conditions, a barrenness of
life, a decline of ambition. The exact period of climax has not yet
been fixed. For most of the superfine antiques which remain in ex
istence, the critics hesitate to assign a date, or even to point out
definitely the locality of manufacture.
It seems safe to conclude that decay in art, if it was decay,
was contemporary with national decline : that when the Eastern
nations passed out of apogee the record of the transition was writ
ten on their fabrics. But there are those who deny the decadence,
who maintain that the perfection reached in these weavings was
foreign, not Eastern ; that it was the sacrifice of native truth and
originality to strange artistic tenets. They hold that the standard
was meretricious, and that what is termed decadence was only a
58

DESIGN
natural and wholesome reversion to older and more authentic
Oriental types ; a return from Italian schooling to the ancient spirit
and designs. Commenting upon a piece displayed at the Vienna Exposition
in 1889, which showed in a marked degree the tendency to rude
rectilinear treatment, while preserving much of the Persian richness,
a celebrated European authority said : " Have we in the peculiar
floral design before us, which is so different from the Persian style
of the fifteenth century, an example of ancient or modern industry ?
Is it the coarseness of an early style, or is it the weakness of decay
ing art, which meets us here in a garb of so little attractiveness ? "
This halting of one so thoroughly informed illustrates the tantalizing
doubt which pervades the whole study of textile design, and which
constitutes perhaps its greatest charm. But if it be true that " sym
bolism goes out as art reproduction increases," that the Persian
masterpieces, beautiful though they be, are false to Oriental theory,
are merely imitations of the ornate Italian method, supplemented by
all of grace and richness that the Persians could bring to it, then the
return, evident in later fabrics, to rude masses of color, and bolder
and older designs, must be looked upon rnerely as a final triumph of
the inherent over the acquired. And it must give to all the ruder
Oriental fabrics a value which has been overlooked in them, if not
denied to them, by the apostles of the " high school." If the general
declaration that there is a symbolic meaning in all carpet designs be
well founded, the fabrics of the commoner class must share in it.
And if it be also true that what the critics who measure all values by
Western [standards call decadence is really a reversion to genuine,
though perhaps " semi-barbaric," Oriental forms, then the rugs made
by the native for his own use, necessarily free from the influences
which invaded the art of the palace, must be considered a pure type,
and expressive of Eastern meanings. It is this class of rugs that we

ORIENTAL RUGS
get to-day, or rather did get, before the West began its mercantile
invasion of Asia.
Freest of all from outside modifying influences are, we must be
lieve, the carpets made by the nomads. Far below the high-class
Persians as exponents of artistic status, the products of the mountain
districts and steppes outrank many of those in point of consistency,
and are to be prized as truthful reflections of the native life and
character. Perhaps less of credit is to be accorded to the nomad
weavers for having adhered stubbornly to their distinctive colors and
patterns, since, inhabiting the deserts and waste places, courting and
knowing no contact with society other than their own, they have met
with no temptation to vary the character of their handicraft, or to stray
into the fields of strange design in quest of some device better calcu
lated to attract the notice of buyers. They are races which do not
change from decade to decade. Their life is the same grim routine
century after century, varied only by periods of strife and perfectly
welcome bloodshed. Therefore their product, being, at least until
very recently, made for their own uses, and not to fit the tastes or
purses of Western decorators and housekeepers, has remained un
altered. The designs are, or were, tribal property, almost as unmis-
takeable as an accent.
Despite the roughness of these peoples, despite their ignorance
of artistic precept, there is manifest in their work an aesthetic realiza
tion of the consistencies, an accurate, intuitive sense of color value,
which makes them, where bold, intense color effects are required in
decoration, useful as the dainty and intricate Persian can never be.
There is admirable harmony in their arrangement, in spite of what
strikes us instantly as garish and eccentric. Gaudy they may be
called, even astounding, but the genuine examples, in which the old
dyes have been used, are never inconsistent, never shocking ; and
they have the merit, rare nowadays, of being simon pure.
60

DESIGN
In these carpets of the nomad races may be distinguished one
characteristic sign — the filling up of vacant spaces in the ground with
small, disjunct figures. This is, according to the best authorities, a
mark whereby the nomad influence may be traced in rugs which in
general pattern and coloring conform to more urbane models. The
accomplished Persian weaver of the high school, with a blank space
to fill, would traverse it with continuous trailing vines and creepers,
of Greek, Chinese, or Arabic derivation, adorned at intervals with
delicate flowers, perhaps until his deep red or Persian blue " eter
nity" was a veritable garden plot of posies. Not so the nomad.
When he employs flowers for such a purpose, he first robs them of
stem, and hurls them upon his ground as if next moment they
were to be trampled under foot. He is no artist, but his vigor is tre
mendous, and record of it is left in wool-yarns upon the carpets of his
making, as well as in stout strokes upon the skull-piece of his adversary.
Consistency is as decisive a virtue in an Oriental rug as in
human conduct, and the lesson to be read so plainly in some of these
nomad rugs is one that may well be borne in mind in judging the
merits of the finer varieties. Any really good fabric should stand the
test of consistency. Those which do not are those which fail to in
terest as soon as they have ceased to be new. Only long and careful
study of the forms of design can supply the knowledge requisite for
making this test thorough, but the briefest acquaintance with a few
good specimens of the various groups should enable any person to
detect the utter incongruity of the unrelated patterns which so often
make war upon each other from the ground and from the border of
one and the same carpet.1 Rug designs need not be complex to be

1 Among very old fabrics are found examples made without border and consisting of a diaper or
some complete design, bounded only by the edge of the carpet itself. These are oddities, and are
most rare. A piece is occasionally found from which, for some inexplicable reason, the borders have
been cut away. Examination of the edges will show whether it is an original " all-over carpet " or a
haggled fragment. 61

ORIENTAL RUGS
good, but they should preserve their types to take rank as worthy or
desirable examples.
The derivation of many of the ornament forms is a matter still
so much mooted that this warning against incongruities should not
be too strictly construed. It is impossible at this day to select any
number of rug patterns from the multitude in use, and classify them
as belonging exclusively to any single group of fabrics, or to any lo
cality. The decorative art of the East is of too old a growth. Its
beginnings are too deeply hidden in the shadows of an earlier age,
its journeyings too manifold. In some learned quarters there is a
tendency to derive from a common source all figures known to pure
ornament. Professor Goodyear maintains that every decorative de
vice had its birth in the lotus, that the figures in modern rugs, as
well as all the forms of architecture, are descended from the lily of
the Nile, emblem now, as in the old Egyptian days, of regeneration
and immortality. Such a proposition is too thoroughly archaeological
to come at all within the province of this book. It is certain that un
questionable lotus forms played a large part in the Assyrian system
of ornamentation, and that they appear with the selfsame treatment,
almost without modification, in many Persian rugs. That transmis
sion is entirely within the view of history. And with sometimes
more and sometimes less of alteration the same arrangement is found
in numberless rugs made in districts remote from the present bound
aries of Persia. It is not to be wondered at. The whole Eastern
country has been a highway for race movements, and well nigh every
decorative design has in the mighty interchange become universal
throughout the East; but the intense conservatism which has until
now repelled the advances of Western art has served a useful pur
pose in this matter. The peoples of different parts of Asia and Asia
Minor have developed characteristics — treatments, modes of draw
ing, arrangements — which for the time at least pass as essentially
62

DESIGN
their own; and wherever the old figures have wandered, they have
been modified, adjusted to local theories, and made to conform to the
local color scheme in such manner that they are practically part
of the system into which they have been adopted. Where this
has not been done the carpets are mere bald composites, and have
lost much of their artistic charm thereby.
In any endeavor to classify the various fabrics, even tentatively,
on a basis of similarity of ornament forms alone, sight must not be
lost of the fact that much of the territory where these rugs are made
has quite recently changed hands, and while therefore some carpets
are sold under new classification, the character of the people and the
fashion of their workmanship remain as if they had not passed from
one rule to another. Perhaps the best that can be done in the way
of broad characterization is to say that the Caucasian, Turkish, and
Tartarian or Turkoman fabrics are geometrical, while those of the
Persians, and the Indian whose impetus and education are Persian,
are realistic and floral. This general distinction will serve as a pre
mise to consideration of the rugs of commerce. It is by no means
meant that the floral element is absent from the Caucasian, Turkish,
and Turkoman fabrics. On the contrary, they abound in flowers,
but the genius of these countries has made the blossoms largely
rectilinear. Caucasia and Turkestan have converted the forms of
nature into geometry. The Anatolian weavers have conventionalized
the Persian flowering vines and the flower and tree forms. Save for
the distinctively Persian " pear " or " crown jewel " device, in the fill
ing of some Kabistan, Tzitzi and Mosul rugs in the Caucasian class,
and the pure forms in the Herati, — which is, as a matter of fact, Per
sian, — the designs have lost their Persian character upon crossing
into Anatolia or over the northern or eastern borders.
Remarkable ingenuity has been displayed in the conversion of
many of these features. To preserve the swaying vine effect found
o3

ORIENTAL RUGS
in the borders of the Persian, for example, the designers of the
Ghiordes and Kulah rugs have utilized the stems of their leaf pat
terns. The direction of these is alternated so that a perfect, although
somewhat angular undulation is produced. So delicately is this ef
fected that quite protracted study of the rug may be made before the
arrangement is noticed. Nor does distance seem to have stood in
the way of this interchange of patterns. To all the Mediterranean
coasts Asia Minor taught the form of textile art which it had learned,
and took in return whatever notions they had of decoration. To this
day little Turkish children sleep under coverings which had their
patterns long ago from Morocco.
It is not strange, again, that Chinese fretted patterns should be
found scattered over the central fields and ranging in the borders of
the rugs of Samarkand, Kashgar and Yarkand, and in the borders of
some other Central Asian carpets. These regions, situated in the
direct line of travel across the continent, have always been affected by
the Chinese influence ; they are in large part populated by tribes
speaking Mongol dialects. But it is more puzzling to find that the
Chinese fret is intimately related to the Greek key, which is in the
border of many old rugs made in Asia Minor, and which in carvings,
frescoes, and every other form of ornament, is recognized the world
over as a distinctly Hellenic property. The apostles of common
origin in decoration make the way clear of such annoyances. For
example, Professor Goodyear declares that the Chinese fret and the
Greek meander alike, wherever found, are only rectangular exaggera
tions of the curling leaves of the lotus.
Owen Jones says that Chinese art is in essence Mohammedan,
that it is Chinese only in treatment ; that the Moors of the present
day decorate their pottery under the same instruction, and follow the
same law as do the Chinese in their vases. Chinese pottery, he adds,
suggests the Persian both in flowers and creepers. As indicating the
64

Plate VII. Shirvan Run
6. x 5.2
Loaned by Mr. Reginald H. Bulley
In shape, design and coloring, this is a most singular Caucasian product
and an unusually good one. It has not, of course, the fine texture of some of
the Persians, but in every respect of craftsmanship it is admirable. It is
a town product, without any of the nomad ,grotesquerie. The animal creation,
so much drawn upon for patterns by Caucasian weavers, is represented, but
not in the laughable, realistic manner common. A decorous procession of or
derly scorpions ranges through the outer border, and for guard stripes about
this, small tarantula shapes thoroughly conventionalized. Inside this appears
the wine-glass border, and inside this again, the well-known " reciprocal "
device in blue and red. Then we have what would ordinarily be called the
field, covered with a peculiar diaper design — white on a red ground — but there
is a panel in the centre of the rug, that converts this outer portion into another
border. Little can be divined of the origin or significance of these inner pat
terns except the tree of life, and the presentment of this is thoroughly Tur
anian. The rug resembles the Bergamo and certain Turkoman fabrics in its
extreme width, but in character it is Caucasian throughout, and the finishings
mark it as of Shirvan or Eastern Karabagh.

DESIGN
extent to which archaeology must be consulted in the endeavor to
trace the journeyings of the rug patterns from one part of the East to
another, the following, from the same author, is eloquent :
' Buddhist art, and contemporary Hindu art, ornamental and
otherwise, date from a time when Greek influences dominant in the
Punjab and Indus countries, spread to southern India, and these were
preceded by Persian and Assyrian."
And further : " At a later date Hindu art became saturated with
Mohammedan lotus patterns. These were all originally borrowed in
the countries conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs during the
seventh century A.D. — Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Persia. The
Arab art was, therefore, ornamentally based on the Sassanian Per
sian, and these systems, again, drew their lotus patterns from Graeco-
Egyptian and Egypto-Persian sources."
Professor Jones does not sustain the claims of the lotus to the
universal parenthood of all ornamentation, but, doubt though we
may that interesting contention, the origin of the lotus as a carpet
pattern, and much of the traveling by dint of which it came to be
impressed upon the art of every country in the Orient, are here made
sufficiently clear. And in spite of the changes which centuries have
brought, the lotus forms have been more faithfully preserved in
Persia than in any other part of the East. It was in Assyria and
Babylonia that, having been transmitted from Egypt, perhaps by the
Phoenicians and Hittites, whose palaces were copied by the Aryan
kings, they seem to have been first crystallized in ornament, and there
they have lived, almost in their original purity. In a few typical
forms the lotus is found in present day Persian carpets. There
seems reason for classing the palmette, so called, and the rosette
among these, though the palmette is held by some authorities to be
a Greek form, and to have had its derivation from the human hand
with all the digits extended ; by others it is derived directly from a

ORIENTAL RUGS
palm growth. The closed bud which in old wall-tiles, as well as in
modern rugs, alternates with the rosette or the palmette, forming a
variation of the " knop and flower " pattern, is merely the nascent
form of the lotus. It is significant that the forms which show indu
bitable kinship with the lotus are chiefly used in border designs, thus
binding and unifying the life story told in the body of the carpet,
with an unbroken succession of the emblems of eternity and renewed
being — the bud, signifying birth, and the full-blown flower, the com
pleteness of age ; the creeper typifying the long repetition of the life
process which separates and yet unites the two.
The life idea finds expression, too, in the tree forms, which seem,
viewed as Aryan creations, to have had their origin in the lotus ;
though the versions traceable to Turanian sources would appear to
represent some other growth. " From the earliest antiquity," says
Doctor Rock, " a tradition came down through Middle Asia, of some
holy tree, perhaps the Tree of Life spoken of as growing in
Paradise." ' According to Birdwood, " it is represented on the com
monest Spanish and Portuguese earthenware, by a green tree that
1 The diversity of tree forms found in rug designs is almost limitless, and animal figures are
presented in connection with the trees, in all the manifold fashions born of varied mythological and
religious beliefs. A recent writer, borrowing from the pages of Washington Irving, has thus described
the "tuba," the tree of paradise, representation of which is frequent in the more pretentious of the
Persian rugs :
" On the right hand of the throne on which Allah sat, his face covered by twenty thousand veils
lest the brightness of his countenance should annihilate the beholders, was a tree whose branches ex
tended over a space greater than that between the sun and the earth. About it, angels were more
numerous than the sands of the seashore or the beds of the streams, and rivers rejoiced beneath its
shade. The leaves resembled the ears of an elephant and immortal birds flying amidst the branches
repeated the sublime verses of the Koran. The fruits were milder than milk and sweeter than honey,
and all the creatures of God if assembled there, would find sufficient sustenance. Each seed inclosed
a houri provided for the felicity of true believers, and from the tree itself issued four rivers, two flow
ing from the interior of Paradise, and two issuing beyond it and becoming, one the Nile, and the other
the Euphrates." There is often found, too, what is by some called the tree of punishment, with an animal's head
at the end of each branch.
There is 'another tree, representing a feature of the first of Mohammed's heavens, in which
angels, in the form of animals, intercede for the animals upon the earth.
66

DESIGN
looks exactly like a Noah's Ark tree." "Sometimes, on Persian
rugs," he adds, " the entire tree is represented, but generally it would
be past all recognition but for smaller representations of it within the
larger. In Yarkand carpets, however, it is seen filling the whole
centre of the carpet, stark and stiff as if cut. out of metal. In Persian
art, and in Indian art derived from Persian, the tree becomes a beau
tiful flowering plant, or simple sprig of flowers, but in Hindu art it
remains in its hard architectural form, as seen in temple lamps and in
the models in brass and copper of the Sacred Fig as the Tree of
Life. On an Indian bag it is represented in two forms, one like a
notched Noah's Ark tree, and the other branched like the temple
candelabra." As showing the tenacity of the; old forms, consider what is
known in rug design as the Herati pattern, or more commonly the
" fish " pattern. It is found in perfect purity still, in the rugs of
Herat, some of them so new that .they still bear the odor of the wool-
pen ; also in the Sehnas, Feraghans, Khorassans and Kurdistans,
and in rectilinear form in pieces from Afghanistan. Its feature
is a rosette between two long, curved, leaves, in which some imagina
tion has discovered the resemblance to fishes. This has given the
device its name, though it has ; by some authorities been traced di
rectly to very old Chinese, heraldic emblems. The pattern is in any
case an ancient one, and whether or not, in some older day, the fish,
sacred to Isis and later to Venus, was intended in these lancet-leaf
forms, is open to question ; but the presence here of the lotus,.
emblem of fecundity, suggests such a possibility. The fish pattern is
not found in the body of the rugs unless it be in comparative purity,
as a diaper covering all or a considerable part of the central field.
In this diaper it alternates with a square or diamond-shaped rhom-
boidal arabesque device in such manner that the " row " effect is
perfectly maintained. There are two forms, rizeh and darisht, fine
67

ORIENTAL RUGS
and coarse. In the Herat carpets the coarse form is used. In the
Feraghans, Sehnas, and Khorassans the diaper is most compact.
There are other elements equally enduring. Take, for example,
the " pear " pattern. For this device, which has been so widely em
ployed throughout the East as to be almost universal, Professor
Goodyear also claims a lotus derivation, but the foundation of the
claim is not so clear as in the cases of some other figures. The
" pear " seems to have intimate and original association with Persia,
since it is in the Persian fabrics that it is most freely used. There is,
indeed, hardly any variety of Persian or Kurdistan fabrics which
does not display it. In the Sarabands and some Shiraz examples it
covers the whole field. In the Khorassans it is used in most complex
arrangement. Adopted into the rugs of other countries it follows a
rectilinear form which shows that it is anything but indigenous.
There are many theories concerning the precise origin of the
pattern ; to some it is known as a " palm," to others as a " river
loop," supposed to represent the bend of the river Jhelum in
Kashmir, or, again, the Ganges. This meaning is chiefly accepted
where knowledge of the device is obtained from Kashmir or India
shawls. In these the figure is much elongated, which adds greatly
to its grace ; it is an exaggeration of the long forms found in the
rugs of Khorassan, and is adorned after the Khorassan manner,
though with far greater elaboration.
The popularity of the shawls in America antedated that of Ori
ental rugs by something like a century ; hence the pear shape, which
in connection with shawls is still called the cone, has popularly been
supposed to be purely Indian. There is little doubt, however, that
the pattern, like the shawl itself, is Persian, and was carried into
Kashmir by the Iranians when they went thither in the seventh
or eighth century, taking with them their arts and their an
cient Zoroastrian faith. This is further borne out by the fact that
68

DESIGN
the manufacture and use of shawls, of a sort similar to those made by
the people of India and Kashmir, are still common among their kins
men in Kirman, in southern Persia.
The " river loop " theory, therefore, seems to be without warrant,
and wholly local. An explanation more plausible and consistent, and
from a source which invokes credence, is that given by Iskender
Khan Coroyantz, Imperial Commissioner for Persia at the Chicago
World's Fair, and interpreter to the late Shah, Nasr ed Din, during
his travels in Europe. He declares that the device represents the
chief ornament of the old Iranian crown, during one of the earliest
dynasties; that the jewel was a composite one, of pear shape, and
wrought of so many stones that, viewed from different sides, it dis
played a great variety of colors. If this explanation be correct, it is
easy to understand the ornamentation of the pattern, which in the
shawls, and to a certain extent in the rugs of eastern Iran, reaches
such perfection. But it is not to be supposed that the shape was
chosen for such perpetuity without symbolic or religious reason.
Taking into consideration the deep devotion of the ancient Persians,
there is no room to believe otherwise than that the crown-jewel shape
represents, in its first meaning, the flame which they worshipped and
which is worshipped to this day by their posterity in India and south
ern Persia. This view is born out by Sir George Birdwood in his
" Arts of India," where he calls the device the "cone or flame."
I have selected, from the names applied to this figure, that of
"pear" pattern, not because it has any historical or symbolical
accuracy, for it has none ; but because the image it conveys is more
clearly apprehended by the Western mind ; it is what the shape
suggests, throwing meaning out of the question.
Efforts to fix the derivation of the fretted ornaments have been
many. Some of them have been disregardful of the universality of
symbolic patterns, for insisting upon which there seems now such
69

ORIENTAL RUGS
abundant reason. Ch. T. Newton calls attention to certain coins
from Priene, as indicating that the Greek key pattern symbolized
the river Maeander. Birdwood, again, says in his " Indian Arts" : " I
believe the swastika ( LC ) to be the origin of the key pattern orna
ment of the Greek and Chinese decorative art." Support is given to
this theory by a Chinese diaper pattern exhibited on pottery in the
British Museum, and reproduced in Hulme's " Principles of Orna
mental Art." It is a mere multiplication of the swastika in its
simplest form, no other element appearing. Agassiz, in his mono
graph, says : " The original motive of ^the' M&andrina Phrygia is
given us by leptodea, and many species of madrepores. The
leptodea of the Persian Gulf show the ^patterns which ornamentalists
call Greek — the wave patterns which surround Chinese, Persian and
Arabic manuscripts." A remote derivation, and one, it seems, hitherto
unsuggested, is the device used so freely in the carvings of the Maya
temples in Yucatan and other parts of southern Mexico. It is there
construed, by men who have spent years in the study of these extra
ordinary ruins, to be of serpent derivation, but its kinship to the
Chinese and Greek forms is too plain to require argument. The
claim made for Yucatan, that it, and not any part of Asia, was the
cradle of the race, has startling substantiation in many of the orna
ment and architectural forms, and traces of religious belief which
have endured there to this day.
Colonel Thomas Wilson, of the Smithsonian Institution at Wash
ington, has published a scholarly and interesting monograph on the
" swastika," in the introductory pages of which he says : " No con
clusion is attempted as to the time or place of origin, or the primitive
meaning of the swastika, because these are considered to be lost in
antiquity. The straight line, the circle, the cross, the triangle, are
simple forms, easily made, and might have been invented and rein
vented in every age of primitive man and in every quarter of the
70

DESIGN
globe, each time being an independent invention, meaning much or
little, meaning different things among different peoples or at different
times among the same people ; or they may of had no definite or
settled meaning. But the swastika was probably the first to be made
with a definite intention and a continuous or consecutive meaning, the
knowledge of which passed from person to person, from tribe to tribe,
from people to people, and from nation to nation, until, with possibly
changed meanings, it has finally circled the globe."
A multitude of authorities are quoted in Colonel Wilson's book,
each attributing what he conceives to be the swastika's significance,
and a multitude of illustrations show the forms this mysterious, prehis
toric sign has taken, and the variety of objects it has adorned, in dif
ferent parts of the world. It has been found in nearly all prehistoric
ruins, in the temples of Central America, and the Indian mounds of the
United States, as well as on the stone ware of Europe and the buried
ruins of all the East. It has passed out of use in modern times
among nearly all Christian nations.
Colonel Wilson says further : " The swastika mark appears both
in its normal and ogee forms in the Persian carpets and rugs. While
writing this memoir, I have found in the Persian rug in my own bed
chamber, sixteen figures of the swastika. In the large rug in the
chief clerk's office of the National Museum, there are no less than
twenty-seven figures of the swastika. On a piece of imitation Persian
carpet, with a heavy pile, made probably in London, I found also fig
ures of the swastika. All the foregoing figures have been of the
normal swastika, the arms crossing each other, and the ends turning
at right angles, the lines being of equal thickness throughout. Some
of them were bent to the right, and some to the left. At the
entrance of the Grand Opera House in Washington, I saw a large
India rug containing a number of ogee swastikas; while the arms
crossed each other at right angles, they curved, some to the right,
71

ORIENTAL RUGS
some to the left, but all the lines increased in size, swelling in the
middle of the curve, but finishing in a point. The modern Japanese
wistaria work-baskets for ladies have one or more swastikas woven in
their sides or covering.
" Thus it appears that the use of the swastika in modern times is
confined principally to Oriental and Scandinavian countries, countries
which hold close relations with antiquity ; that, in western Europe,
where in ancient times the swastika was most frequent, it has, during
the last one or two thousand years, become extinct. And this in the
countries which have led the world in culture."
Discussing its prehistoric existence over such wide area of the
earth's surface, Colonel Wilson builds wholly upon the theory of
migration. He says : " The argument has been made, and it has
proved satisfactory, at least to the author, that throughout Asia and
Europe, with the exception of the Buddhists and early Christians, the
swastika was used habitually as a sign or mark or charm implying
good luck, good fortune, long life, much pleasure, great success, or
something similar. The makers and users of the swastika in South
and Central America, and among the mound-builders of the savages
of North America, having all passed away before the advent of his
tory, it is not now, and never has been, possible for us to obtain from
them a description of the meaning, use, or purpose for which the
swastika was employed by them. But, by the same line of reasoning
that the proposition has been treated in the prehistoric countries of
Europe and Asia, and which brought us to the conclusion that the
swastika was there used as a charm or token of good luck or good
fortune, or against the evil eye, we may surmise that the swastika sign
was used in America for much the same purpose. It was placed upon
the same style of object in America as in Europe or Asia. It is not
found upon any of the ancient gods of America, nor on any of the
statues, monuments or altars, nor upon any sacred place or object,
72

Plate VIII. Old Kukdisii Rug
i.I I x 3.7
Property of the Author
What mastery of coloring the unschooled mountain Kurd possesses, this
unusual piece of carpet goes far toward showing. Moreover, in almost every
respect it illustrates the best Kurdish spirit in design and workmanship. The
repetitive feature, which is in highest favor in Kurdistan, is here brought out,
both in field and border. So also, is the fine skill in shading, in which these
people have always excelled, but which, unfortunately, is being wholly aban
doned in the newer rugs. No system of color reproduction — even one so effi
cient as that here employed — can bring out all that the weaver has actually
accomplished with an exceedingly small schedule of color in the central field.
There is a simple honeycomb pattern repeated, with a small flower figure
within each cell. Only three colors are used — yellow for the ground, blue for
the outlines and red for the flower, with a stitch or two of white and blue in
the centre ; but an alternation of sunshine and shadow, regardless of the light
in which the rug lies, is effected merely by the weaver's manipulation of the
yarns — the addition of a knot of blue here and there, or, on the other hand, the
substitution of a knot of yellow or red, and, to complete the result, a trimming
of the yellow and red yarns shorter than the blue. When the rug is looked at
from a distance the yellow is hidden and the shadow of blue is intense. This
throws the yellow and red in other parts into yet stronger contrast.
Something of the effect may be secured by holding the plate horizontally
on a level with the eye. This will also bring out strongly the manner in which
the color diversions in the border have been adjusted to coincide with the
centre. This border has a more extensive range and variety of colors than
almost any rug the author has ever seen. Some minute spots of faint colors
have been unavoidably lost in reduction, but the color process has almost mir
aculously retained the effect of them.

DESIGN
but upon such objects as indicate the common or every-day use, and
on which the swastika, as a charm for good luck, would be most ap
propriate, while for a sacred character it would be most inappropriate."
Thus the emblems of the older faiths are popularized in the orna
ment systems of the whole world to-day. Their very endurance
speaks their fitness to endure, and to become universal, even in im
perfect forms. The harmony of which they are an expression has in
some mystical way seized upon the imagination of the West, and taken
the place of later conceit, which finds in ingenuity alone its claim up
on the fitful fancy of mankind. All that is not ephemeral in design,
all that does not lose vogue in a season, seems to be directly trace
able to these old, symbolic devices of the East, which have outlived
the passing of nations and of creeds.
Allusion has been made elsewhere to the manner in which rug
designs travel from one part of the Orient to another. Until one has
been among the weavers and rug dealers of Persia, it is impossible to
realize how thoroughly established and universally recognized the great
majority of designs have become, how much more of a trade than
an art is most modern weaving. The native designer copies
and modifies. His originality stops with the petty changes in draw
ing or color made in some old design. In the first place the parts of
the design have names, which are known to weavers everywhere.
The main ground, for instance, is metnih ; the band of solid color on
the outside of the rug, levehr ; the narrow stripe just inside that,
zinjir, or chain ; the small border stripe, bala-kachi ; the middle or
main stripe is ara-khachi ; the corners, lechai ; the lines dividing the
stripe, su, or water ; the outlines of all designs, khcrdeh. These are
only terms used to indicate parts of the rug. Then with each com
plete design known by a name, the Oriental might, if he only would,
order the most elaborate carpet without the expenditure of more than
fifty words. It is necessary to dictate colors only for the principal
73

ORIENTAL RUGS
parts of the design. The color of the smaller elements is usually left
to the weaver's judgment, except in big factories. There the European
or Levantine manager controls the distribution of colors even down
to the smallest vine and leaf forms.
The Perso-Turkish word for design is tereh. An echo of the
days when the weaving was done under viceroyal auspices is found in
the names by which many of the standard terehs are known. There
is, for example, the tereh Shah Abbas, one of the most beautiful and
at the same time simplest of the ancient designs. While floral in
character, it is a complete departure from the complex flower and
vine masses common in fine Persian fabrics prior to the reign of the
Great Shah. Its flowers, laid broadly in yellow, red and blue, and
with only the smallest display of connecting vines, were of good size
and in a way conventional, and stood out clear and fine upon a plain
ground of the richest blue. They are really modifications of the al
ternating palmettes and rosettes found in the old borders. There
still remain in the possession of some fortunate collectors, in this
country as well as in Europe, old Shah Abbas pieces, worn to the
woof but with the abiding vestiges of color still luminous. I have
known a Persian who paid thirty dollars — and gladly — for a fragment
of one of these old Shah Abbas rugs, not more than fourteen or
fifteen inches wide, and perhaps two feet long. He drew it tenderly
and with indescribable pride from his strong-box, and turned its vel
vety surface back and forth in the dim light of the bazaar, saying :
" Now I have a real model. I shall see if the weavers of to-day are
failures or not." The Shah Abbas pattern is still made in rug fac
tories, but in most cases it bears the name only by courtesy. It is
merely a jumble of disjunct floral figures in coarse weaving and usu
ally execrable colors, crowded into the field of some huge carpet in a
fashion that seems little short of mockery after one has looked on the
chaste beauty of the old fabric. 74

DESIGN
Another design, which has so much of the decorative quality of
the Shah Abbas that some of its floral figures seem like a plagiarism,
is the tereh Mina Khani — named for Mina Khan, long ago a ruler in
West Persia. In this the flowers, alternate red, yellow and particol
ored red and blue, are joined by rhomboidal vines of rich olive green,
so as to form a diamond arrangement. In the old versions of this
design there is left an abundance of the blue ground. The main
borders also carry large flowers in soft colors. The narrow stripes
often show the reciprocal figures of the Karabaghs. In the moderns
the figures are crowded as in the Shah Abbas, and the lustrous quality
of the colors has given way to the loudness of the anilines, which
when years have passed over the carpet become dull and worse than
unattractive. The Sardar Aziz Khan, once a governor in Azerbijan, was also
parent to a design, which still bears his name — tereh Sardar — but
reflects no particular glory on his memory. It is common in the
present day carpets, and is particularly adapted to the modern re
quirement in heavy design. Its principal element, by which it can
be distinguished instantly, is the use of ridiculously long, narrow leaf
forms, united by vines and relieved by bold floral shapes. The de
signer seems to have taken his first inspiration from the Shah Abbas,
and added the great leaves, in place of slender vines, as a sort of sign
manual. The favorite substitute for the fish pattern in the fine old Fer
aghan rugs was the kindred tereh Guli Hinnai — or Flower of the
Henna design. Henna is the plant with the extract of which the
Persians dye their beards, hair and finger-nails in such extraordinary
shades of red. The Guli Hinnai design presents a small yellow
plant shape, set in rows, and with profuse flower forms uniting them
in diamond arrangement, something after the manner of the fish pat
tern. The treatment of this in the Feraghans makes it resemble the

ORIENTAL RUGS
Herati diaper, though it is richer by reason of the predominance
of red. Turunji means " like a sour orange." It is the name given to
all pronounced medallion rug designs with curved outlines. Tereh
Sihbih — apple pattern — is a Kurdistan design, in which conventional
elements bearing only the remotest resemblance to fruit are arranged
in perpendicular rows in the ground. These are only a few of the
names in vogue, but they will serve to show how thoroughly stereo
typed the carpet designs of the East have become.
Before leaving this subject attention should be called to one
salient feature of Oriental carpets, which may otherwise be misun
derstood to the discredit of many a desirable fabric, and the loss of
many a collector. In some admirable rugs faults of design will be
noticed, departures from the evident scheme, which would ordinarily
be unexplainable except upon the ground of carelessness of work
manship. These are the " irregularities " referred to by Sir George
Birdwood, and though incomprehensible, as he elsewhere says, to the
formal Western mind, their significance, so cogently pointed out by
him, should in many instances lend value to the carpet in which they
occur, instead of going to condemn it.
The most remarkable case of divagation in design that has ever
found its way into this country, is a rug which recently passed through
the hands of an importing firm in New York. Where it has gone, or
who has become its possessor, I do not know. This extraordinary
carpet, which is so erratic that it defies classification, has perhaps
a history which would be well worth the writing, if it could
ever be learned from that distant East out of which it made its way-
hither. It is some four feet wide by seven in length, of extremely
heavy, firm and admirable workmanship, and though it has the appear
ance of having been made by sewing together scraps of rugs of widely
different varieties, was found upon examination to be one piece, and
76

DESIGN
perfect in every way save one. It is begun after the pure Sarakhs
design, in fine harmony of field and border. About eighteen inches
from the beginning, the field pattern is abruptly changed to the most
perfect Feraghan ; the Sarakhs border is continued. Then, as
suddenly, after ten inches more of progress, the inner stripe of the
border is abandoned, cut off short, to make more room in the field,
and for the Feraghan body is substituted a great and gaudy design
upon a pale ground, which cannot be recognised as belonging to any
type. In this last pattern the carpet is finished.
Whether this eccentric composition is a work of more hands
than one, each succeeding weaver having put into it the pattern which
seemed to him or her noblest ; or whether it is a witness to the ability
of some versatile Oriental to work well in several designs ; or whether,
again, it tells of a task taken up by a second weaver, after the death of
its beginner, and, the second having been removed, another undertak
ing the labor of its completion, who can tell ? It may be a pattern piece
for several designs ; it may be a " hoodoo " rug, or it may, on the
other hand, be an extreme example of the irregularity of which the
learned Englishman speaks, a carpet which some superstitious Per
sian has made to cover the grave of his progenitor, hoping that its
exaggerated oddity would indeed " avert the evil eye " and vouch
safe an undisturbed repose.
There is one more trick of design in Eastern carpets, which to
many will necessitate a word of explanation. Of Western apart-
mental arrangement the weaver of the Orient had in the beginning,
little or no conception. The topography of his own home, to fit which
his carpets were created, was of an unvarying order. It is this, by
the way, which explains the prevalence of long, narrow shapes in so
many varieties of imported rugs — the shapes which are called " run
ners" in our market, and are used chiefly for stair and hall coverings.
The floor of the Eastern room is mapped into four sections, and for
77

ORIENTAL RUGS
these four pieces of carpet are constructed. In the middle a wide
strip, two narrow strips along the sides of this, and a fourth across
the end, upon which the master of the house sits at meat, with room
at his right hand and left for the guests of honor, or perchance his
favorites, while persons of lesser importance occupy places upon
the divans at the sides.1 Knowing no floor scheme save this, the
Oriental, when the dealers in Western markets called upon him for
carpets of great size, wrought all four strips into a single piece ; and
in the large trade collections these vast and extraordinary objects are
sometimes found. Historically, they are of value, for they are the
triclinia, or (later) triclinaria, upon which the ancient East lay at
its feasting. But they have no place in our scheme of furnishing,
and, though they are woven, oftentimes, in the most skilful fashion,
and are bought at great cost by persons in quest of the eccentric,
they look to the novice like so many bits, sewn together with a purpose
not altogether rational.
Confronted with these archaic creations the Western firms were
forced to take the designing of the whole-carpet sizes into their own
hands. There were needed indeed fabrics which, while they covered
the requisite space, should, at the same time, preserve the completeness
of design and color scheme which marks the smaller rugs. With this
in view they provided sketches of what they wanted, and contracted
with the Oriental agents for the making of the big, heavy pieces,
the production of which has now grown to such vast proportions in
different parts of the East. It was first tried in Asia Minor, and

' Occasionally there are found, principally in modern coarse Hamadans, what are known in
Constantinople as keosseh (corners). These are merely quarter sections of large designs, woven as com
plete fabrics, and for oddity, more than aught else, used in small rooms, where two sides are taken up
by divans, canopies, and other adjuncts or that modern hodge-podge, the "cosy corner." They are
well adapted for this purpose, since the quarter of the central medallion common to the Hamadans
covers the floor under the canopies, and the rich borders are displayed outside. Of late, also, some
round pieces have been produced, in silk, chiefly if not altogether from the looms of Tabriz. They are
meant, of course, for table covers, and some of them are well designed and deftly wrought.
78

DESIGN
proved so successful that Western designers are now stationed at
weaving centres in Persia and India, as well as in Anatolia. The con
ceits of these gentlemen, following in general the theory of the East,
but combining the designs of the various types or supplying Occi
dental features, in such manner as to please the Western fancy or
accord with other Western decorations, are registered as the pro
perty of the firms. It has been the custom of the native weavers
to appropriate them, but the governments, after long insistence and
the invocation of consular influence, have decided that the regis
tration shall protect the design, and that to violate it shall be a
punishable misdemeanor.

79

VII
WEAVI NG
NOW for the weaving, the patient, painstaking labor at which
so many hundreds of thousands of swarthy fingers are flying,
and have been flying since the days of the Pharaohs.
Measured by results it is a wonder work ; watched, in its tireless
repetition of three simple processes that a child can master, it seems
no more of an art than the constant turning of an hour glass — which,
in fact, to myriads of these Eastern people, it is. The whole thing
is simple, to look at, to read about ; but there is, nevertheless, some
peculiar spirit, some mental drift, some inherent and mysterious fit
ness pervading and governing their work, which makes these Orientals
the best weavers in the world. Peoples of other races have reared
looms, and dyed yarn, and, borrowing the tricks of color and of stitch
from Turkey and Persia, have striven to work out upon the warp a
harmony as rich and full as theirs. But they have failed. The Eng
lish scholar has perhaps hit upon the truth when he says: "Anti
quity, from its being nearer than we are to the divine origin of things,
was ever mindful to symbolize in its sublime art the truth of the con
viction that the green circle of the earth and the shining frame of the
out-stretched heavens are but the marvellous intertexture of the veil
dividing between the world we see, and the unseen, unseeable world
80

Yarn Worki.rs at Ho.mi

WEAVING
beyond. This is the reason of the vitality, the dignity and power of
giving contentment, possessed by the arts of the world of antiquity,
with which the arts of the modern world of the West will never be
indued until they also become animated by the spirit of the pristine
faith of every historical race in the old world  For all the
technical instruction which may be given, and all the luxurious illus
trations of typical Eastern examples that may be published, no truly
great carpet will ever be produced in Europe until the weaver's heart
is attuned to sing to the accompaniment of his whirring loom, in grate
ful unison with every voice in Heaven and earth :
" Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth ;
" Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Glory in the highest."
Unlettered as are the great majority of the Oriental weaving
class of to-day, there is little doubt that the religious element here re
ferred to makes up a recognizable part of their existence. At no
moment, even of their working days, is the consciousness of their
faith absent from them. A race, every being of which, whether
learned or ignorant, has prayers five times a day, no matter where he
be, must, in the very nature of things, have an abiding faith in the
nearness of the Deity. While not daring to question the infinite
value of such inspiration, it is difficult, for one who accepts the
Mosaic doctrine of Divine retribution, to understand how any
Oriental weaver, under these circumstances, has survived the sub
stitution of the modern enormities for the conscientious work he was
wont to do. However that may be, it is not to be disputed that
there is some faculty which to this day enables the Orient to excel
the West in hand-wrought fabrics, even with uncouth appliances such
as that same West has long ago outgrown.
Any lad, with a knack for carpentry, can make such a loom as
that upon which the Eastern does his weaving. Plain, absurdly
primitive, it endures for a lifetime, or many lifetimes, and its timbers
si

ORIENTAL RUGS
are often adorned with carvings done by hands long since still. It
is in essential principles the same old-fashioned structure that is pic
tured on archaic tiles and vases ; the same that we know to have been
used for thousands of years in the weaving of coarse cloth and can
vas. The method, too, is the same in its rudiments, with the addi
tion that instead of throwing the weft across the warp compactly, to
make a thin, firm web, the knot upon the warp is employed to form
a surface, and the weft becomes merely a binder, holding each row of
knots close-pressed to its neighbor. This addition of the pile to the
primitive web is believed to have originated with some of the tribes
of Central Asia, where severity of weather made warmth a desidera
tum. Some looms are plain, stationary, oblong frames. The majority
of those in use in Asia Minor consist of two upright beams of wood,
heavy or light according to the weight of the fabric to be woven.
They are fixed parallel to each other, and the distance between them
limits the width of the rug. They support at the top a roller, the
ends of which turn in holes bored in the beams of the frame, or in
deep notches across their upper ends.
To this by a rod which fits in a groove upon it, are fastened the
warp-threads, forming the basis of the fabric. Ancient looms are rep
resented as having a weight attached to the end of every warp-thread
to hold it taut, in which case the weaving must have been begun at
top. It is said to be so done in obscure hamlets of India and of far
northern Europe to-day, but in Persia, Turkey, — in fact generally
throughout the rug-weaving countries, — the primitive system is re
versed and the rows of knots begin at the bottom, for which purpose,
and to insure firmness, another roller or crossbar is placed there.
Several methods are in vogue for arranging the warp upon its
frame. They are all upon one of two general principles : First, that
of having the weaver shift position, mounting higher abreast the loom
R2

WEAVING
as the fabric grows ; second, having the work pass downward before
the weaver, by aid of the rollers at the top and bottom. In the first
method the crossbars are, of course, immovable, save that to the
lower one a little play is given so that as occasion demands the warp
may be tightened by the aid of wedges.
For the second system, again, two methods are employed. The
first is to wind the warp-threads on the top roller, and unwind them
as needed, rolling the finished carpet up on the bottom roller as the
work progresses. The second is to have the carpet pass over the
bottom roller and up again at the back, the warp being a continuous
thing, like a belting.
These looms upon which the warp moves to meet the weaver are
used in a horizontal position in many parts of the East, notably in
Sehna and about Bijar, and the weaver sits at the end. In these the
carpet is regularly rolled along as it increases. The Bijar weavers
actually sit on the finished part of the carpet as they weave. The
nomads in Luristan, Kurdistan, and other grazing districts, when they
have turned out the sheep and goats upon the range and pitched
camp for the grazing season, erect stationary upright frames to endure
until winter drives them from the place. Rude things these nomad
looms are — mere trunks of trees, roughly trimmed, with the shanks of
the lopped-off branches left to support the rollers and the flimsy scaf
folding upon which the tawny women of the tribe sit at their weaving.
Sometimes a ladder is placed perpendicularly at each side of the loom,
and the plank upon which the weavers perch is moved upward from
rung to rung as the work goes on. The looms built indoors for use
in winter reach from floor to roof-timbers.
The warp in real antique rugs is, or was, in most varieties, woollen.
The exceptions to this rule were the fine fabrics, where silk or cotton
was used for flexibility, and those made by the nomads in districts
where goat's-hair was plentiful and was, therefore, taken for the
83

ORIENTAL RUGS
groundwork, while the wool was saved for the piling, or for sale.
In these latter days cotton has come to be used much in the webbing,
mainly because it is cheaper. In the old-time rugs the material of
warp and weft was one of the chief means of determining the
locality of fabrication. This was most useful, since, as is elsewhere
explained, many patterns were so widely adopted that only by the
character of the ground-threads, oftentimes, could the fabric be iden
tified as the product of any particular town or district. Nowadays
even the most thorough experts are deceived by the frequent substi
tution of cotton for warp or weft in localities where formerly only
wool was used.
In India, owing to lack of wool, hemp is much employed ;
linen also plays a noticeable part. In America, where " Turkish "
and " Persian " rugs alike are made, cotton, linen and hemp are put
into the foundations for thrift's sake. The evil of a hempen ground
work is that under stress of wear and wetting it rots, and from a
little break in the web the entire fabric is apt to go pieces speedily.
It is the custom among weavers of many localities to dye the
ends of the warp-threads for some distance, so that the carpet may
have for finishing at the ends a web of red, or blue, or both. This
dyeing is done after the warp is complete. When the colored ends
of the threads are dry the whole warp is fastened upon the loom and
drawn taut by the wedges; supplied for the purpose, above the ends
of the lower rollers. Where stationary and rollerless looms are used,
the jointure of the lower cross beam — known as the "piece-beam" —
with the side-beams is made in an elongated slot, so that this tight
ening can be accomplished without difficulty.
It becomes needful, when the weaving is fairly under way, to
separate the warp into two sets of threads, front and back. For this
purpose two rods are used ; one, about an inch and a half in diameter,
to which every other thread of the warp is attached, but not so tightly
84

WEAVING
as to prevent its being moved upward along the warp-threads, as the
carpet goes on toward completion. The second, flat, and about three
inches in width, rests between the front and back threads. The use
of these rods will be explained further on.
Preliminary to the weaving, the weavers, or children who are
learning the rudiments of the art, undo the big skeins in which the
yarn comes from the dyers, and wind it into balls. These are hung
in a multicolored row, upon a cross-rod fastened to the warp-beam
overhead, and the ends hang down within the weaver's reach. In
the factories in the weaving centres of Persia, spools are used. In re
mote districts, when yarn of a certain color is exhausted before the
piece is done, the nearest shade that can be got is used to complete
the figure. Sometimes, when no material at all like can be obtained,
the pattern jumps abruptly into some other color. In large towns,
where dyers are many, this never occurs, for the master weaver, fore
seeing the lack, hastens to the dye-shop and has the supply replen
ished. The patterns from which the fabrics are copied, among the coun
try weavers, are usually old rugs, one or two of which each family,
whether among the wandering shepherds or the home-staying folk of
the town, keeps for that praiseworthy purpose. As much store is
set by these as by the family plate in Western lands, and so familiar
do these swift-fingered women become with the design by reproduc
ing it year after year all through their humdrum lives, that a skilled
weaver goes deftly along with it, supplying unerringly, as if by un
conscious cerebration, the proper color in its proper place, even
though it be only a single stitch in a tangled mass of utterly differ
ent hues. Her fingers seem to know the pattern, and half the time
her eyes are not upon the work at all.
For beginners, the old rug is hung within arm's length, with the
back of it exposed so that every knot and its color may be easily
85

ORIENTAL RUGS
discerned. Thus a design, border and all, is gradually ingrained upon
the young weaver's memory, never to be forgotten.
In towns where weaving is conducted on a large scale, when new
patterns are to be used they are wrought out, sometimes upon great
cardboards, on which the stitches are indicated by squares, each
painted in its proper color ; sometimes upon cheap cloth, the design
of the whole rug being mapped there by sewing threads of the differ
ent colors upon the knot spaces. Then the whole is cut up, and dis
tributed to the weavers. This is always done in making the silk
rugs of Kirman and Tabriz. In most of the great rug-weaving

THE PERSIAN WEAVERS TOOLS

centres, the European and American firms keep skilled hands, known
as "scale-makers," whose business it is to weave small sections of any
new design, and these are given to the workmen and women for
patterns. In Ghiordes and Demirdji especially this custom is in
vogue. The weavers there are unable to work from a painted pattern.
They must have the actual fabric before them. Not so in Oushak.
There they have pieces of the pattern framed. In many localities the
number of knots of each color to be tied in by each weaver is called
or read off by the loom-master. The patterns for borders and corners
are made upon separate pieces, and as the work upon them is more diffi-
86

WEAVING
cult than that of the centre, the most accomplished weavers sit at the
ends of the plank before the loom.
Armed with a little knife and a pair of curved scissors, the weaver
sits down before the virgin warp and starts the fabric. There is some
preliminary weaving of warp and weft threads together to form a web
at the ends. Then the actual work of tying the pile yarn begins.
Except for the Soumak fabrics and the khilims, which will be spoken
of hereafter, Oriental carpets are confined to two systems of knotting.
The first is termed the Turkish or Ghiordes knot, and is in vogue
throughout Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Kurdistan, and in some
localities farther East.

GHIORDES KNOT.

SEHNA KNOT ;
RIGHT-HAND SYSTEM.

SEHNA KNOT ;
LEFT-HAND SYSTEM.

The second is the Persian or Sehna knot, which, though better
calculated to produce a close, fine, even, velvety surface, has in many
parts of Persia been abandoned for the Ghiordes, which is a trifle
more easily tied.
The difference may be understood by a glance at the illustra
tions. It is very simple. In the Turkish system the knot-yarn is
twisted about the warp-thread in such fashion that the two upstand
ing ends of the pile alternate with every two threads of the warp.
The Persian knot, on the contrary, is tied so that from every space
between the warp threads one end of pile yarn protrudes.
In the number of knots which can be tied to the square inch the
advantage lies with the Sehna method. The Ghiordes brings two
87

ORIENTAL RUGS
ends of the knot yarn together, and leaves consequently a wider
space between the knots than does the Sehna. But each tuft is
larger by half, and if the pile is not very closely clipped — as it is not
in most rugs where this knot is used — the spreading of these ends
gives an equally compact surface. In the Kirman, Tabriz, Sehna,
old Turkestan and Kabistan rugs, however, it is the custom to trim
the pile exceedingly close, which brings out more clearly the minute
color variations of the design. In Tabriz and parts of Kurdistan a
special system is used. The rugs are woven in the Turkish knot, but
the arrangement of the warp-threads is such as to secure extraordi
nary compactness in the pile.
The Ghiordes knot took its name from the old city of Ghiordes,
where years ago the Turkish method had its greatest perfection, but
nowadays, though the knot is the same and the weavers many, the
fabrics have changed sadly. The art is not lost in Ghiordes, for at
discouragingly long intervals there find way to market from that town
dainty prayer rugs or some bits of sedjadeh, so fine of texture, so true
in color, so traditionally perfect in design, that experts, knowing well
how far the Ghiordese have fallen from workmanly grace, swear by
the beard of the Prophet that they have been made in Sehna, after
the Ghiordes patterns of long ago. Of all the fabrics of to-day the
Kabistans of the Caucasus will be found, perhaps, most faithful in ad
herence to the old models, and in them are best shown the fine, vel
vety effects which may be come at with the Ghiordes knot, when tied
by masters who have not proven recreant to the tradition of their
craft. The Ghiordes knot is always one and the same thing. The
Sehna, being more of a running knot, is sometimes reversed and
worked from left to right. This is classed by some authorities as an
entirely different system. In all these knottings two strands of yarn
are frequently used, thus doubling the thickness of the pile.
The loosest knotting in distinctly modern Eastern carpets is
88

Plate IX. Old Kirmax Rug
6. to x 4.5
Loaned by Mr. Robert L. Stevens
There is striking resemblance between this and the old South Persian
Kirman published in the earlier editions. They are alike in size and theme
and even more alike in treatment. In both the big red roses are drawn in per
spective, so that even the curled petals are distinguishable. The border stripes
are the same in number, width and arrangement ; the design of both rugs from
first to last is simply the massing of exquisite natural flowers, a custom from
which the later Kirman weavers have ingloriously departed. The only points
of real difference, however, are that the ground of the centre in the former rug
is wool-white ; in the present one, so far as it can be discerned through the
flowers, it is blue-black, while the white ground is reserved for the border. In
the field of the other rug there were no flowers other than roses, while in this
we see the pert, upright stalk of the henna, with its five staring blossoms, set
alternately in white and blue ; lastly and most significant, in the former fabric,
the roses were contained in vases, of the antique urn type, with graceful han
dles ; here, instead, is the cloud-band with its never failing suggestion of the
over-mastering Mongol. This weaver was Kasem ; the other was Karim.
Karim was the poet ; Kasem, the painter.

WEAVING
found in Kulah, Oushak, Ghiordes, and the latter-day Feraghan.
The most closely tied are those made in Saruk, Sehna and Kirman,
and in some of the better Turkomans, and for the rest, Kabistans,
Tabriz, and Serapis.' The number of knots to the inch is deter
mined, of course, by the closeness of the warp-threads and the number
of weft-threads thrown across after each row of knots. In Sehnas
and Kirmans, where the warp is of silk, the weft-threads sometimes
lie so close together that the weaver is compelled to put the stitches in
with the needle.
It is the custom of expert weavers not to work straight across
from one end of the row to the other, changing the yarn as often as
the pattern calls for a change of color, as tyros do, but to put in all the
stitches of one color on the row, wherever they are required, before
taking up another yarn. This saves, in the making of a rug, a total
of time well worth consideration. Where the pattern is a familiar
one the weaver can determine at a glance on what warp-threads the
knots of each color belong, and even in strange patterns a clever
hand does it almost without error.
When a knot is completed the weaver cuts the yarn with a knife,
and it is one of the tests of skill to cut so nearly to the intended
length of the pile that a minimum of material shall be lost in the
trimming with scissors, which is performed as soon as the row is com
plete. An inventive agent of a Smyrna carpet establishment once
tried to compel the weavers engaged on the firm's work at Oushak,
Kulah, and Ghiordes to use a small steel rod, which was fastened
across the face of the warp, and around which the yarns must be car-

1 "Various tests for ascertaining the quality of a carpet have been described. One is to drop
on it a piece of red-hot charcoal; then, if the carpet is a good one, the singed part can be brushed off
without leaving any trace of_the burn. Chardin says : ' The Persian rule to know good carpets and
to rate them by, is to lay the thumb on the edge of the carpet, and to tell the threads in a thumb's
breadth ; for the more there are the dearer the work is.' " — E. Treacher Collins: " In the Kingdom of
the Shah" 89

ORIENTAL RUGS
ried continuously in making the knots. On the outer side of this
rod was a groove running from end to end. When the row of knots
was finished a knife was run along the groove, cutting the yarn as it
went. So closely did half the circumference of the rod approximate
the ultimate length of the pile that the loss of yarn by subsequent
trimming was reduced to about two per cent. It is ordinarily twenty-
five per cent, when the cutting is done by guess, for by no amount of
effort or experiment has a profitable means been devised for utilizing
the refuse. The weavers rejected the rod angrily, for its use occupied
time, and that was their loss, whereas the waste of wool from the old
manner of cutting came out of the pockets of the firm.
Trimming the pile is one of the most important and difficult
parts of the weaver's work ; so difficult, in fact, that Americans,
working upon imitation " Turkish " or " Persian " carpets in the facto
ries of New York are unable to do it at all satisfactorily, and a machine
has been constructed, on the lawn-mower or planing-mill principle, to
take the place of the Oriental weaver's scissors. Uneven trimming
of the pile is a fault found, strange to say, in some Eastern rugs
which otherwise are of distinguished merit.'
When a row of tufts has been trimmed to even lengths, the
threads of weft are thrown across, from one side to the other of the
warp and back again. It is in this process that the rods before
mentioned, the flat one between front and back threads, and the round
one to which the back threads of the warp are fastened, come into
service. By drawing the round rod out a little, the warp-threads are
separated, back from front, so that the weft may be passed

1 Experiment was made in Anatolia with what were known as raised patterns, produced by clip
ping the pile of the grounds close, and leaving that of the patterns longer, grading the length so as to
form a comparatively accurate relief of whatever object the pattern was supposed to represent. A
number of these singular and unpleasantly overdone fabrics came to this country, but they were so
plainly at variance with the Eastern theory that they were justly neglected, and further making of them
was abandoned. yo

WEAVING
across readily, over and under. Then, reversing the direction, and
separating the threads by turning the flat rod down to the horizontal,
the weft is carried back again, passing each warp-thread on the oppo
site side from that embraced by the preceding shute. Thus the row
of knots is bound firmly, and the tufts kept upright, securing an even
pile. In coarse fabrics of the barchanah order the Kazak custom of
tnrowing four threads of weft across after each row. of knots is much
followed. Time and the effort of tying knots are saved. On the
other hand, it is the habit among the Sehna and Tabriz weavers
to carry the weft one way and then put in another row of knots before
carrying it back. This makes the pile wonderfully compact.'
The next step is to beat down both knots and weft with a comb
or "batten." In the Turkish countries this implement is of wood,
but the Persians prefer it to be of steel. Unskilful use of this comb,
beating one part of the row harder than another, will often produce
unevenness in the completed rug, for which, in extreme cases, there
is no cure except to cut it and sew it together again. Clumsy weaving
causes the same imperfection. Some of the Mosul Kurdish rugs
illustrate this.
When all this knotting, clipping, and inweaving of the weft-
threads has been repeated to the end of the design, there remains
only the finishing of sides and ends to be accomplished. This varies
widely in the different localities, but in any one district very seldom,
though there are some sections where two or even more styles are in
equal vogue. In nearly all rugs there is left at the end a thin, hard

• The method of preparing these weft-threads is of almost incalculable importance. In many
tightly woven fabrics made in newly established weaving communities the sides begin to curl after the
rug has been in use for a time. The cause of this is that the weft-thread, which is carried on a shuttle
and thus passed back and forth is too tightly twisted in the effort to give it firmness. A simple experi
ment, the doubling of a twisted cord, will show what happens. To guard against this curling it is
the custom of skilled weavers to use two separate threads for the warp and have them twisted in oppo
site directions, that the tendency of the one may counteract that of the other.
9«

ORIENTAL RUGS
web, sometimes scarcely long enough to be visible, woven of warp
and weft, usually dyed in some solid color or with a stripe. Some
times there is a thick but narrow selvage outside the web, across one
or both ends. The loose ends of the warp-threads are then made
into a fringe, short in most rugs but in many of the nomad fabrics
left long for the effect, which is most striking. The forms which this
warp fringe takes are many — knots, twists, and even in some cases
braids, such as form the lariat of the Mexican herdsman. The warp-
threads, again, may simply be cut loose, and left to make a rough
finish. In others only one end carries a fringe, the other being
stoutly finished by a singular doubling back of the warp, and in
weaving of it with the weft-threads. A few of the antique prayer
rugs of Ghiordes have sewed on at the ends a silk fringe of the sort
used in the finishing of so many European and American curtains.
The sides of the Eastern carpets are for the most part either
selvaged or overcast, sometimes with wool, sometimes with cotton,
and occasionally with camel's-hair or goat's-hair yarn, either dyed or
in the natural color. The selvage is formed by simply working the
weft, which is often dyed, around the last few threads of the warp, at
both sides of the rug. Sometimes, as in the Daghestans and old
Ghiordes, extra threads, colored, are used to form a fine selvage at
the sides. In the Ghiordes these are of silk. The principal finish
ings are here enumerated in the briefest manner. An account of each,
where it chances to have any striking characteristic, will be found in
the chapters descriptive of the different fabrics, and the textile tables
will show the typical finishings of all the standard rugs of commerce.
The most impressive touch a weaver ever gives a rug is to sew
fast upon it, at some central point, when it is partly finished, a single
blue bead, a clove of garlic or a tiny scrap of print-cloth. All these
are held to be talismans, and to find any one of them on a rug you
have purchased is to know that the weaver, in whatever place he
92

W E A V I N G
wrought, gave personal and particular benediction to his fabric, and
wished it good treatment during its little journey in the world. Of
tentimes, when the bales of rugs are opened in Smyrna and Constan
tinople, pieces are found with scraps of paper fastened upon them, on
which the weaver, or some one on his behalf, has written in the East
ern characters a petition "to all to whom these presents may come,"
that they use the rug kindly and pray now and then for the maker of it.
These eccentricities and superstitions which attend upon rug-
making are without number. If, while the rug is in process of con
struction, a neighbor coming in exclaims at its beauty or promise, he
is implored, in the name of the Prophet, to spit upon the fabric for
luck. No instance is known, in the lifetime of the oldest weaver,
where this observance was withheld. Should the guest go away
without paying any tribute of praise he is counted to have bewitched
the carpet, and incense is burned in the room forthwith to avert the
blight of misfortune which needs must follow.
A marvel to Americans and Europeans at the great interna
tional exhibitions has always been the double-faced carpet, woven
with a pile on both sides and in altogether dissimilar designs.' Many
people have been at a loss to understand how this singular effect
could be produced, and are loath to believe that the piece did not in
reality consist of two carpets, fastened together back to back after
their completion. The warp is tied on a frame, which works on pins
at top and bottom, turning to the weaver first one side and then the
other. Having finished a row of knots on one side in its design, he
turns the frame over and works a row on the other, with different col
ors and different figures ; then passes his thread of weft across to
bind them both. It is a simple process, after all, but the effect is
startling.

1 How old this trick of weaving is it is impossible to say. Pliny speaks of having seen these
a/ififiaXAa when he was a lad.

93

ORIENTAL RUGS
In all Oriental countries rugs were, until lately, made for specific
personal purposes, and never put to any other use than that for which
they were first destined. Although among dealers and purchasers
alike in this country these classifications are little known, each class
has its distinguishing name, and from passing through Constantino
ple and Smyrna as distributing points they have retained the Turkish
use-titles, rather than those of the Persian, Tartar, or local dialect.
These are :
Namazlik, or prayer rug. — This is the one piece of property
which every faithful Mohammedan must own, and he clings to it de
votedly as long as he lives. Throughout all the Moslem countries
the namazlik preserves its significant feature, the point or niche at
one end, representing the niche of the mosque. The colors and
decorative character of the prayer rug vary in different localities. In
some districts it is severely rectilinear ; in others, the lines verging
to the point may be curved. But the one-end configuration can never
be mistaken for anything else. The namazlik is the Oriental's con
stant companion. When the call to prayer comes, he spreads his rug
upon the ground, with the apex of the niche toward Mecca, and
prostrates himself in reverence, his head resting in the angle. Thus
bowed, he prays.
Prayer rugs do not vary greatly in size. The width is from two
and a half to four feet, and the length from four and a half to six. The
prayer rug made for personal use has, as a rule, the name of its owner
worked in the wool, and is of the very best weaving.
Hammamlik, or bath rug. — This is usually presented to the bride
on her wedding day. Her parents are the donors, but there is a
certain humor in the fact that the rug, in nine cases out of ten, is
woven by the girl herself. It reveals accurately her skill as a weaver,
and the limit of her artistic taste, for it represents the thought and
labor of years. The hammamliks are used to spread upon the floor
94

WEAVING
in the baths and their constant contact with soap and water gives
them a peculiar lustre. Their shape is unique. As a rule they are
almost square.
Sedjadeh, or floor covering. — This name is given to carpets of
medium size, say more than seven and less than ten feet in length.
The specific name for the larger floor fabrics is hali, in Persian, &z//.
Yestiklik. — These are known in America as Anatolian mats, and
may be found in profusion in any good stock of Oriental rugs. They
serve a multitude of purposes in our furnishing, but in the East, the best
ones are made to cover the divan pillows. They are ornate, and gay
in hue, since the pillow, with the Oriental as with us, is ornamental as
well as useful. The Anatolian mats are more fully described in the
chapter on Turkish fabrics.
Makatlik, or "runners." — These are what we know as "hall "or
"stair" rugs. In the East they do duty as covers for the low felt
divans along the sides of the room. They range from two and a half
to four feet in width and from ten to twenty feet in length.
Hehbehlik, saddle-bag or saddle-cover. — Wherever there is a rug-
making district there are saddle-bags peculiar to it. All the East
rides, and the hehbehlik lends all sorts of splendor to caparison. It
reflects, as indeed all rugs do, the general character of the people.
Among the nomads it is rough in texture and astounding in color.
The more polished races observe better artistic tenets in design, but
the hehbehlik is always made substantially and with more freedom in
the matter of brilliancy than any of the floor coverings except the
odjaklik. In America these saddle cloths are used for pillow covers.
Odjaklik, hearth or fire rug. — This is the most precious of all
Eastern family treasures. It is always spread before the fireplace on
the arrival of a guest. It is wonderful in color and most elaborate
in workmanship, and may be recognized by the pointed formation of
the central field at both ends. 95

ORIENTAL RUGS
Turbehlik, or grave carpets. — The custom of spreading rugs, as
the Occidental strews flowers, on the graves of relatives or friends,
seems to have prevailed more generally in Persia and regions imme
diately adjoining it than in other parts of the Orient, though it is
practised to some degree among almost every Eastern people. The
turbehlik — from Uirbeh, a grave — is the combined handiwork of all the
members of the household. Even the children tie knots in it, that it
may be expressive of the sorrow of all. It was through the priests
that the grave-carpets first came to be dispensed to the West. Now
they are made for export, like other fabrics. The designs — cypress,
willow, and myrtle — are eloquent of the turbehlik 's character. The
whole appearance of it is funereal, but there are flowers and other
bright bits of color, which speak of a blissful hereafter for the dead
whose bones it was meant to cover. This floral element, indicative
of hope, is so essential that even the geometrical Daghestans relax
their rule and use tree and flower forms. In Persia there is no limit
to the decoration employed in these rugs. Trees themselves embody
the idea of perpetual life.
Berdelik, or hangings. — These are the fabrics made, not for floor
covering, but wholly for the adornment of wall space, or for por
tieres and curtains. The shape, and sometimes the finishing, will
suggest a particular intent, but all rugs which are of extreme fineness
and lightness, especially those in delicate colors, may be counted as
belonging to this class. The Oriental seems to have been endowed
with an intuitive notion of the law of gravity in decoration. He never
makes the error of placing on the floor a fabric intended for the walls.
The top-heavy, upside-down effect, so apparent in many American
rooms, is thus avoided.
In general, it may be said that the silk fabrics are to be classed
as berdeliks. There are persons of lavish leanings, to be sure, who
employ them on floors, but it is not a custom, least of all in the East,
96

Plate X. Saruk Rug
(>.() x 4.6
Loaned by Mr. F. 11. Proctor
This is one of the best of such Saruk products as reach this country. In
design it differs widely from the generality of the output. The row effect,
which is common in middle Persia, is here, but the usual Feraghan devices are
not used. The workmanship is very thorough, and in fineness and accuracy,
particularly of the border, compares favorably with the weaving of the olden
times, but the effect is lost, in a measure, by reason of the dark colors which are
Saruk characteristics. Lost, for the same reason, is the fine shading of the
colors in the border flowers. These resemble the Kirman work, while the
floral elements of the centre are laid in solid colors, such as are in vogue farther
to the north. The feature of the carpet, outside its general excellence as a
fabric, is the delicate vine tracery of the centre, which is in a vernal shade of
green and forms a perfect coordinate diaper design. The vines, however, do
not follow the natural curve, found in the old South Persian carpets, but are
more in the broken fashion of Herez.
A mark of modernity is the excision of several inches of border design at
the top of the rug, probably because the warp proved shorter than that of the
older fabric from which this was copied. The cut is even made through the
very middle of a flower, to allow for the insertion of the corner device so that
the ends may seem to be alike.

WEAVING
where there are only stockinged feet to press them. They are, further
more, only fine editions of the woolen fabrics of the same localities.
The silk is capable of far more minute color effects, and more perfect
shadings, and has a natural lustre which no known treatment can
impart to wool.1
But they are not essentially floor coverings. Silk rugs, therefore,
are not considered in this volume.

1 "Silk produced at Resht is brought here [Kashan] to be spun and dyed. Then it is sent to
Sultanahad to be woven into carpets, and is brought back again to have the pile cut by the sharp
instruments used for cutting the velvet pile, and the finished carpets are sent to Teheran for sale.
They are made only in small sizes, and are more suitable for portieres than for laying on the floor
The coloring is exquisite, and the metallic sheen and lustre arc unique. Silk carpets are costly luxur
ies. The price of even a fairly good one of small size is .£50, the silk alone costing ,£20." — Mrs.
Bishop: " ycurneys in Persia and Kurdistan." 97

VIII
CLASSIFICATION
IN the chapters which follow an attempt is made so to set forth
in description the principal types of Oriental rugs that a clear
and comprehensive idea may be formed, in the mind of the
reader, of the general quality, appearance, color, design, texture and
usefulness of each.
Attention is called to substitutions which are continually prac
tised by vendors— substitutions made possible only by the general
lack of knowledge, among purchasers, of the points in which one rug
differs from another. Many names, sufficiently legitimate in their
way, but which are not included in the recognized nomenclature of
the trade, are attached by dealers, of their own fancy, to particular
grades of rugs. I have taken, as stated in the opening chapter, the
names in use among rug men in Smyrna and Constantinople. No
American buyer who has ever run the gauntlet of the Levantine
traders in these great markets has come away accusing them of stu
pidity, and their fertility in new and fetching Oriental titles for what
are in all essentials established varieties of rugs, and thoroughly
localized, has long ago been proven. It is believed, however, that the
classifications here made include all the standard fabrics.
I have found upon inquiry in the rug centres of Asia that in some
98

CLASSIFICATION
cases names given in Constantinople as indicating the town or pro
vince where the fabrics bearing them were made are erroneous, and
have come into use merely through the fact that the rugs were taken
to these towns for market. Persian dealers, receiving orders from
Constantinople, are often at a loss to know what is wanted, as the
names given do not comport with those in use where the rugs are
made and marketed. To substitute here in the headings the names
by which the fabrics are known at home would cause endless con
fusion. Therefore the trade titles are used, correction, where it is of
importance, being made in the body of the text.
The running descriptions bear more especially on design and col
oring, and the extreme difficulty of making these in anywise clear, in
so small an allowance of space, must be apparent, since the conditions
leading to infinite variation in both have already been touched upon.
The whole aim has been to arrive, by inductive process and exclusion,
at the true type in each class, group and variety.
Details of the texture — the knot employed, the material of
warp, weft and pile, the length of the pile, the number of knots to
the inch, measuring horizontally for the warp and perpendicularly
for the weft, and whatever special peculiarities may belong to each
variety — are set down in their respective columns in the tables which
will be found at the end of the book. Where the texture of a cer
tain weave is at variance with the tables I make bold to believe that
it is because the fabric is not true to its type, but is either degen
erate or capricious. In many points the tables are amplified by the
descriptive matter. It is necessary, in order to give a clear idea of
the classification, to present here a skeleton table comprising all the
classes.

99

ORIENTAL RUGS

CAUCASIAN

Daghestan-
I. Daghestan Proper.
2. Derbend. „
„ , Transcaucasian-
3. " Kabistan or Kuba.
1. Karabagh.
2. Soumak or " Kashmir
3. Shirvan.
4. " Tzitzi " or Tchetchen.
4. Kazak.
5. Tcherkess or Circassian.
1, Mosul Proper.
MOSUL-
2. Turkman or Genghis.
3. Western Kurds.
TURKISH
1. Konieh Proper.
1. Ghiordes.
2. Kir-Shehr.
2. Kulah.
KONIEH-
3. Kaba-Karaman.
3. Demirdjik.
4. Yuruks. Smyrna-
4. Oushak.
5. Anatolians.
5. Bergamo and Ladik.
s.
6. Ak-Hissar.
7
Meles or Carian.
AZERBIJAN-
PERSIAN
1. Tabriz. (a) Bakhshis.
(6) Herez Proper.
(c) Gorevan.
(d) "Serapi" or Sirab.
3. Kara-Dagh.
2. Herez-
Eastern
kurdistan-
Sehna.
Kurdistan Proper.
Kermanshah.
"Sarakhs" or Bijar
Koultuk.Souj-Bulak.
Feraghans—
Feraghan Proper.
Sultanabad."Saraband" or Sarawan.
(a) Kara-Geuz.
(f) Oustri-nan.
(f) Burujird.
(d) Bibikabad.
5. Teheran-Ispahan-Saruk.
6. "Jooshaghan"orDjushaghan.
4. Hamadan-
KlRMANIEH-
1. Kirman Proper.
2. Shiraz.
3. Niris.
KlRMANIEH-
4. Mecca.
5. Khorassan.
6. Meshhed.
7. Herat.
TURKOMAN
1. "Bokhara" or Tekke. 4. Beluchistan.
2. Yomud. 5. Samarkand.
3. "Afghan"' or Bokhara. 6. Yarkand and Kashgar.
CLASSIFICATION
There are manufacturing towns, such as Ghiordes and Oushak,
in which several grades of rugs are made, and each grade receives its
special name as a guide to a knowledge of its quality. These classifi
cations have not been set down in the summary table, but in the
textile tables details of the texture of the most important of these
fabrics are given, and in the account of the products of each town or
district other differences between the grades are indicated.
In several places, as a result of Western enterprise, and for that
matter, of native ambition, large rug-making interests have been
established recently, where some old and well-known varieties of
fabrics are used as patterns. To these products no place has been
given in the tables, but they have been mentioned in connection with
the originals from which they have been copied. Many of them
are of signal merit, and it is not on account of inferiority that they
are excluded from the tables, but solely because they are only indus
trious reproductions, and analysis of them would be superfluous.
No tabular classification of the Indian rugs is given, nor is any
attempt made to set forth the details of their construction in the
textile tables, for the reason that, as now woven, they are not the
original products, but are made in grades arranged merely upon
a trade basis. The details, therefore, are much alike in all. The
chapter on Indian carpets contains sufficient indication of the nature
and comparative merits of the staple output.

IOI

IX
CAUCASIAN
THE region lying on both sides of the Caucasus Mountains
and bounded on the west by the Black Sea and the Turkish
frontier, on the south by Persia and on the east by the
Caspian, has been an undisputed Russian possession for almost a cen
tury. Prior to that parts of it had changed hands from time to time
between the Turks and Persians, and in the early stages of rug im
portation to America its fabrics were known as Turkish textiles.
They were more widely used than those of Persia or the Anatolian
Peninsula, and are still often referred to, in a general way, as Turkish
rugs. This is due partly to the tenacity of custom and partly to the
unwillingness of the dealers to sacrifice any whit of the fascination
which clings to a purely Oriental name. "Caucasian rugs" unques
tionably sounds cold, bleak and Russian. There is in it no sugges
tion of the warm, languorous Eastern life of which the word Turkish
is so eloquent, though these Caucasian fabrics have in them perhaps
more of pure Oriental decoration than many which rejoice in more
luxurious titles.
But there is about the fabrics from this section so much that is
distinctive, and their kinship is so plainly traceable, that they merit a
more modern and more accurate classification. They are essentially,

CAUCASIAN
as well as geographically, Caucasian rugs, and have a character of
their own, wholly different from that of most of the fabrics now made
in Turkey proper.
The Caucasian marks have, too, been so communicated to the
rugs of the district lying to the west, in old Armenia and Mesopota
mia, that I have felt compelled to class the so-called Mosul products
as of the Caucasian order, despite the fact that the Mosul territory
is on the Turkish side of the boundary, and, further, that in design
many of the Mosul rugs present Persian elements in a coarse form.
The general groups comprised in the Caucasian class are, there
fore, the Daghestan, Transcaucasian and Mosul fabrics.
DAGHESTAN FABRICS
For thorough workmanship, harmony of color, and adherence
to traditional design, some of the floor coverings grouped under the
general head of Daghestan are unexcelled. The district from which
they are named is a three-cornered bit of country east of the Cauca
sus, wedged into the angle which the mountains make with the Cas
pian Sea. The many tribes which once maintained their autonomies,
small and great, within the confines of the region had different lan
guages, or in any case different dialects, and some of them, it is re
corded, had no written forms. The vigorous Russification to which
they have been subjected since the conquest — conquest against which
they warred long and sturdily — has given them a common language
and a spur to industry. It has shown them the road to market, but,
save in that increased production has been attended by something of
the universal decline in quality, it has not changed in any important
particular the character of the weavings.
The Daghestan rugs have, in fact, shown closer adherence to old
standards than those of almost any Eastern provinces. In their work
103

ORIENTAL RUGS
these Daghestan weavers are patient and painstaking. Among the
mountaineers, sometimes, the leisure of two or three years is spent in
the making of a single rug. The region is one of the few which have
not changed the whole character of their industry, under the induce
ments which recent years have offered. As in Persia, towns and dis
tricts which are only a little way apart follow altogether different
models in their rug-making, and show no inclination to depart from
their respective customs, although communication is much easier now
than it was before the Russian occupation.
Daghestan Proper. — The proper Daghestan rugs can be singled
out from all the fabrics of the East, almost unerringly, if one fact be
borne in mind — that they are made in imitation of jewels, or, some main
tain, of mosaics. They show it at a glance. They have all the bril
liancy, accuracy, and clean cutting that either idea suggests. Their
whole effect is one of geometrical cleanness and clear atmosphere.
They are illustrative, to the last degree, of the pure ornamental forms
of the Mohammedan East. The geometrical finds its best expres
sion in them. Only occasionally, to adorn the border stripes or to
break up some annoying expanse of ground color, is the floral form
resorted to, and then it is severely conventional. The colors, too, are
positive ; the transitions and contrasts are pronounced. There is no
shading off from one hue to another. All this would result in harsh
ness were it not for the masterly adjustment of color values and areas.
The completeness and perfect balance of the Daghestan are its charm.
While the designs vary much in detail, the class character is
plain in them all. Beyond the geometrical nature of their figures, it
may be said that their common feature is the universal use they make
of the angular hook, which may be called a " latch-hook," and which
seems to be an outgrowth of the Chinese fret. In different forms it
appears in all the Daghestan fabrics, and in some of the Asia Minor
and Turkoman rugs as well, but in the Daghestan proper its develop-
104

Plate XI. Ispahan Carpet. Sixteenth Century
16.2 x 7.1
From the Marquand Collection
A beautiful survival of the great epoch in Persian history — the period of
the Sufi reigns, when art and poetry were paramount in the popular life. The
carpet has much of the fine quality of the Ardebil { Plate XXIII.
The lotus forms and cloud band, which were introduced into Persian
design from the East, are here, and they are in the Ardebil carpet, but not in
the Titanic size or bold color which they bore fifty years afterwards, and which
they still retain in the big carpets of modern Persia. There is also discernible
in the border, in minute form, the lancet leaf, and, as dominant factors, the
bold rosette and palmette, in alternation, all of which were combined to make
the regulation Herati design of later times.
" That the weavers of the capital — for it seems past question that the car
pets of this class were made on the palace looms of Ispahan — still worked with
a masterly comprehension of ultimate general effect, is further proven by the
emphases in the field of this rug. These are effected in the simplest manner.
by projecting a very few of the leaf and flower forms in the centre and at the
ends of the field in stronger and darker color. In the centre a perfect medal
lion effect is thus secured without the use of any cumbrous outline figure, and
at the ends, by the aid of the palmette shape and the leaf, the accent is carried
into the corners and a clever harmony established between the field and the
deep green and more pronounced pattern of the border."

¦ ' Z* A'i vx **V r

51

CAUCASIAN
ment is probably more complete than in any other rugs, with the
possible exception of some Yomuds and the Shirvans and Soumaks,
which so far as design is concerned are of the same general family.
In the Daghestans this hook is used for every purpose. It is attached
to almost every figure by way of finish ; it serrates the borders of
large geometrical shapes, and softens the contrast between two ad
joining fields of color without making its hard self apparent. It is a
well chosen agent to produce the delicate, harmonious effect which main
tains in the Daghestans despite their subservience to the straight line.
A characteristic design in Daghestans presents, upon a field of
rather light blue, a central oblong, set transversely, and flanked, at either
end of the rug, by elongated octagons of old ivory, bound about with
bands of red, which extend from the oblong. These three main fig
ures are divided and sub-divided according to the Daghestan method,
into multicolored geometrical shapes, the edges of all of which are
trimmed with the inevitable latch-hook. Finally, the innermost fig
ure is a diamond, filled with a lattice-work of tiny crosses, of alternate
red and blue upon a field of wool white. The corners of the central
field, left by the two great octagons, are taken up by triangles and stripe
effects, with the hook again softening all.
Many colors serve to diversify the inner figures of the design,
but they are all carefully subordinated to the tonic color. The bor
der is made up of three main stripes, separated and bounded by a
liberal number of narrower stripes in solid colors, many of them with
out pattern. The effect of this is to emphasize the geometrical
suggestion, and yet remove the heavy, hard effect of three large
stripes, one beside the other, unbroken save by the rectilinear patterns
which they carry. The ground of the middle or main stripe, in the
example now in mind — which, it is almost needless to say, is not the
one used in the illustration — is of ivory, and that of the supporting
stripes the deepest and richest of old green, of a value to balance the
105

ORIENTAL RUGS
red of the central oblong. Upon the green is a running Greek pat
tern, and the main border carries in repetition, in alternate red and
green, a variation of the swastika. Here it is laid in angle-wise, and
is further ornamented by the addition of the latch-hook. A narrow
band of light red frames the whole. Oftentimes the central ground
has, in lieu of large geometrical figures, a lattice-work of diamond
shapes made up of latch-hooks. Within every lozenge is a small
geometrical figure, divided into harmonious colors, and with its edges
further adorned with the hooks in very diminutive size. This latticed
central ground is especially common in the prayer rugs. In prayer
rugs of other districts — Ghiordes, for example — the field is more apt
to be of plain color, unbroken save by the religious emblems at the
top, bottom, and sides.
The Daghestans were probably the first of the Oriental fabrics
to become popular in America. A large proportion of the rugs in
use in American houses to-day, which were purchased more than
twenty-five years ago, are of this variety. At that time they sold for
a song, and fifteen dollars would buy a Daghestan prayer rug which
cannot now be had for five times that sum. Their value is vastly
enhanced by the stubbornness of the native in this part of the Cau
casus. He refuses to lend himself to the making of the enormous
carpets for which there is now such demand, and sticks to the small
rug sizes which his forbears made for their own use. Nor will he, as a
rule, consent that the character of his work shall be debauched. The
result is that he cannot keep pace with the demand — a demand created
solely by the ancient purity and honesty of his fabrics. Hence,
the number of genuine specimens of this variety now imported is by
no means in proportion to that of other rugs, and the price for the
real article is commensurately high. In a lot of three or four hundred
Caucasian rugs of small sizes it is not usual to find more than half a
dozen thoroughly good Daghestans. Other Caucasian fabrics, resem-
106

CAUCASIAN
bling them in color and design, but in no wise their equals in any
respect, are sold masquerading under the Daghestan name.
Genuine Daghestans are made, warp, weft and pile, of the best
wool, and are tied with the Ghiordes knot. They have usually from
sixteen to twenty-four threads of warp to the inch — from sixty-four to
one hundred and forty-four knots to the square inch — which makes it
possible to work out quite minute patterns. The warp is most often
of gray wool; the ends are finished in a narrow woven selvage, outside
of which the warp is thrown into a knotted fringe. The sides have
a fine selvage, usually colored and made of extra threads.
Derbend. — The general features of the Daghestan are repeated,
in much coarser form, in the handiwork of the Tartar and Turkoman
inhabitants of the walled city of Derbend and the outlying country
up and down the Caspian. This prosperous town on the sea coast is
the capital of the province. It was also capital of old Albania, and
in 1722 was taken by Peter the Great. The regulation rug of the
Derbend variety is merely a copy of the Daghestan, but upon a heav
ier scale. It is of greater size, the pile is longer, the figures not so
finely wrought, the colors fewer, cruder and bolder. It partakes of
the character of the Kazak. Blue, white, red and yellow predomi
nate, but the fine harmony of the Daghestan is missing. The surface
has a noticeable lustre like that found in many rugs of Mosul.
The Turkoman influence has substituted in some of the Der
bend rugs a goat's-hair warp for the fine wool of the Daghestans ; the
fringe is, therefore, darker in hue and wilder in appearance than that
of the more finished product. Usually there are four rows of knots
in the solid selvage at the ends, from which the fringe grows out, but
not infrequently the warp and the dyed weft are woven together in a
broad web after the fashion which the Turkomans learned in their
wild home on the plateaus of Central Asia.
The Derbends are essentially floor rugs, and are made thicker
107

ORIENTAL RUGS
and in larger sizes for the purpose. From an artistic standpoint they
are mediocre ; they are poor Daghestan and not particularly good
nomad. They usually have for main design a large star or some
other geometrical figure repeated three or four times transversely on
a field of blue or red. The figures alternate in color, red and saffron
yellow predominating if the field be blue, blue and yellow if it be red.
Each is divided into other geometrical figures, in all of which the
latch-hook plays an important part. The separate Kazak figures are
sometimes seen. The border stripes, as in all the Caucasians, are
clearly defined and their patterns pronounced.
Kabistan. — An error in a single letter — whose error or when com
mitted it is impossible to tell — has obscured for years the origin of
these admirable rugs. Kubistan would have told the story to any
one who cared enough about it to study the Caucasus. The name
Kabistan has become a fixture in the rug trade, and is here permitted
to remain only on the ground before defined, because a substitute
of the right name for the wrong would be confusing to many. In the
towns of the Caucasus, the title Kabistan is unknown, save to dealers,
who through executing orders for purchasers are constantly in com
munication with Constantinople merchants. A gentleman at whose
house I visited in Batoum showed me his collection of rugs, many of
them gathered twelve or fifteen years ago, when the rug-making had
not become a commercial affair. Among them was a fine specimen
of what we know as Kabistan. When I praised it by that name he
said, " No. That's one of your American inventions. Those rugs
come from Kuba, down in the southeastern part of Daghestan. They
are considered about the best fabrics made in the Caucasus."
I was told later in the bazaars of Tiflis, also, that the rugs were
made in the Kuba district, of which the town of Kuba is the capital.
It lies on the slopes of the Baba Dagh, and almost directly over the
Caucasus range northward from Shirvan. 108

CAUCASIAN
In point of workmanship the Kabistans equal the Daghestan
proper. In texture, indeed, they are finer ; in design, more diversified.
In some very fine pieces the elaboration and coloring are really Persian.
For hard wear under foot they are not as desirable as the Derbend.
They have a wholesome plentitude of color, in the same general tone
as the Daghestan, but lack in some measure the glow and brilliancy.
This results from the sparing use of white to produce areas of high
light, and of reds. They follow more commonly the Persian tendency
to the use of dark blues in the ground, which imparts to them a sober
richness. The patterns in many of these are identical with those of
the Daghestans, though they have on the other hand many designs
borrowed from other sources. The elongated star as a dominant
figure is frequent. It is customary to find this repeated thrice, trans
versely of the field, in the sedjadeh, and a diamond shape of smaller
size at each end ; sometimes there are even smaller diamonds linking
the main figures together. Again, and it is a standard substitute for
this pattern, three large diamond figures are found, with the field
space which they do not cover filled in with the ubiquitous pear pat
tern, diversely figured and adorned. The Kuba weavers seem to have
caught a penchant for the use of this device from the Persians, once
their masters and within easy reach of whom they dwell.1 They use
it in many ways ; a not uncommon arrangement is to fill the entire field
with it, repeated in transverse rows. Above and underneath each row
runs a regular, serrate line, or rather pattern, across the body of the
rug, the upward angles pointing between the pears, and the pears of
the next lower row taking their places beneath the same angles. This,
it will be seen, throws the pears into diagonal rows. The effect is
suggestive of the pear designs in many of the fabrics of Persia, where
it belongs, especially in the Saraband and Shiraz, and the alternate
arrangement of the same pattern in the rugs of Khorassan.
1 Even to this day a colony of fire-worshippers exists in Baku.
109

ORIENTAL RUGS
The stripe, for a central device as well as a border element, is
popular among the makers of the Kabistans. In some cases it is
clearly defined, and not merely an effect produced by the arrange
ment of the patterns. Sometimes the whole field of a rug is divided
into perpendicular stripes of different colors. In such cases extraor
dinary taste and skill are displayed in maintaining harmonious tone
in the entire fabric. Where, for example, the prevailing tint is a
pale fawn, intensified in places to a decided brown, only two or three
of all the stripes are put in red or blue for the sake of accent. Each
is shaded so skilfully that sometimes the color seems almost to have
vanished ; then it returns to a deep value. It suggests a dyer's sam
ples. There are sudden breakings off from pale brown into some
equitable value of dull red or old rose, from which the stripe is gradu
ally worked back to its original hue, by the most delicate shading, a
trick rarely if ever employed in pure Daghestans. Each stripe car
ries some small decorative pattern throughout its entire length. The
pear, wherever used, is more or less rectilinear, and broken in the
manner peculiar to Caucasian figures. The borders in many cases
have rude bird and animal shapes similar to those found in nomad
rugs ; and these will sometimes be found adorning the geometrical
medallions thrown in upon the body of the carpet. One essentially
Caucasian feature, although it is found in the Yomud weavings, on
the other side of the Caspian, and in the rugs of Turkoman nomads of
Laristan and Farsistan, in Persia, is the " barber pole" stripe occurring
in the borders. The component diagonal stripes forming it are red and
white, or blue and white, alternately, and frequently carry tiny pat
terns of their own. In the border stripes the Kabistans are notably
rich, following generally the rectilinear Daghestan patterns.
The skill of the weavers of these rugs is conclusively shown in
the close and even clipping of the pile. Only the Tekkes and Sehnas
excel the Kabistans in this respect ; certainly no variety of Caucasian

CAUCASIAN
or Turkish fabrics does, unless it be some of the particularly fine Ghi
ordes or Kulah antiques. This close trimming makes them flexible,
and impairs in a measure their durability as floor coverings ; but it
serves to bring out with fine clearness the minutest details of the de
sign, and adds to their beauty when employed as covers for divans or
tables. The similarity of many Kabistan rugs to the Daghestans in
quality, design and color enables dealers to sell one for the other, but
they may almost always be distinguished by the fact that Kabistans
are overcast at the side, or if selvaged the selvage is made with the
cotton weft, while the Daghestan selvage is of fine, extra, colored
wool yarn ; and further, that while in the Kabistans the weft and
sometimes the warp is of cotton cord, like most of the Persian rugs,
the Daghestan has for both warp and weft the best of wool. Herein,
too, lies one element of the narrow margin of superiority of the
Daghestan over its neighbor, in point of durability. Genuine rugs
of either variety will wear away down to the warp and still retain
their harmony of color, enhanced rather than diminished by age and
service. Very recently the Kuba weavers have taken to putting a
"body finish" on the sides of their rugs. The pile is carried out to
the last thread of the warp save one, and the weft, passing around
this, makes a cording. The ends have the narrow cloth webbing and
the warp-threads are left loose to form a fringe.
" Tzitzi" or Tchetcben. — "Tzitzi," or " Chichi," the name given
in the trade to the textiles of certain tribes and some colonies of
sedentary artisans, is a corruption of Tchetchen, the tribe whose chief
habitat is in the mountains north of Daghestan. The nomad ten
dency to individual conceit in design is apparent in many " Tzitzis."
Moving from place to place, too, these rovers who make them pick up
suggestions from this or that wandering company of shepherds with

ORIENTAL RUGS
whom they come in contact. These patterns, therefore, vary indef
initely, and this very condition is made a cloak to enable unscrupulous
dealers to sell as " Tzitzi " the products of other districts. Genuine
" Tzitzi," of which the older examples are as good rugs as need be,
will be found to conform in certain points to the Caucasian notions
of ornamentation, although strangely enough a marked Persian ten
dency is to be noticed. The ground is frequently filled with small
patterns — rosettes, scrolls, compact geometrical tree patterns, pears,
and so forth — arranged in a manner similar to that of Kabistans and
some Kurdistans. For want of other name this may be called a grill
pattern. Usually the transverse line separating the rows in the
" Tzitzi " is straight instead of serrate, as it is in the Kabistans.
Other pieces have two or more main figures, crosses, oblongs,
stars or something of the sort, composing the central design, as in the
Daghestans, and the remainder of the ground filled in with varied
figures, disconnected and usually of the conventionalized flower
order. There is a generous allowance of border stripes, three and
sometimes four, their patterns alternating between geometrical and
floral devices. The reciprocal trefoil, to which reference is made in
connection with the rugs of Karabagh, is extremely frequent here.
The general tone of the " Tzitzis " is dark and seemly. Blue predomi
nates as a ground color. Some few specimens are in a higher key by
reason of having pronounced border designs in bright yellow.
To acquire a correct idea of the tribes who make the " Tzitzi "
rugs discrimination must be made between nomads and nomads.
These of the Caucasus of the present day must not be confused with
the lawless Bedouins of Mesopotamia, the turbulent vagrants who
infest Kirman, or the restless Tartars who live by foray throughout
Turkestan. The Tchetchen nomads inhabiting these northern hills move with
their flocks in quest of food and water, and the sphere of their wan-

K.wr Indian Factory: Stketi'him. Tin- Wakp

CAUCASIAN
derings is seldom more than a hundred square miles. Winter finds
them in the lowlands ; spring sees them starting with their sheep for
the hills again. The plateau where a flock is pastured is the tem
porary domain of the tribe. The individual holds no land.
There have been wild wars between these shepherd tribes in the
past, but the Russian government is scattering so thoroughly the
seeds of civilization that it is doubtful if at the end of the next decade
aught will remain here of the strange tribal life which has prevailed
since the dawn of history.
Tcherkess or Circassian. — The Tcherkess rugs are few in
American and European markets now, and good reason is found in
the fact that the Tcherkess people, as a people, is routed, dissolved,
destroyed. This sturdy, comely, and unprincipled race, whose women
filled the seraglios and whose men the guards of the Turkish Sultans,
and whose long, fierce struggle against Russian supremacy amazed
Europe, is to-day as a race extinct. Finding it impossible to with
stand the Muscovite, almost the whole people — half a million of them
at least — went out in one great, wretched exodus from their native
land, vanquished, heart-broken, desperate, but bound not to serve the
infidels. The two hundred miles of country which they had occupied,
stretching along the Caucasus and to the shores of the Black Sea, is
to-day unpeopled, save for a tribe or two of mixed Circassian blood,
and a handful of Russians or German immigrants huddled here and
there. When in 1864-5-6 these exiles came strolling through Ana
tolia they were beggared, bereft of everything in the way of earthly
goods and lived in predatory fashion, stealing where chance offered.
They housed themselves, as do the meanest of our immigrant labor
ers, in huts they made of sods and clay. With part of their scant
gains they bought cheap yarns and wove rugs for coverings. Little
Turkish children watched with wonder the weavings of these strang
ers, so different from any fabrics ever seen in that part of the country
»3

ORIENTAL RUGS
before, and the Turkish mothers worried for fear the visitors should
steal the toddlers, as was reported, and truthfully, to be the custom of
their home-land.
In the carpets which the vagrants made there was small and rude
pretence at design. Sometimes, since dyeing involved cost, they
wove simply of white woollen or cotton yarn, with no sign of color
and no pattern at all. Even in the most pretentious of their fabrics
white areas were frequent, and the few tints used were of the most
elementary kind. Rugs of the same sort filter into the Constanti
nople markets nowadays, and in bales of other weavings come, one or
two at a time, to this country. We might know from these creations,
even if history were silent on the subject, that the Circassian specialty
was belligerence rather than decorative art, but in the devices them
selves there is evident effort to copy, or possibly to reproduce from
memory, both Caucasian and North Persian elements. Everything
is positive and abrupt, an effect which is heightened by the lavish use
of white. A prayer rug of this type, which may be taken as representative,
has the central field divided transversely into two parts by an attenu
ate form of the Mongolian cloud-band, which also, from its peculiar
shape, forms the arch. Above this ground the line is black. In it,
arranged in diagonal rows, are small diamond shapes. Their edges
are heavily indented, which gives them a cruciform effect, and in the
centre of each is a small figure of like shape, but another color. Pre
cisely the same device is found covering the central field of Kazak
odjakliks and elsewhere in the Caucasian and Kurdish fabrics. The
colors used for it in the Tcherkess rugs are many, but all rudimentary.
Whether or no these small devices are here intended for stars, shining
upon the blackness of night, it is difficult to say. They give that
suggestion. A like idea, but more artistically wrought out, is to be
found now and then in Asia Minor prayer rugs.
114

CAUCASIAN
At the very top of the field, and on either side of the ends of the
spandrel, are heavy trees of the cypress shape, but with jagged out
lines. The two lower ones are in dull red and the upper one in green.
All are heavily defined in white. The middle of the foliage area is
variegated by the small, parti-colored patterns. In the field, under
neath, the tree principle, which in some form is found in almost all
prayer rugs, is presented in the same fashion as those above. The
centre tree is blue, outlined in white, and the ground-color of the
field is dull red. The foliage of the tree is set off into perpendicu
lar stripes, in which are repeated the small figures found above.
Beside this, one on either side, are two smaller trees of a yellow shade,
and above them two small sh.ipes woven in red, like ladders of three
rounds. The border has a heavy, flowerless, yellow vine on a ground
of blue. The ends carry a well-made knot-fringe, and the sides an
added selvasre of cotton. The rue throughout is of wool and is
excellent in point of quality. The impression it conveys is that of large
feeling and inspiration, and of infinite care ; but the breadth of the
conception is neutralized by dearth of executive skill. The lack of
manual facility and of schooling in the weaver's finer art is manifest.
There is no touch of even semi-professional dexterity about it. It is
the home-made product.
An odjaklik of the same sort, offered for sale as " Malgaran,"
had great triangles of black, blue, red, yellow and green upon its cen
tral field of time-stained white, so arranged as to effect the "double-
end" formation. Both these and the space remaining in the field
were strewn with minute patterns like those in the prayer rug, rudely
woven in many colors. The inner border was a simple key pattern ;
the outer, or main stripe, the vine.
Among certain dealers in rugs in America the term " Malgaran "
has also been used to indicate these rugs, as well as certain of
the Samarkand carpets and other Central Asia products allied to
U5

ORIENTAL RUGS
them. The reason for this is plain. The Malakan or Malgaran peo
ple, another element in what Leroy-Beaulieu calls " The Babel of the
Caucasus," have always been and are to-day the carriers of the region.
In the early days of rug exportation from the Caucasus, when the
railroad ran only as far as Tiflis, the Malakans brought the rugs there
in their four-wheeled fulgons for shipment, and no name being then
forthcoming, they went out under the distorted title of Malgarans.
Their coming to the West from that section led to the belief that they
were made somewhere in Central Asia, and since that time the
Armenian dealers have made of " Malgaran " an omnibus name for
all the odds and ends of unidentified Asiatic weaving.
TRANSCAUCASIAN FABRICS
One might suppose that, shut off from their Daghestan neigh
bors by so grim a barrier as the main chain of the Caucasus, the
weaving peoples of the lower districts would have looked to Persia
for artistic inspiration, and that their textiles would rather have fol
lowed the patterns of Kirman, Sehna or Feraghan than the severe
models of the North. But it is not so ; the majority of Transcaucasian
rugs are more in conformity with the Daghestan theory of design
than are some of the products of Daghestan itself.
They are made on the southern slope of the Caucasus and in the
country included between the Kur and Aras rivers. The wool supply
here leaves little to be desired, since these plateaus are famous for the
quality of their sheep. The old rugs of the region generally are
marked by durability and by the permanence and harmonious blend
ing of their colors. Like the Daghestans, they were originally made
with no thought that they were to be extensively sold, and were found
only in small sizes. Nowadays nearly the whole output is destined
for export, and rugs of all dimensions are produced. This is especially
true of the Soumaks, which, under the more seductive but wholly
116

CAUCASIAN
erroneous title of " Kashmir," have attained wide popularity. They
are now made as large as twelve by fifteen feet.
Karabagh. — These, in point of quantity, constitute nowadays
a very considerable portion of the whole Transcaucasian output.
The old carpets of Karabagh were excellent, although they never,
within the memory of man, attained to the high artistic standard
which has prevailed in the products of cities farther south. The
finest of them were still sufficiently substantial to rank as useful
rather than decorative fabrics. Competent judges declare them to
have been better than the best Kazaks.
The old province of Karabagh lies to the north of the Aras
river, in the angle which that historic stream forms with the Kur. As
an ancient dependency of Persia it acquired the Iranian mastery of
color, and in the old pieces there is as fine a display of the dyer's skill
as in any carpet of Kirman. The floral elements entered in, too, but
most of the forms were stiff and conventional and the distribution
was in the manner peculiar to the Caucasus. The rug weavers of
Karabagh are divided, like those of other provinces, into two classes —
the Hats or nomads and the Takhta-Kapon (wooden door), which
signifies the villagers, or people who dwell in houses. Both are
Shiah Mohammedans. There are many Russian Armenians, too, in
the towns. The nomad weavings have here, as elsewhere, stood out
longest against the tendencies of the time, and some of them, even
now, are good imitations of old-time rugs.
Since the province passed out from under Persian control, the
carpets have borrowed more and more from the patterns of the
North. It is to the North, now, that the people turn as the source
of power, authority, learning, wealth, everything. Some of the later
rugs are good copies of the Daghestans in point of design, and even
of color arrangement. But as textiles they have neither the quality
nor the finish of the genuine Daghestan. They have the Daghestan
"7

ORIENTAL RUGS
brightness, and more, but their comparative coarseness, and, it may be,
the inferor skill of the dyers, has deprived them of all that might be
termed fine effects. Where the Daghestan is brilliant, the modern
Karabagh is loud, in white, blue, red and yellow. This is caused
chiefly by startling masses of white, either in the grounds of the
border or in the central field.
The production of Karabaghs, which can be transported from
the looms to the Russian railway in two or three days, has of late
been pushed forward without stint. The range of designs is almost
limitless. Anything will serve. In some of them the field is mapped
off into hard squares, like those of the well-known Bokhara pattern.
In others there is no pretense at body pattern at all, merely the
border stripes surrounding a field of solid color. Western carpets
and Wilton rugs are also copied. In yet others, set devices of uncer
tain origin, but strangely resembling the spatter patterns seen in
modern China silks, are repeated in several alternating colors, and,
with little other attempt at design, make up the entire filling of the
rug. The effect is blotchy, inconsistent, and anything but pleasing,
especially where, as is often the case, an effort is made to retain in
the borders the pure Daghestan character.
The Muscovite influence is perceptible lately, in more or less
successful attempts at genre figures, such, for example, as a full-length
representation of a Russian official, in gray uniform, and with a red
and white bandanna protruding with most un-Oriental suggestion
from the skirt pocket of his coat. This simulacrum of authority is
pictured upon a black field, and set off with nondescript figures in
several colors. The borders have no stripe arrangement, but consist
of actual flowers, grouped about the centre-piece in a manner purely
rococo. In the borders of some of the original Karabaghs is discovered
the reciprocal trefoil, as it is called by European experts, who declare
118

CAUCASIAN
it to bean essential mark of the so-called "Polish" carpets and other
famous fabrics believed to be related to them.' This device will be
noticed later in modified form in many Mosul and Persian as well as
Turkoman and Beluchistan fabrics.
A point of wide difference between the Daghestan and Kara
bagh fabrics is the fringe. In the latter-day rugs, instead of taking
the trouble to elaborate the fringe, the weaver simply withdraws the
rod which holds the warp, and the looped ends are left uncut, to do
duty on one end as fringe ; on the other the warp and weft are woven
into a web just wide enough to be turned back and sewed. The warp
is white or brown wool ; the weft is sometimes colored throughout.
The sides in the old pieces are usually finished with a narrow sel
vage ; in the moderns they are apt to be overcast, which saves time
and labor. In the poorer grades of moderns heavy yarn is used to
make up for the wretchedly coarse weaving, and dyes and workman
ship are unmistakably bad. Yet these horrors are put forward for
sale as "antique Daghestans."
" Soumak," Shemakha or "¦Kashmir!' — It is the shaggy ends of
the colored nap-yarns, left loose at the back of these rugs, which has
given them the name of " Kashmir." The dealers foster the title for
the monetary value of the suggestion it embodies, and in some quar
ters a belief prevails that the rugs are really the product of that vale

1 " The intercourse between the East and the Venetian and other Italian States in the Middle
Ages infused an Oriental spirit into European work after the sixteenth century. About that time a
role named Mersherski visited Persia and India, and on his return to Warsaw brought with him native
workmen, with whom he established a manufactory of Oriental fabrics in that city. He had procured
kincobs and otherstuffs in India and carpets in Persia, which he used as models. In the kincobs gold
and silver threads were woven with silk and cotton, and many imitations of these are still in existence.
But whether he found rugs in the East with this mixture is uncertain. Of the carpets made hy him,
having gold and silver interwoven with silk, very few remain to our day. . The Polish handicrafts
men seemed at first to have only copied originals, but gradually they worked details into their designs
which, though tinged with Eastern ideas, are a departure from the old models, and if carefully exam
ined these productions present a singular mixture of the old Persian character with quite a new ele
ment. . It is as if the Mongolians who invaded Poland in 1241 had left traces of their art,
which remain as a permanent influence." — Robinson: "Eastern Carpets,"
119

ORIENTAL RUGS
in northern India, whose shawls, until their manufacture was debauched
and ultimately destroyed by European traders, were accounted the
most perfect textiles in the world.
The true name of the so-called " Kashmir " rugs is Shemakha,
derived from the city where they are marketed. This has been dis
torted into Soumak and Sumak. It is best to continue to call them
by their recognized name.
Shemakha was capital of the ancient Khanate of Shirvan, which
was ceded to Russia by Persia in 1813. The province lies along the
coast of the Caspian, as far south as the river Kur. To-day it is
divided into two districts — Shemakha and Djevat. Both appertain
to the government of Baku, the terminal of the trans-Caspian railroad,
and up to a few years ago a great rug-collecting port. Shemakha is
a market-place for Daghestan, Kabistan, " Tzitzi," and Shirvan rugs,
as well as those of its own district.
The patterns are mainly the geometrical forms found in all
Daghestan fabrics, and for a very good reason, since the district where
they are made is in the range of the mountains, and with only the
ridge at its back separating it from Daghestan.
There is no difficulty in discerning the likeness between the
Shirvan and Soumak rugs. In many old examples the designs and
colors are practically identical ; the difference, as has been stated,
is in the texture. Both resemble the Daghestan in device and color
distribution, though the treatment is different.
The Soumaks are woven with a flat stitch, which with the loose
yarns at the back of the rug, constitutes the only ground for the
fictitious titleof " Kashmir." These peculiarities identify them beyond
all doubt, for no other rugs resemble them in this respect.
They formerly came only in small or medium sizes, and the oldest
specimens are fine, carefully woven, fast dyed, and beautiful rugs.
The demand for large pieces has been met with fabrics made on the

PLATE XII. Old Sirab
ft. to x 5.4
Loaned by Mr. Arthur H. Scribner
The inspiration of the makers of big Herez carpets, and even of the fine
woven modern Serapis, woven sometimes on the looms of Tabriz and some
times on those of Sultanabad, is found in such rugs as this, rare pieces enough
since the eastern villages of Azerbijan became a carpet factory, feeding the
great Tabriz market with their wares. In the strong, serrated medallion and
in the peculiar drawing of all the odd floral elements, in the red of the medal
lion and the lighter blue of the big ribands at sides and corners, is declared the
local genius of the Herez district, but this rug, fine as cloth in texture, and as
pliable, yet strong, was made decades before the so-called Herez, or Gorevan
or Serapi " whole carpets " were heard of in the West. Its centre is a very
sapphire in coloring and all the shades of camel's-hair that are known to the
loom-worker lie within its borders. There are shadings which at first look like
soiled streaks, but they are only capricious changes in the color of the wool.

CAUCASIAN
same plan, but with coarse, grayish-brown warp in place of the white
wool, and with a heavy, common quality of surface yarn, loosely
woven to save labor. The dyes in many of these "bargain-counter"
pieces are distressingly bad, and the evil is growing as time goes on.
The designs are also deteriorating. Some consolation is to be had,
however, from the fact that even now something like ten or even
fifteen per cent, of the Shemakhas which find their way to the Ameri
can market are made in close keeping with the old requirements.
The stitch may be called an over-and-over method. Sometimes
each turn of the surface yarn in which the pattern is produced takes
in two threads of the warp, sometimes three. The stitches lie slant
wise of the fabric, and each row reverses the direction of that employed
in the preceding row, so that the grain of the surface resembles an
ordinary herring-bone weave. The weft is in most cases carried across
and back after every two rows of stitches. In the old carpets it was
carried one way after a single row was finished, and back after the
next row, making a fine, closely compacted body. In such there were
ten or twelve rows of stitches to the inch perpendicular, not, of course,
counting the weft threads. In the moderns, eight stitches to the inch
is the average of a good grade. The coarse qualities have as low as
six, the yarn being very large and heavy, and the weft is thrown across
one way after every three rows.
Very coarse Karabagh and Shirvan designs of all sorts, shipped
from Shemakha, have come to be known among Caucasian traders as
Shemakinski — and the term is a synonym for bad weaving, as Kaba-
Karaman is in Anatolia.
Shirvan. — So far as numbers go, the rugs sold as Shirvans are
well nigh as important a part of the Caucasian output as are the
Karabaghs. In texture the average modern Shirvan is rather better
than the Karabagh, but deterioration, particularly in the matter of
dyes, is apparent in many of the grades.

ORIENTAL RUGS
The earlier Shirvans are not plentiful in the markets now. They
are well made, and have all the old richness and stability of color. A
feature of many of them is the dissonance between border and central
field, in color and design. In the borders, for instance, some of them
carry one broad stripe, sustained by narrow guard-stripes, and dis
playing in brilliant red upon a white ground, and with no trace of
other colors, a combination design of the arabesque order, reinforced
with conventionalized flower patterns suggesting the Ladiks, or more
remotely, the Ghiordes, although more definite than either of these.
All the border area presents this arrangement of red and white. In
the body of the rug the ground-color is apt to be a rich and lustrous
blue, almost of the peacock tinge, upon which is laid, in yellow, with
the addition of some red, the diagonal lattice-work common in
Daghestans ; but here it is drawn in the softer, more irregular fashion
of the Mosuls. Others of these antiques have the selfsame fine
geometrical designs shown in the Soumaks, but knotted, of course,
instead of worked in the pileless stitch. The borders sometimes
depart from the Caucasian forms and, as in some old Karabaghs, show
separate realistic flower devices at regular intervals. These flowers
are frequently in the profile drawing, declared by some experts to be
an Asia Minor characteristic, and are devoid of all the rectilinear
Caucasian character.
The modern Shirvans are a multitude, and serve well the pur
poses of ordinary use. Their designs have not undergone the degen
eration of the Karabaghs, but for the most part follow quite stead
fastly the old models. The better qualities, especially those which
show traces of Persian influence, are often marketed for the Tartar
type of Shiraz rugs made in the Persian provinces of Fars and Lar.
To forestall this substitution is sometimes difficult. The materials of
the foundation offer small aid. For both warp and weft of the best
Shiraz fabrics of the sort mentioned white wool is used, but in the

CAUCASIAN
coarse moderns black wool or even goat's-hair may be found ; in the
same fashion the antique Shirvans have wool foundation throughout,
while the modern warp is of coarse brown or white wool, or a mixed
yarn of two strands, one brown and the other white. The weft, if not
of wool, is of cotton, and four threads are sometimes put in after each
row of knots, as in the genuine Kazaks and Samarkands. The most
reliable way of distinguishing them is by the peculiar checked or pat
terned particolored selvage at the ends, referred to in the description
of the Shiraz rugs. In nine out of ten of the Shiraz fabrics it will be
found in some form, in the Shirvans seldom if ever. The ends of
Shirvans have the cloth web woven of the warp and weft threads,
extending an inch or more beyond the pile, in addition to which
many have a fringe made by knotting the gathered strands of the
warp after the manner of ordinary machine-made fringe. In many
moderns the warp ends are simply left loose for a finishing, to save
time. In some of them the sides, instead of being overcast or sel-
vaged, have the body finish.
Kazak. — There is a tribe of nomad Kazaks inhabiting the hills
about Nova Bayezid and Lake Goktcha in Erivan. They are an old
offshoot of the great hordes whose home is in the Kirghiz steppes and
whose kinsmen are scattered over the southern districts of Russia
away to the banks of the Don. " Kazak " means virtually a rough-
rider. It describes the whole race of these restless, roaming, trouble
some people, who, in a sense, are born, live, and die in the saddle. It
is the original of the name Cossack, which is familiar to all the world.
The Kazaks of the Kirghiz steppes weave rugs, but, it is con
ceded, chiefly for home use. Nearly all the Kazak fabrics which come to
market are made — or were originally made — in the district of Transcau
casia just mentioned. This Kazak colony, which invaded the neighbor
hood while yet Transcaucasia was reckoned in the Persian domain, is
Sunni Mohammedan in faith. For a long time its rugs were made
123

ORIENTAL RUGS
after the models of the North, but of late have begun to show more
likeness to the Karabagh type made throughout the surrounding
country. This is chiefly the work, not of the Kazaks, but of Armeni
ans, who inhabit the villages in the district, and who, having learned
the weaving trade from the shepherds, proceeded to develop a type
for themselves, better suited, they thought, to the requirements of
the market. It leaned toward the Karabaghs. From Nova Bayezid,
where most of the rugs are exchanged for other commodities, the
Armenian storekeepers make large shipments from time to time.
About seventy-five per cent, of these are of the old-fashioned Kazak
order. The remainder are degenerate Kazaks or out and out Karabaghs.
Antique Kazak fabrics of the best sort are few now. Occa
sionally an old, patched, threadbare specimen comes to light to rebuke
the latter-day products which bear the name. Bad dyes have made
a mockery of many of the moderns. Great stains of some unstable
color, usually magenta, soaked over perhaps one-third of the fabric,
tell the sad story of their deterioration. Many a dealer has had these
loose-dyed rugs left upon his hands.
The older ones have a remarkable softness. They are thick and
heavy ; the tufts or knots of the pile are longer than those of almost
any old Oriental rug. The peculiar feature is that four threads of
the weft are thrown across after every row of knots, as in the Samar-
kands. In this way the tufts forming the pile are made to overlap
each other smoothly instead of standing nearly upright, as do those
of most other fabrics. The only saving accomplished by thus bur
dening the rug with weft-threads is that of time.
The original designs are strong and characteristic to a degree —
big, geometrical figures, upon fields of magnificent red or green, which
half a century of wear and exposure will scarcely suffice to dim.
Throughout the field are distributed detached figures — crosses, parti
colored diamonds, squares and circles and disproportioned representa
tions of birds, trees, animals and human beings, all in the most archaic
124

CAUCASIAN
drawing and most primitive color. In the borders are many varia
tions of the latch-hook feature, and a reciprocal saw-tooth pattern
distinctive of some Caucasian fabrics. This same border often ap
pears in the Persian Sarabands. Persian weavers call it the sechan-
disih — " teeth of the rat."
The Kazaks are usually finished with a stout selvage at the sides,
and at the ends with a shaggy fringe, which may be omitted from
one end to allow the web formed from warp and weft to be turned
back and hemmed. The most common sizes are from three to six
feet wide by five to eight feet long.
The whole effect, whether the rug be of great or small dimen
sions, is stoutness. Many of the older ones are almost square, one
measurement exceeding the other sometimes by only three or four
inches. Occasionally an example is found with one end finished in a
knotted rope's-end fringe resembling that mentioned as belonging to
the coarser rugs of the Mosul province in Turkey.
In the later products there is a tendency to imitate some of the
more ornamental patterns of the Kabistans. The stripe arrangement
of the field, and lumbering versions of the pear pattern are seen, but
in nearly all cases there is preserved one figure thoroughly typical of
the old Kazaks, a conventional form which will be recognized at once
from its likeness to the tarantula, of which it is probably an actual
representation, but having become a standard element in the decora
tion of this region, it has taken on complications and formal ornamen
tation which in a measure obscure the resemblance. * In some of the

'" On voit sous la lettre ' B ' un tapis Boukhare, qui se distingue par I'txlat des couleurs et par
un remarquable mx-lange de dessins rappelant des scorpions, des tarentules, les constants compagnons
de voyage des traditions populaires. Pasde conte ou l'on ne voie jouer un role a la tarentule Kara-
coute, qui est considere comme particulierement venimeuse." — A'. Simakoff: " VArt de I'Ane
Centra le." " Boukhare" is used by Simakoff to designate the whole of Turkestan. The carpets which he
here calls "tapis Boukhare" were the Yomuds. The manner in which they come u> have many of
the border patterns common to the Caucasians is made clear in the section on Yomud, under the
general class of Turkoman fabrics. 125

ORIENTAL RUGS
better modern pieces this idea has been developed in the most artistic
manner, two of these figures appearing in great size in the central field,
upon a ground of splendid red. The borders have the heavy patterns
typical of Kazaks.
MOSUL FABRICS
The diversity resultant upon mixed population is nowhere so
manifest as in the rugs collected in the country about Mosul, the old
city in the heart of Mesopotamia. This territory is traversed by the
river Tigris. Since the beginning of history the tide of conquest has
ebbed and flowed mightily here where now half ruined walls inclose a
straggling and moribund town, and serve in seasons of flood to avert
the encroachments of the river. A little way outside the gates of
Mosul are the ruins of Nineveh, Senn and Nimrud.
Here Persians followed Scythians as conquerors, and were them
selves succeeded in turn by Macedonians, Tartars, Arabs and Turko
mans. Under every sway Mosul was a capital. That it has been a
centre of manufacture finds proof in the one word muslin, which had
its derivation here. In the population of the district are represented
far more than half of all the races which go to make up the Ottoman
Empire of to-day. In the city and its adjacent villages are gathered
many distinct nationalities, all living in perpetual dread of the wild
Kurdish and Bedouin neighbors who infest the unguarded highways
or roam over the surrounding mountains, preying upon commerce and
travel, and disclaiming both subjection to Osmanli and faith in Islam.
The Mosul fabrics include also rugs made in the mountains of old
Armenia and Erivan, and others from the south toward Syria.
The multitude of designs common to this strangely peopled re
gion presents not only all the characteristic forms of the Caucasian
class, but well nigh every device which Oriental ornamentation
knows, though most of them are wrought roughly. Every corner of
126

CAUCASIAN
the East, even as far as China, has contributed some trick of texture
or design to the varied fabrics of Mosul, yet most of them show
affinity with the Caucasian lot. The fact that so many of the Mosul
tribes are out of the reach of trade influences speaks well for the hon
esty of their product, and examination, in the main, bears out the in
ference. Wool, dyes and workmanship are well up to the average,
considering always the weavers' lights, and the designs, diverse as
they are, still preserve a thoroughly Eastern character. Nearly all
the rugs included in the Mosul shipments are, however, more or less
coarse, heavy, and suggestive in their patterns and construction of
the rude life which prevails in the entire region.
Mosul Proper. — The two characteristics which, taken in conjunc
tion, provide the first step toward identification of these fabrics are :
First, the soft, flocky nature of the pile ; second, a marked tendency
to the use of yellow and warm, yellowish or brownish reds in the
coloring. A great deal of camel's-hair and goat's-hair filik is used in
the pile. The camel's-hair in natural color contributes a yellow tone,
but aside from that, saffron seems to have taken a firm hold upon the
favor of the dyers in Mosul. In the antiques, which have a glossy
finish, this prevalence of yellow gives an impression, when the rugs are
seen from a distance, that they have undergone some process of
gilding. Blue and green are chiefly used in small areas, to brighten
the figures in the border stripes ; if in large areas, they are almost
invariably in dark shades. In all the multiplicity of designs, the
Caucasian influence is plainly visible. Some feature of it can be
found in almost every rug, although the patterns are loosely wrought
and, owing in a measure to the length of pile, fine definition is impos
sible. For example, the parallel bars — horizontal or diagonal — inclos
ing rows of small figures, found in the body of the Kabistans and
Tzitzis, are frequent in the Mosuls, but the small patterns are usually
queer reciprocal key devices, or geometrical tree forms, although
127

ORIENTAL RUGS
sometimes the pear is found. The diagonal lattice-work of the
Daghestan group has its place in the Mosuls, too. Thanks to
Persian influence, the Mosul weavers are prone to do with color shad
ing what those of Daghestan do with the oft-repeated latch-hook, in
softening the contrast between one body of color and another. The
latch-hook in great measure disappears in the Mosuls, although it is
found in some rugs of the Turkish class farther to the westward,
made by nomads who have trod this path in their migrations. The
barber-pole stripe, first noticed in the Kabistans, is very common
here, and the large geometrical figures used as the central design of
so many Daghestans and Kabistans are often found performing the
same function in Mosuls. The Persian and Kurdish influences are
also apparent. The pear device is especially frequent, but in hard
forms, so rectilinear in some instances that at first glance it is scarcely
recognized. It is a hexagon, with a particolored square in the
centre, and the elongation merely a projecting angular hook in yellow
or red. The same form is found in the decorative art of India. The
reciprocal trefoil border stripe, in dark red and blue as a rule, runs
through a great number of Mosuls. There is found, too, the star
emblem seen the world over in the decoration of synagogues, pos
sibly an adaptation of the seal of Solomon or a copy of the Persian
symbol, but held by some writers to have been originally representa
tive of divinity.
The borders are most often three in number, and separated by
heavy lines of very dark brown or blue. Geometrical or crude floral
designs are used, but almost invariably one at least of the border
stripes carries some well-known Caucasian pattern. Very often a
three- or four-inch outside band of camel's-hair or some other yarn in
the natural brown color runs around all four sides of the rug, inclos
ing the whole design as in a frame, and emphasizing the yellow tone
which, as was said in the beginning, is a Mosul mark. The sides of the
128

Plate XIII. Kulah Prayer Rug
f).o x 4,0
Loaned by Dr. O. Ernest Hill
While of the coarser quality of old style Kulahs, this rug contains the
features which seem to have been essentially of Kulah origin, though they ap
pear oftentimes in the Ghiordes and Ladik prayer rugs. The multiplication of
peculiarly marked small stripes to cover the border tract and the serrated
drawing of the prayer arch are chief among the Kulah marks. Wear and re
peated washing have dimmed the areas of golden brown which in so many old
rugs of this variety is the predominant color.

CAUCASIAN
rug are overcast and the ends finished with a narrow, thick selvage
if the warp be cotton, with a fringe if it be wool.
Turkman or Genghis. — In the sandhills along the border lines
between Mosul province and Persia, roam bands of Turkomans.
They are otherwise known to the Ottoman population as the
" Genghis people," after Genghis Khan, in whose warlike train their
forbears came westward from Central Asia. They dwell in tents
and change their abode with the seasons. They are part of the
mixed Turkish peoples who are scattered all through the country
west of the Oxus. The title of Turkman was given by the Persians
in whose service they fought during the interminable wars of the
Middle Ages. It implies "a resemblance to Turks," these tribes hav
ing, from their long residence in the Iranian country, lost many of
their race characteristics, both of temperament and physical appear
ance. They retain, however, their bold, warlike disposition and fond
ness for outdoor life.
In the rugs which they send to the annual fair near Mosul and
to the bazaars in Tiflis, their race traits and their manner of living
are plainly to be read. The fabrics are exceedingly heavy, which
is natural since they are made to be spread upon the ground out of
doors. The warp is a three-strand thread of goat's-hair or brown
wool, and the pile about twice as long as that of the Shirvans. There
are seldom fewer than forty knots to the square inch, and they are
woven from fine wool which the women of the tribes spin.
The designs consist principally of the geometrical devices found
in the Caucasian fabrics, but the nomad elements of crudity and sim
plicity and a prevalence of small, separate figures are discernible.
The Persian influence sometimes crops out in the use of the vine
with flowers attached. The Turkman, whose nomad impatience and
poverty of artistic conception make it impossible for him to reproduce
the complex designs of Persian carpets, has by crude repetition of the
129

ORIENTAL RUGS
easier border elements made a central design of his own. He often
has a series of these border patterns running side by side through the
whole length of the body of the rug. The undulation, which in
most Persian designs is gracefully curved, he treats in the less diffi
cult rectilinear fashion, and his versions of the palmettes and lotus
buds which the vine carries at its curved intervals are severe in draw
ing and immensely unlike what they are meant for. The whole effect
is ambitious, and pleasing, too, perhaps because it is so badly done.
He repeats the same idea in the border, using for adornment of the
vine, for example, a white cross, evidently of floral derivation, upon a
red octagon, instead of the more difficult rosette which belongs to the
pattern in its purity. The pear is freely employed, both in the body,
where it is used in alternating rows of red and blue, and in the border
stripe, where it relieves other figures. Nomad authorship is shown
by the detached bird and animal figures in the body of the rugs and
occasionally in the border. The sides are selvaged and the ends fin
ished with a small fringe. In this respect the Turkman follows the
urbane rather than the nomad custom.
In Constantinople, as in the American market, miscellaneous
bales of rugs, all measuring between three and five feet in width, and
six and eight feet in length, are jobbed under the name of Genghis,
or, as the bills of lading have it, " Guendje." They are made up of
the odds and ends of the Shirvans, Karabaghs, Mosuls and other sec
ondary fabrics of the Caucasian class, and usually come from Eliz-
abetpol, the old Armeno-Persian name of which was Gandja. Of
late a great manufacture of this sort of stuff has been organized by
Armenian middlemen in the Baghdad district, the output of which
is being marketed in this country. In addition to the rugs named
some Persians, Hamadans and the like, are taken for patterns, and
several low-grade mats woven on each warp.
Some Varieties of Kurdish Rugs. — More striking contrast could
130

CAUCASIAN
scarcely be imagined than that between the rough, common, mis
shapen rugs made by the Kurds in the north of Mosul and about
Lake Van, and the masterly ones turned out by their kinsmen in the
upland towns of Western Persia. These " Mosul Kurdish " rugs are
of the same general character as the Genghis just described. In
ornament the Genghis are accounted somewhat better, but the
Kurdish fabrics are more closely woven, heavier, and more durable.
They have, to be sure, fewer stitches to the inch, but the pile yarn —
and also, indeed, the warp and weft — are much heavier. The rugs
are rough and to the last degree savage in appearance. In the con
glomeration of colors a certain rude strength is manifest, but
although the general effect is warm and lustrous the absence of any
thing like decorative refinement is complete. In many of them a
great deal of dark brown wool in its natural state determines the
color tones. Brown sheep's-wool or coarse goat's-hair thread is taken
for the foundation. The sides are overcast or selvaged at the
caprice or convenience of the weaver. The ends have usually the
nomadic web extension, and the braids with which they are finished
complete their barbaric extravagance. The ends of the warp are
plaited into tight, flat strands, like the Mexican lariat, about two
inches apart and knotted at the ends. In some examples several of
these are worked together, and form small, compact, triangular plaited
mats, from the outer point of which the braids depend. These rugs
are utterly lacking in symmetry, and sometimes are so crooked that
they have to be cut and sewn together again to bring them into any
thing like regular shape.
Similar to these Mosul Kurd fabrics in texture and quality are
those sometimes sold under the nameof Kozan, an Asia Minor vilayet
to the west of Mosul. They are finished with selvage on the sides
and a long fringe at the ends instead of the plaits referred to above.

131

X
TURKIS H
THE substitute term for Turkish in the vocabulary of the rug-
seller is Smyrna, or was so until the American manufactures
began to bear that name. But in any event it is in essence
a misnomer, since in Smyrna no rugs are made for market, nor have
been, within the memory of man. Smyrna is essentially a mercantile
capital. Next to Constantinople, it is the chief point of export for
Oriental rugs and the products of all districts have thus come to bear
its name in vulgar usage, although no fabrics are sold in the whole
sale market in Smyrna save those made in Asia Minor.
The Turkish class, though commercially very large, is small in
the number of its varieties. A line drawn from Trebizond, on the
Black Sea, southwesterly to the head of the Gulf of Iskanderum, in
the Mediterranean, would cut off the Anatolian peninsula from the
Asiatic mainland. It would have to the west of it all the territory
whose rugs may properly be called Turkish. Those which alone
have shadow of right to the name Smyrna are a component group of
the Turkish class. They are made chiefly in the towns of the two
western provinces, Aidin and Broussa, which are directly accessible
from Smyrna by rail, or in their remoter quarters by caravan, and
which find in that city their most convenient and, in fact, inevitable
132

TURKISH
point of sale and shipment. This proximity to a commercial centre
and close communication through it with the Western world has given
to the rug industry of these provinces a double character not found
in any other section of the Orient ; has in fact in some degree robbed
it of its distinctively Eastern quality, so that although many of the
old-time Turkish rugs were of remarkable workmanship, fully ninety
per cent, of the fabrics made there to-day are representative of
nothing save the passion of the West for this form of floor covering,
the aptitude of Western designers at devising new combinations of
Oriental figures and of color, and the amazing, possibly unsuspected
ability of the Turkish weavers to do under pressure a great amount
of work in a short time.
The peninsula, so far as its rugs are concerned, is merely a work
shop, and Smyrna is its counting room.' The great burden of the
output in the Western district is, as I have said, made upon orders
from outside markets. Some of these are general ; some are specific ;
but altogether they have sufficed to wean the workman from old
materials and old methods. He aims now at volume rather than
excellence. Large business sagacity, to be sure, has been shown in
the selection of this particular region for the enterprise. It presents
facilities for shipment, and it not only produces readily and plentifully
all the materials used in the construction of rugs, but numbers among
its population a representation from almost every Eastern race.
There is no form of weaving which may be needed in filling a busi-
1 The system of dealing in the Smyrna and Constantinople markets is infinitely complex, made
so, doubtless, by the Turkish dealers as a means for gaining an advantage in intricate transaction with
Western buyers. Out of the accumulation of facts bearing upon this matter these will be of general
interest: In wholesale dealings in Smyrna the big carpets made throughout Asia Minor are sold by the
square " pick " — five square feet — while the Bergamo, Mclcs, and other small rugs are disposed of
by the piece. Payment is made in the medjit — twenty Turkish piastres. In Constantinople the mod
ern Persians, Sultanabad, Tabriz, Herez, Feraghan, and the like, are sold at so many francs per
square metre, and the antiques at so many Turkish pounds apiece. The Caucasian and Tartarian,
excepting perhaps some of the large Bokharas and Afghanistan nomad rugs recently sent to market,
are disposed of at so many francs apiece and never by the square foot.
133

ORIENTAL RUGS
ness order, but in this hodgepodge of peoples men and women con
versant with it can be found, and the conditions of the country make
it certain that their work may be had at a price which warrants a
goodly margin of profit to every person through whose hands the
fabric may pass before it reaches the user. In Afion-Karahissar, for
example, Armenian women weave for from four to seven cents a day.
The singular conditions prevalent here present a difficult dilemma
to the writer. Each weaving town has in effect two classes of fabrics.
To prosecute faithfully the purpose of this book description should
be given, to the end of identification, of the typical antique rugs for
which some of the districts have been renowned. They have a dis
tinctive character which the new products have not.1 The modern
fabrics made in certain towns of Asia Minor bear no relation to the
antiques made in the same places, so far as likeness is concerned.
These towns have in the modern fabrics almost no distinctive types
at all. They produce loose, heavy rugs of conglomerate design,
which recall nothing so much as young Falconbridge, who " bought
his doublet in Italy, his round-hose in France, his bonnet in Germany,
and his behavior everywhere."
Less, then, to emphasize this difference than to avoid inadequacy,
it is necessary to make clear something of the character of each of
the older carpets, specimens of which are occasionally encountered,
before speaking of the coarser latter-day fabrics which are rushed out
from the looms of the same towns to meet the demands of trade, and
which, no matter how much their existence may discomfort the ama
teur, are proving themselves of vast worth and service to the house-
1 All authorities upon ornament set forth that there is no original and distinctive Turkish system
of ornamentation: that the custom of the Turks, as conquerors, was to command the services of ar
tisans ; that the Turkish type, so far as it may be said to exist, is a combination of Persian and
Arabic. Leroy Beaulieu remarks that the Turks show in everything an imitation of the Persian
genius, and it is matter of history that the Osmanli Turks, after each successful incursion upon Persian
territory, sent captives of the artisan class to Constantinople to weave, carve and carry on other art
industries for the beautification of Turkish palaces. 134

TURKISH
holder who has a floor to cover and a careless, hard-heeled company
to tread it.
KONIEH FABRICS
Konieh province and the districts which surround it exemplify
perfectly the diversity in topography, climate and population which
mark the whole Anatolian peninsula. The plateaus of this section
afford all the conditions required for wool growing ; the valleys which
traverse it are fertile in the production of dye materials.
The general methods of construction are similar throughout the
entire group, but the difference between the varieties, in quality and
appearance, is clear. Those which come from the north, about Kir-
Shehr and the vicinity of the salt lake Tcholli, and as far as ancient
Caesarea,' are of sterling texture and good color and design, while the
products of the south, of Nigdeh and Karaman, among the foothills
of the Taurus mountains, are rough, and made in evident ignorance
of any known decorative system. The designs of these are crude,
and the colors, while largely vegetable, and striking in the mass,
are arranged in utter disregard of theoretical harmony.
Konieh Proper. — Konieh — ancient Iconium — the name has its
origin in the Greek word hmvt) (picture), on account of the legend
of the locality — has never until very lately ranked with other towns
of Asia Minor as a rug-producing place. Even under the old dis
pensation, its weavings had not the wide fame and favor accorded
to those of Ghiordes, Kulah, Bergamo, or Ladik. They were
made more strictly for local use than perhaps any of these. For this
reason, probably, the antique specimens from the Konieh looms are
more rarely met with nowadays. They are, nevertheless, of eminent
merit, and though pursuing a different theory of color from the rugs
of " Smyrna" towns, exhibit skill in the dyeing and a wholesome
though sometimes not over-delicate taste in the adjustment of color.
1 Kaisarieh.

ORIENTAL RUGS
Most of the antique Koniehs which have found their way
over-seas are sedjadeh, odjaklik, and yesteklik — not, as is the case
with those of the other cities named, for the greater part prayer
rugs. The antique odjaklik, or hearth rug, of Konieh abounds in
warm rich color. It is worthy of notice, too, that all the hues have
a peculiar luminous quality when exposed to a slanting light such as
falls upon them from the fire-place, a glow that they do not reveal
when looked at point blank, in the light of common day. They are
constructed with this effect in view. One excellent example had at
the time of writing lain for several months in a pile of small antiques
of different varieties, in a large New York rug establishment. Piece
after piece had been sold from the pile, and it had frequently been
replenished from new consignments, but the old Konieh, in every
way one of the rarest and most desirable possessions of the lot, had
always been relegated, after examination, to its old place and the more
showy fabrics chosen. It was not, as a fact, of an appearance to catch
at first glance the fancy of the average purchaser, yet at the time the
author of this book saw it there was the best of reasons for believing
that it was the only rug of its sort to be seen for sale in New York.
The feature of the odjaklik design, found in the majority of rugs
made for the hearth, is that it has in some fashion or other the conical
or pointed formation at both ends of the central field. It is as if the
field were made up of two prayer rugs, joined base to base. In the
piece just referred to an elongated hexagon was set in the central
oblong, with its acute angles pointing toward the ends. The ground
color of the field was a singular, lustrous quality of sky blue. Just
inside the border stripes and running all about the edges of the field,
was a row of pinks, drawn in profile and arranged with perfect
regularity. In each of the corner spaces left by the hexagon was a
floral figure of some magnitude, supported by an elongated device,
apparently of animal derivation, on either side, and by rectilinear
136

Plate XIV. Laristan Rug
15.0 x 5.6
From the Marquand Collection
As fine a display of the old blue of Southwestern Persia as one will ever
see. This type of rug is ordinarily classed as of Shiraz, but the finishings of
this piece warrant placing it, more accurately, among the products of Laristan.
Its unity of design is as admirable as its color, the only deviation from the re
gular repetition of the pear pattern being few — only such as are really required
by superstitious belief.

TURKISH
flower stalks. The sides of the hexagon forming the two angles at
the ends were serrated like the sides of the arch in most Kulah
prayer rugs. Inside the yellow and red defining-lines of the hexagon
ran a complete circumference of rosebuds arranged in the same man-
ner as the pinks about the boundary of the oblong. These flowers
were as realistic and lifelike as any found in Persian weaving. Then
the entire area of the hexagon was filled with a rich growth of
flowers, made up of two flowering shrubs or plants, springing from
two jardinieres, one at each of the terminal angles. The branches
and blooms met and mingled at the middle of the space in a
fashion which, though governed by the Anatolian formality of arrange
ment, had yet much of Persian warmth and profusion. The
ground of the main border stripe was blue, of a very deep shade, in
contrast with the brilliant sky blue of the centre. Upon it the wav
ing vine was traced in red, in angles instead of curves, and with its
flowers, yellow and pale blue, putting forth upon straight stalks. The
narrow borders, or guard stripes, were the small, uniform, repeated
stripes found in Ghiordes and Kulah, except that they were in red and
white instead of black and white, and were ornamented with the
barber pole device of the Caucasians, instead of the small patterns
which adorn those characteristic stripes in antique Ghiordes and
Kulah rugs. All around the outside was a narrow band of the pile,
in the same deep red which was dominant throughout the entire
fabric. Its brilliancy had seemingly been softened by age, but it still
glowed with a strange sort of under light.
The ends were finished with a narrow, colored web, and reaching
partly across one end — the rest had been worn away — was a sel
vage outside the web, formed by weaving back the threads of the
warp. This had originally been the finishing of both ends of the rug
and the sole bit that remained showed what long and severe wear the
old piece had known. But it had still a thickness and evenness of
137

ORIENTAL RUGS
pile far superior to that of many new fabrics. Its pile must have
been originally of about the same length as the best Kir-Shehrs. The
sides were finished with a narrow selvage made of extra threads of
red. The technical oddity of the piece was that the weft was thrown
across, two threads at once, and then another row of knots put in be
fore it was carried back. The solidity afforded by this method was
apparent. The modern Konieh manufacture is almost wholly of the heavy
carpet order. The grade names of Oushak and Ghiordes are used
and the products are practically the same as theirs. The Konieh
moderns are noticeable, however, for one thing, the diversity of yarns
used for the warp. These are all of wool and necessarily very stout ;
in color they are everything, and, as if sufficient variety could not be
secured otherwise, two colors are often found in one yarn.
Among the heavy Asia Minor " whole carpets " there is probably
none of more worth than the Konieh variety known as Tokmak. The
name itself, though really taken from a town to the west of Konieh,
is in its literal meaning descriptive. Tokmak is Turkish for compact.
In its primary use it means "a mallet." The materials of the Tokmak
are well chosen, its patterns of a good order, and in fineness and work
manship it excels, perhaps, even the best grades of Oushak.
Kir-Shehr. — The rugs of Kir-Shehr, in the province of Angora,
just over the Konieh border to the north of Lake Tcholli, lead all the
Konieh fabrics in texture and color. They are renowned for brilli
ancy, and the excellence of the water in that section, for the solution
of dyes, is proverbial throughout Turkey. The reds and greens,
especially, in many of the older Kir-Shehrs are exemplary, and dyes
for these colors seem to have the maximum of preservative value,
since the red portions of the designs, and some of the oreens and
darker blues as well, protrude from the surface as if they had orig
inally been put in with a longer yarn, for the purpose of making a
138

TURKISH
raised pattern. The foundation threads, which are of wool, are
usually dyed in the color prevailing in the pile, like those of the Ber
gamo. In design the antiques are perhaps more elaborate than the old
Koniehs, but the small moderns of the two manufactures are sold inter
changeably. Geometry seems to have been overcome in the older Kir-
Shehrs. Industrious attempt at Persian elaboration is apparent. There
is a patent effort at unity and integrity in the design, which, particularly
in its central patterns, follows closely the Arabic forms. The bord
ers, too, are eloquent of a higher artistic aim than can be found in the
Koniehs. There are fewer stripes than in most of the Persian rugs,
and the main stripes carry a most pretentious form of ornamentation.
Border medallions, which are seen in Persian carpets, and are plainly
borrowed from Arabic forms, are found in Kir-Shehrs of old date.
Rectangular border figures are relegated to the subordinate stripes.
In the modern products ambition is not so manifest, but the skil
ful blending of colors is still noticeable. The pile is of good length,
making the rugs thick and durable. They are meant for practi
cal use and are much to be desired. Liberal use is made of phe
nomenal shades of green, and brilliant harmonious effects are produced
by them in conjunction with the reds already mentioned. Some of
the small Kir-Shehr mats have several particolored tufts at each
end, composed of all the yarns used in their piling, and formed by
weaving these in clusters into the webs with which, supplemented by
a fringe of the warp, the ends are finished.
In rare examples these little tufts are made of human hair, and
sometimes small devices are woven with hair upon the webbing.
Kaba-Karaman. — Little need be said of these. They are sim
ply called " Kaba " by the Smyrna traders. The word means " coarse,"
and describes them accurately from every standpoint. They are made
by nomads in the southern province, along the ranges of the Taurus

ORIENTAL RUGS
chain, toward the Zeitoun district, and furnish a good index to the
tribes which make them, whose fame for roughness, cruelty and quar
relsomeness has gone over all Asia Minor. The Karamanians are
migrant Turkomans, and in their weaving preserve in rude form the
patterns prevalent in the Caucasian countries.
Most of the Kaba-Karamans which come to America — and they
are a multitude — are small prayer rugs and sedjadeh. Their likeness
to the Caucasian fabrics in design, heightened by the free use of bold
patterns in white, enables salesmen to dispose of them for Derbend.
Some of the better specimens go as Karabagh, and particularly good
ones as Shirvan, and even Daghestan, to purchasers who are in a high
degree credulous. Although carelessly made, they are stout, and
useful for some purposes.
Yuruks. — These plain shepherds,1 who wander with their flocks
over the southern and middle ranges of Anatolia, are blood kin to the
Kazaks of the Caucasus and the Kirghiz, and the Turkomans of the
Mosul districts ; in the fabrics they send to Smyrna the relationship
is plain. The tribal name "Yuruk" means "mountaineer." It is
the wild, harsh life of their mountains that they have woven into their

1 "These Yuruks (called by Doctor Chandler and most of our old travellers 'Turkomans')
are a pastoral, thriving, simple-minded, primitively-mannered, kind-hearted people, hospitable as far
as their means allow,, and always ready to shelter and serve a traveller, be he Mussulman or Chris
tian. Though far more religious than the town-dwelling people, they are less bigoted and intolerant.
Their migratory habits and their breathing the free air of the mountains during one half of the year,
appear to give them the enjoyment and appreciation of freedom. Their women go unveiled even be
fore strangers ; they are very fond of their children, whether male or female, and generally have a
good stock of them. ... At the approach of winter the Yuruks come down with their flocks
and their herds to the warm, sheltered plains opening on the Propontis or the .xEgean, and at the
approach of the burning hot summer they retire to their cool, shady mountains, where the melting
snows leave sweet and abundant pasture. The most thriving men I saw this time over in Asia were
among the Yuruks. Some of their aghas, or head men, possess immense flocks of sheep and fine
herds of cattle ; and it was a fine sight to see them — as we did a little later at Hadji Haivat — descend
ing from Olympus day after day like a continuous stream. But for the Yuruks I do not know what
the Turks would do for their mutton ! The heads of tribes lead quite.a patriarchal life — always under
tents — and many of them reach a truly patriarchal age." — Charles C. MacFarlane: " Turkey and Its
Destiny" 140

TURKISH
rugs. Most of these are dark affairs, with the heavy, ashen brown
hue prevailing, brightened by titanic patterns in wonderfully rich
colors. The designs seem fairly to grow out from the grim ground
work of dark sheep's-wool. They are made up of simple figures,
which the artistic limitations of the weavers have forced them to re
peat again and again. The corner triangles and patches at the side
of the central fields not taken up by the main device are filled with
stripe effects, composed frequently of the hook pattern found in the
Caucasians, although the shape of it here differs somewhat from the
Caucasian form.
Kazil and sometimes brown wool are used for the warp, but the
fierce-looking knotted braids with which the ends are adorned are of
white or gray wool, sometimes of cotton. The broad web of the middle-
Asia Turkomans sometimes appears here. The sides are selvaged,
but over the selvage in a few rugs is an overcasting of colored yarn,
which serves at once to fortify the edge, and make it more nearly
equal to the piled part of the fabric in thickness.
The Yuruk weavings have a peculiar softness, proof positive that
they are made to serve the ends of personal comfort where that com
modity is scarce, and not those of adornment or display of skill.
Some of them lack symmetry, but as a rule they lie evenly, and, being
made in the sturdiest fashion, wear like iron.
Anatolians. — Small mats are made throughout the Konieh dis
trict, and in fact all the middle and eastern part of the peninsula, and
sold under the name of "Anatolians." They are seldom more than
four feet in length and vary in respect of narrowness. Nothing
could be more heterogeneous than are these ycstcklik, both as to
color and design. They embody every sort of device, curved and
rectilinear. Those made in recognized communities of weavers fol
low closely the rugs of the locality, but many which come in the great
consignments are merely individual conceits, the first thing that has
141

ORIENTAL RUGS
come into the weaver's head. Their very oddity makes them attrac
tive. The only feature common to most of them is a soft, flocky pile.
This is purely utilitarian, since originally their chief use was as pil
low covers. There are in most cases strips of cloth web at the ends
to facilitate making them into pillows. Clinging to the backs of
many of these mats will be found seeds and specks of clean straw,
showing that they have already been used, and that the collectors,
seeking for everything buyable in the way of native textiles, have
stripped them from the pillows and sold them for export.
The designs include everything, stripes and angular figures, Sar
acenic centre-pieces, heavy geometrical devices like those employed
by the Yuruks, and even the neat patterns of the Caucasian fabrics.
The latch-hook plays an important part, especially in the mats made
by the mountaineers, who, it would seem, have brought it with them
from the shores of the Caspian and the uplying country. It is of
different form, however, more like that seen in Kurdish rugs of
Mosul. Some of the older mats are really fine and highly prized by
connoisseurs. Like the larger rugs, many of them have suffered from
the use of chemical dyes, and pieces which, were their colors honest,
would have considerable value, are ruined by the fading of their
principal areas to dirty and unsightly stains. Poor coloring may often
be detected by comparison of the ends of the pile with the part
which is below the surface and has not been exposed to light and
air. The under part, even in very old rugs, retains its original
brightness. There are made all about Cssarea rugs of considerable size and
enormous thickness, which in trade are called " big Anatolians."
They have all the peculiarities of the large Kir-Shehrs, but the pile is
much longer and thicker. In some specimens it is fully an inch and
a quarter in length, and is packed upon the warp as closely as the
142

TURKISH
most energetic beating with the batten can crowd it, and as the yarn
is of the heaviest the fabrics are nothing less than cushions, upon
which a body might fall heavily a hundred times a day without possi
bility of injury. There is more wool to the square inch in one of
these rugs than in the very thickest of Oushak or Ghiordes carpets.
Much of the material is poorly prepared. In some cases it is not
thoroughly cleansed of the animal oil, and after the rug has been
used for a time it flocks, like the wool on the back of a thick-coated
sheep. The designs are mostly of an archaic, rectilinear order. The
colors are brilliant and their areas harshly defined. There are no
half-tones. The anilines are prevalent. If, however, interminable
wear is all that is required, one need seek no farther than these " big
Anatolians." In Caesarea a large general manufacture has sprung up, both of
big carpets of the Oushak type, and copies of the Persian sedjadeh,
in both silk and wool. The latter are known in trade as Caesarean
Kirmans, Caesarean Sehnas, etc. None of these products bears any
relation to the old, spontaneous industry of the locality.
SMYRNA FABRICS
I may repeat here that the Smyrna rugs of to-day are all made
for market, and are as purely commercial creations as Axminster or
Wilton. The paltry rates at which weavers can be employed more
than overbalance the American tariff upon imported fabrics, and there
remains the indisputable fact that Americans cannot, even with bet
ter facilities and the best of Oriental designs to work from, satisfac
torily imitate the Eastern products.
The genuine antiques from this region are growing lamentably
scarce, but at long intervals a new rug is found, made with all the old
fineness and purity of design, and colored with the old-fashioned dyes
143

ORIENTAL RUGS
— a very oasis in the desert. The manufacture of carpets of the Smyrna
type is making its way eastward with great rapidity. It was a long
stride when looms for the heavy grades were set up in Konieh, and
now, since Caesarea became a factory, Caesarea and other towns, still
farther east, have begun to contribute their quota. The great body of
moderns in the Smyrna group, no matter where made, are alike in all
points save comparative coarseness and some technical differences such
as weight, solidity of texture, quality of wool in the pile, and the mate
rials used for warp and weft. The names by which they are known
in the trade serve merely to define grades. The designs are anything
and everything, European as well as Eastern, and the dyes, in most
instances, largely chemical.
The Smyrna fabrics are surely entitled to the name carpet, if
size is the desideratum. They are made now to fit almost any floor.
For a time the experiment was tried of making these great affairs in
several sections and deftly joining them afterward. The process
proved unsuccessful, as the pieces seldom matched sufficiently well to
make the completed fabric seem a unit.
Ghiordes. — About fifty miles northeast of Smyrna lies the rug-
making town of Ghiordes. You may see it written in nearly as many
ways as there are stitches in its famous fabrics — Gordes, Gurdiz,
Gierdi, Yoordis, Yurdi, Yordi, and many more. But by whatever
name, it is to the native always to be revered ; not so much because
in the popular belief, which cannot be shaken by archaeological
doubts, it is the ancient Gordium, home of the Gordian knot, by sev
erance of which, in accordance with prophecy, world-compellino- Alex
ander became master of all Asia, but because the old Ghiordes ruo-s
have there been woven, which to the Turk, and many people besides,
are the acme of textile excellence.
From the limitless field of design and the countless possibilities
of color combination, the weavers of Ghiordes, in other centuries,
144

A Xu\i.\ii Si

I'lim

x* 9

V

TURKISH
wrought out a type which had universal recognition as their own ; a
type to the chaste perfection of which the designers, whether of East
or West, have not been able beneficially to add, and from which only
laziness, haste or greed has since prompted an)- man to take aught
away. This type found its greatest prevalence in the prayer carpets,
but can still be seen in floor-coverings, though they have now grown
rare.' In the famous collections of Europe the old Ghiordes bits are
placed side by side with the most prized antiques from the Persian
looms.1 It is an interesting middle ground which these most renowned
of Anatolian fabrics occupy, in the matter of design. While eschew
ing the Persian realism and profusion in floral patterns, the Ghiordes
weavers have attained equal mastery of synchromatic arrangement.
From the deep mass of solid color, sometimes rich red, canary, or
pale green, but most commonly blue, which forms the arched central
field of the prayer rugs, there is the most delicate alternation of col
ors throughout the several borders, even to the outermost band. In
the ground of the main or middle border stripe, or perhaps in its
chief floral pattern, will be found recurring, in subdued but still dom
inant value, the central blue. In the inner guard stripe, next to the
central field, the blue is almost unnoticeable, giving place to red or
yellow, the alternating color. In the outer one it is stronger, though
not sufficiently prominent to diminish the value of the blue in the
1 The largest Ghiordes antique ever known to have come to New York is eleven feet wide by
fifteen feet long, and is now in the possession of Mr. George Gould. Some years ago a Smyrna
dealer, observing that the old Ghiordes pieces were becoming scarce, bought every specimen obtain
able. Some of them were far gone with age, but he set expert weavers at work repairing them, weav
ing patches in the ragged places, and refinishing the battered sides and ends. The work occupied
over two years, as he had collected, all told, more than 150 pieces. When at la-~t he offered them for
sale, fabulous prices were obtained. At present the factories in Tabriz and at other places through
out the East are producing these rugs, but few of the copies have the attractiveness of the old ones,
probably because the dyes are adulterated with anilines.
5 Fine examples of old Ghiordes have lately come to be used as mats in the framing of pictures.
The body of the rug is cut out, and only the border section left to do service. The effect is striking,
but to the lover of fine rugs the practice will at first seem little short of desecration.
145

ORIENTAL RUGS
broad main stripe. Where the prevailing color is red or the pale
yellow frequent in all Asia Minor prayer rugs (though most common
in the Kulahs), the balance is just as skilfully maintained. To aid
in this adjustment of color-balances the daintiest tints of other colors
are used, pale Nile green and the paler yellow, which serve the light
ing-place of white, but leave softness instead of a glare. Where par
ticularly delicate color tone is required, cotton is sometimes used in
place cf wool for the small white figures.
The patterns used in the Ghiordes border ornament are singu
larly adapted to this skilful distribution of color. They are chiefly
floral, and so insure softness, but the flower forms, instead of presenting
the broad conventional surfaces customary in the Assyrian patterns,
or the severe angular indented style of the Caucasians, consist of
finely broken leaves and blossoms, which assist in the production of
the most minute color areas. While not harshly geometrical, they
are quasi-rectilinear and so drawn as to lend themselves to regular
arrangement. There are in each spray one blossom and two leaves,
two blossoms and one leaf, or three blossoms. These are arranged
within an imaginary square, which, repeated many times, forms the
main border stripe. One corner of the square is occupied by each
leaf or blossom, the remaining corner by the base of the stem and a
few tiny leaves which put out from it. The fine color balance
between the leaves and flowers on each branch is distinctly noticeable
in all the old examples. The border stripe is virtually made up of
these squares, which are so arranged that the stems of the spray point
alternately inward and outward. Thus, in many pieces, the succession
of stems produces the effect of undulation, without resort to the con
ventional vine which is the foundation of the whole Persian system.
The only pronounced trace of this is in the narrow tertiary stripes
which separate the borders proper. These carry a central wave line,
or thin ribbon, and can be found in the majority of Ghiordes fabrics.
146

TURKISH
In some Ghiordes rugs the main border is made up of a pattern
which at first glance suggests a comb. This, examination will show,
is also a leaf form. There is sometimes substituted for the main
border stripe, with its rich floral decoration, a series of narrow stripes,
alternately very dark and very light — almost black and white. This
feature, which is carried to an even greater extreme in the antique
rugs of Kulah than in those of Ghiordes, lends a decided brilliancy of
effect, but interferes somewhat with the fine color adjustment.
In the spandrels over the arch of the prayer rugs there is a
repetition of the pear patterns or some variation of the characteristic
trifoliate border design, still arranged in rows, and usually in an
emphatic shade of the alternating color. The entire oblong is
topped by a horizontal panel in which the principal color is even
more pronounced than in the border stripe. The patterns in this
panel and in a second panel nearly always put in underneath the
field, may be eccentric Anatolian floral forms, but more frequently
appears some phase of the old symbolism, such, for example, as the
swastika. The niche in the Ghiordes prayer rugs has a distinctive form. It
is tall. The angles at the base of the arch are frequently broken ;
the apex of the arch, instead of running to an acute point, is also
broken very near the top, so that its angle is obtuse. In many speci
mens the tree of life pattern, almost omnipresent in prayer rugs, is
without trunk, and consists merely of protruding floral branches,
drawn after the manner of the flower designs in the borders and
spandrels. A feature peculiar to some of the best of these prayer rugs is
that the fringe on the upper end, instead of being the customary
finishing of the ends of the warp, is a separate affair, usually of silk,
sewn fast, and reaching down each side of the rug for the space of a
foot or more. The weft is sometimes cotton, and the finishing of
147

ORIENTAL RUGS
the sides often an extra selvage of silk in pale color and of the finest
weaving. So much for the antique Ghiordes. It cannot be mis
taken, except for the product of the neighboring city of Kulah, and
once seen at its best will scarcely be forgotten.
As for the modern Ghiordes, it marks the maximum of change in
Turkish rugs, as the Feraghan does in Persia ; but the Feraghan has
been loyal to its antique design, while the Ghiordes has not. The
modern fabric is of infinitely coarser texture and astounding color.
The old vegetable tingents are little used save in the finer grades.
Even when the dyes are vegetable products they are mordanted
by chemical methods, and the old formulae for preparing and fixing
them seem to have been lost.
There is no special characteristic in the modern Ghiordes by
which they can be distinguished from other Smyrna carpets, except
that for the sake of economy a cotton thread is used, even in the
best of them — Hamidiehs, Sultaniehs, Osmaniehs — for weft.1
The better grades are known by the greater number of knots
contained in the square inch. The lowest have twenty and the
highest about seventy-five. All that these big moderns retain from
the old Ghiordes is the general border arrangement, and the small
undulating stripe referred to in the description of the antiques. That
is found, in some shape, in all the latter-day fabrics except the fan
taisie rugs. For the rest, the fine patterns so delicately wrought in
the old prayer rugs are abandoned for great and garish ones in the
new carpets. "Big" colors prevail. There is no limit to them.
Harsh reds, greens, terra cottas are common, and all manner of figures
are used to fill the vacant space. Frequently there is a gigantic
medallion in the centre, in red, green, or some other heavy color.
1 In the heavy whole carpets of Asia Minor the same grade names are used by several manu
facturers. A name therefore cannot indicate unerringly one and the same fabric wherever used, since
the materials employed by the different makers vary in merit, and there are "shop" differences in the
dyes and finishing.

TURKISH
The remainder of the field is filled in with all sorts of disjunct
figures, a reversion, unprejudiced critics would say, to the barbarian
tendency found in Kazaks, Turkomans, and the rough products of
Mosul and Southern Anatolia. The pile of the great carpets varies in
length from an inch downward. The Ghiordes weaver of a century
ago would have laughed at these as monstrosities ; to-day they are
sold by the ship load. The big firms who make the farmaish have
in Ghiordes, as in other large factory towns, expert men whose busi
ness it is to establish the scale of the patterns. They weave small
sections of rugs, which are given to the rank and file to work by.
Kulah. — In former times Kulah produced rugs of much the
same pattern and workmanship as those of Ghiordes, from which
town it is less than fifty miles distant. So few and so fine were the
points of difference that even connoisseurs often find it difficult to say
positively of some of the rare examples now offered for sale in this
country whether they be from the looms of one city or the other.
Both have the same brightness, delicacy of pattern and fine though
chaste display of color. In old Kulah prayer rugs red is oftener the
prevailing color than in those of Ghiordes, and the golden brown
color more frequent still — sufficiently so, in fact, to be almost char
acteristic. The niche or pointed arch, measuring from the base of
the spandrel, is seldom so tall, and its sides are more apt to be ser
rated. The inner field of the rug is more frequently filled or partly
filled with small figures than that of the Ghiordes, in which solid color
is a rule. These figures are usually floral, of the Asia Minor char
acter — three-leaved, and with the flowers hanging down them — and
are arranged in rows like the pear and shrub patterns in the field of
Tzitzis and Kabistans, but without the separating lines or bars
found between the rows in those rugs.
Figures of the same sort are repeated transversely to form the
main border of the Kulahs, in lieu of the large individual patterns
149

ORIENTAL RUGS
common to the Ghiordes. The narrow alternating stripes (dark and
light) referred to as appearing in the Ghiordes must really be consid
ered a Kulah mark, from the fact that in the old Kulahs, in
stead of being used chiefly as a substitute for a main stripe pattern,
they are employed in great number, sometimes as many as seven, or
eight, or even ten, inside and outside the main border stripe. Each
of these narrow stripes carries a succession of small, separate devices
in place of a running pattern. The narrow stripe with undulating
pattern, referred to as a characteristic of all Ghiordes, antique and
modern, is rarely found in pure Kulahs, and the peculiar arrangement
of the top fringe of the Ghiordes prayer rugs is absent from the Ku
lahs, except in rare cases where it has been supplied at the dictation
of individual caprice.
The extensive manufacture of rugs for market has been carried
on only for a short time in Kulah, but so rapidly has it increased that
the town is to-day one of the most important rug-making places in
Turkey. Certain of the makers here maintain with heroic fidelity the
use of vegetable dyes, and strive to keep their products up to the old
standard of merit, but for a time the general quality declined so sadly
that government interference became necessary to insure its restor
ation. Oddly enough, much of the weaving is done by men. Car
pets of the better grade are made chiefly by the Christian population.
They taught the art to the Turks, who speedily abandoned it and
went into the raising of rug materials. The Mohammedans now
weave the low-grade carpets. Of late years mohair has been used with
an admixture of wool, for piling what are known as Kulah mohairs.
These rugs look well when new, but instead of improving with age, like
most Oriental fabrics, lose their gloss, and when the mohair becomes
packed, as it does with comparatively brief use, unpleasantly resemble
felt. In design the modern Kulahs have nothing characteristic. The old
models have been abandoned, and like well nigh all the present day
150

TURKISH
Smyrna fabrics they are made from designs furnished them by European
dealers. The Kulah moderns, with woolen pile, run almost entirely to
large sizes. With some few exceptions, they are inferior products ;
often coarser in texture even than the Ghiordes barchanas. The
mohairs are made in all dimensions, from the single door-mat up to
the whole carpet.
Demirdji. — Twenty-five years ago Demirdji, a town of twenty
thousand, was unknown to the rug trade. Its present prosperity
and fame are the outgrowth of misfortune. It is commonly
said that the weavers from Ghiordes journeyed to Demirdji, set up
looms and taught the natives to weave. This is not the fact. In
1880, or thereabouts, Demirdji was partially destroyed by fire, and
the majority of its population were left homeless, some helpless. In
desperation some hundreds of them went to Ghiordes, where at that
time the carpet industry was beginning to assume commercial propor
tions. They learned the trade, and after a short time returned home
and taught it to their townsmen. Skilled dyers went there, and find
ing the water of a good solvent quality, opened shops. The best of
wool is produced on the plateaus east of Demirdji, and to-day the
carpets made there are accounted among the best in Turkey. They
are more compact than the average Ghiordes, the yarn is rather
better selected, and of double or sometimes of triple strand. The
pile is clipped shorter than in the Ghiordes.
The rug trade in this country seems of late to have set its face
most resolutely against the Demirdji rugs, maintaining that they
are practically one with the Ghiordes product, and believing that the
Ghiordes rugs are substituted, while the Demirdji price, about
twenty per cent, above that of Ghiordes, is maintained. But as all
the motives of rug sellers are not altruistic, nor all their practices
wholly ingenuous, the doom of Demirdji need not yet be considered
as altogether sealed. The Demirdji quality known as Hindustanieh,

ORIENTAL RUGS
is a finer and perhaps better finished carpet than any of the staple
products of Oushak. It is very closely trimmed, but has a large
number of knots to the inch, which makes it heavier and more
durable than others which have a longer pile.
Oushak. — Railroad connection with the Mediterranean seaboard
has contributed to make Oushak one of the greatest rug-making
towns in Asia Minor, or for that matter in the world. In the quantity
of its exports, it easily outranks all other seats of rug manufacture.
Growing to keep pace with the enormous demand for its products,
Oushak now numbers its looms and its weavers by thousands. The
population ten years ago was estimated at twenty-five thousand. To
day it has almost if not fully quadrupled, and the value of the exports
amounts to more than two million dollars a year. Few if any small
pieces are made there. The whole working force is applied to the
production of great, deep-piled carpets, which are found in hotels, in
the saloons of steamships and apartments of the kind, as well as in
thousands of dwellings, all the world over. There are half a dozen
varieties, but they are in no wise determined by color or design, as
the work at Oushak is done largely from patterns furnished by Euro
peans, and the colors, instead of following an established local prefer
ence, vary with particular requirements in decoration or the changing
fashions of the West.
The Oushak carpets have a softness to the foot not to be antici
pated from their appearance. This results from the invariable use of
wool for the foundation. In the qualities known as Yaprak and Kir
man the warp is usually dyed in strong colors — red, green, blue, terra
cotta or maroon. The wool of the woof is the same grade as that of
the pile. Some years ago a rug dealer in Smyrna, who has an extensive
trade with the United States, started a steam dyeing establishment in
Oushak, to color all the wools at wholesale with chemical dyes.
152

Plate XV. Sehna Khilim
6.4 ^ 5.2
Property of the A uthor
The Sehna product is by far the finest of any known in the khilim stitch,
and has all the appearance of completeness which marks the piled fabrics of
Sehna, which, indeed, the khilims follow rather closely in design and color.
The pattern is the close form of the Herati, for the centre, and Sehna has devel
oped it to a greater measure of perfection than any other weaving district
except Feraghan, where, as will be seen, by Plate XIX, it is used with almost
equal perfection. In border, the fine khilims do not usually employ the Herati
stripes which are found in nearly all the piled rugs. This really is a fine artistic
touch, since the small vine and flower design here used is much more appro
priate in a fabric of such extreme lightness as the khilim. In the matter of
weight, this piece itself is little more than a shawl, and the threads with which
the pattern is woven are quite as fine as many of those used in the making of
lace. It is the habit of the East to wash the khilims as one washes a garment,
and even where the dyes are vegetable and thoroughly fast, this process and
the subsequent drying in the sun makes very strong colors take on a soothing
softness. Nothing could be more delicate than the rose-pink of this covering.
which by the aid of the blue is converted in its general effect to something
very like violet.

TURKISH
Fortunately for the native dyers, and probably for the entire industry,
the undertaking met with no success. The water at Oushak is of
such remarkable quality that much of the wool from other districts is
brought there for washing, but of late much of the Oushak wool has
been poorly washed.
The several denominations of Oushak rugs differ principally in
texture. The ordinary Oushak, generally called Kirman, has from
twenty-five to fifty knots to the square inch, and the Gulistan, and
Enile or Inely, from fifty to ninety. The Gulistans are finer, in many
respects, than the E niles.
The Yapraks — the original Oushak carpets — can be singled out
from the fact that they are coarsest of all, and ordinarily contain only
two colors, red and blue, or red and green. The warp and weft are
dyed in one of them, and the pattern, in the alternating color, is as
plainly visible on the back as on the front of the carpet. The Kir-
mans are softer than the other varieties.
Carpets very like the best of those of Oushak are now made in
Kutayah, whither master artisans were sent from Oushak to set up
the looms and teach the people the required method of weaving.
Kutayah does not, however, figure often as a trade name. The pro
ducts of its looms are sold under the Oushak or Ghiordes classifica
tions. Many of them are extremely good fabrics, following in the
quality of foundations and some points of finish, both of ends and
sides, the heavier of the Bergamo rugs. They are, of course, so
much heavier than any Bergamo, and so altogether different in col
oring and design, that their small textile resemblance affords not the
slightest aid to identification. They affect large central fields of
plain color, blue or red, or some such faint fretted diaper as is found
in the grounds of Hamadan and Samarkand. The medallions and
rectangular corner ornaments, as well as the borders, are generally
semi-geometrical in character and small in proportion to the carpet
153

ORIENTAL RUGS
Bergamo and Ladik. — Nowhere does the wealth of historic sug
gestion which lives in Oriental carpets assail the mind with more force
than in the fabrics which, in comparatively small number, but until
lately inversely good quality, come from the neighborhood of these
two old towns, one lying to the north of Smyrna, the other farther
to the east, on the main highway from the west coast to the
Euphrates. Bergamo, as Pergamos, was a stronghold of Christianity in its
earliest periods, and site of one of the seven churches mentioned in
the Apocalypse. But centuries before that they were centres of civ
ilization. Pergamos, founded, according to tradition, by a son of
Hercules, became after innumerable wars the home of royal magni
ficence. Its rulers discarded the barbarism of the strictly Oriental
races, and espoused Hellenic art and learning. The Roman arms
perpetuated its greatness. It was renowned in its time for libraries,
altars, and sacred groves. It was the chief shrine of Asclepius, and
all the culture of the East came to it for one purpose or another.
The sculptures on its giant altar of Jupiter were famous throughout
the world, and the excavations made there in recent years by German
archaeologists have shed more light, it is said, upon the art and archi
tecture of Grecian antiquity than any others in the Orient.
Ladik, a corruption of Laodicea, is one of several cities, scattered
through the Orient, which bore the name. It is situated some dis
tance northwest of Konieh. This locality, too, retains relics of an
cient grandeur. Fragments of superb architecture are still found, and
coins of the Roman emperors are frequently turned up from the soil
under which its ruins lie buried.
The towns have, of course, fallen victims to that long decadence
which has made of all Asia Minor a great burial-ground of splendor,
but their rugs have retained, with a tenacity that is comforting, some
thing of high artistic character. These have been almost the only
154

TURKISH
districts within the range of Smyrniote influence which have not
yielded outright to the blandishments of commerce and permitted
themselves to become converted wholly into sweat shops.
Their old fabrics have so many points in common that it is diffi
cult to define the points of variance. In both the combinations of
color are superb. In no other fabrics made are there to be found
finer displays of red, crimson, yellow and blue. In the Bergamo sed
jadeh the figures are notably bold, and large in proportion to the size
of the fabric. This and their artistic elaboration distinguish them
instantly from other Turkish carpets. There is more of the preten
tious unity of design which marks the high-class Persian fabrics, and
the best examples have been mistaken, even by persons well versed,
for the early Saracenic masterpieces of Cordova and Morocco. The
design starts from a central point, and the figures and areas balance,
both in respect of color and location, and rich effects are produced by
gorgeous massing as well as by a profusion of small and graceful
forms. The texture is a little coarser and the pile a little longer than
in the ancient Ghiordes.
In most of the points concerning which experts are critical the
Ladiks are accounted the better fabrics of the two. They are glos
sier, and somewhat superior in material. They have more of bright
ness and life than the Bergamo, and are of heavier yarn and more
closely woven. They show a liberal use of white and scarlet, in con
trast with the madder reds which prevail in the Bergamo. Ladik
rugs resemble in some respects the antique models of Ghiordes, and
even more those of Kulah, particularly the prayer rugs, in which red
and yellow prevail as tonic colors. The Kulah small stripes, how
ever, are not often found in the Ladiks.
The preservation of the fine old designs has been accomplished
by almost slavish copying. It is not unusual to find a Ladik prayer
rug which, though forty or fifty years old, gives textile proof that it
155

ORIENTAL RUGS
was scrupulously copied from an older fabric. It must be confessed
that a deterioration has of late been manifest. At first it was shown
in the omission of the smaller details of the design, and a tendency
to a loose texture. Since the railroad's invasion of this part of the
Peninsula the quantity of the rugs shipped out has increased vastly,
while the quality has in large measure declined. Bergamo and Ladik
features, though in very crude form, are now found in coarse and
inferior small pieces which are offered in large numbers under the
name of Bergamo, but which in color and design are unspeakably
remote from the genuine antique products. The designs in these
new rugs are Turanian, nomadic, heterogeneous, and the color shock
ing. Whether any respectable number of these are actually made in
the region of Ladik and Bergamo or not it is hard to say. They
certainly are a sad mockery of the name.
That the genuine products are still to be had, however, at ade
quate price, is beyond dispute. In a letter written from Eski-Shehr
Mr. Denotovich says :
" About two hours' travel by rail south of this place is a station
called Sarain. Ladik is some hours' horseback ride from the railroad
at that point. I visited the neighborhood some days ago, and found
a fairly good number of namazlik, odjaklik and even sedjadeh, of the
old quality and design, offered for sale in the bazaars. The weavers
and merchants are fully alive to the superior quality of the rugs, and
demand a good price for them. The dealers inform me that the
making of that class of rugs is still carried on by the inhabitants to
the westward of Sarain, in the foothills of the mountains which lie
between Ladik and Bergamo."
The rugs of both Bergamo and Ladik are in the smaller sizes.
They run from three to six feet wide by four to eight feet long, and
are inclined to be considerably wider in proportion to length than
other Asia Minor rugs. The rich general color effect is heightened
156

TURKISH
in both varieties by dyeing the foundation threads in the princi
pal color of the piled design. The weft is always colored, and,
closely woven upon three or four outside threads of the warp, in the
khilim stitch, forms a tinted selvage at the sides, in harmony with the
general tone of the rug. Warp and weft are woven into a two- or
three-inch red web at the ends, usually striped with yellow or blue.
Beyond this the warp forms a small loose fringe, or sometimes a nar
row selvage like that of the old Koniehs, which are made nearby.
In some of the older and finer examples the finishing of the ends is
more elaborate, and even in the coarse and irregular modern substi
tutes, which retain no vestige of the artistic merit of the antiques,
the web at the ends appears inwrought with its small device indica
tive of superstitious feeling.
Ak-Hissar. — This name means the " white citadel." As ordinarily
spoken it is AxaV, with a decided emphasis on the final syllable. The
town lies in the mountains, less than a hundred miles northward from
Smyrna. It was here, about twelve years ago, that rugs were first
manufactured in any quantity from mohair. The stubbornness of the
Angora goat's-hair, which had been imported to the town in 1885,
made spinning it a difficult task, but a -workable yarn was finally ob
tained by combining it with wool. The output of Ak-Hissar consisted,
until lately, almost wholly of these mohairs. They are of the same
general quality as those made in Kulah, and subject to the same com
ment. The pile packs and loses softness after a little wear. Both
warp and weft are of coarse wool.
When the mohair rugs were first placed upon the market, and
for some time thereafter, they commanded a higher price than almost
any of the Smyrna carpets, but the quotations on them nowadays are
extremely low. The little success achieved by the mohair fabrics has
led the weavers of Ak-Hissar to work in wool yarns. They make car
pets very similar to those of Ghiordes and Oushak.
157

ORIENTAL RUGS
Meles, or Carian. — In some of the seacoast towns to the south
of Smyrna, and many of the scattered islands of the sea, rugs are
made which bear the name Meles (probably because their primary
market-place is Milassa, or Melesso), or Carian, from the ancient
name of southwestern Asia Minor. They are also called Makri, from
the Gulf of Makri, near which Melesso is situated. The name Makri
has been applied to the general product of the coast districts of south
ern Asia Minor and Syria, and some of the fabrics found in these
regions have the broad Turkman web at the ends, similar to that seen
in the Bokharas, Afghans and Yuruks. As a rule the Meles rugs
are small, and the texture is comparatively coarse. The old examples,
now rare, are in rich but mellow color, abounding in a peculiar quality
of red and a yellow such as marks some exceptional Ladik pieces.
The colors in the moderns are largely aniline, and are almost offen
sive in their brilliancy and not harmoniously blended in the weaving.
The red conspicuous in new Meles rugs is of a peculiar metallic quality
bordering closely upon cerise, and yet retaining the solidity of a pure
carmine. It generally appears in striking mass in the central field,
but the smaller patterns in the border are so enlivened with it that
the fabric can hardly be accused of inconsistency. The other colors,
too, notably the yellows, light blues and greens, are of a commen
surate value. All are garish, but after the rugs have been in use for
a time, and the colors have had opportunity to fade, some of them
are really attractive. The designs lack coordination in their smaller
elements ; they impress one as being jumbled. With more of unity
the extravagant colors might seem less tawdry, but the mixture of
small detached figures presents nothing to chain the attention, and
so the entire character of the rug is imparted by the hues. The de
signs are heterogeneous, too ; this is particularly apparent in the bor
ders. In one rug the Caucasian latch-hook is prominent, while in the
next the character most often repeated is the Persian pear.
158

TURKISH
The Ghiordes knot is used ; the warp is of two- or three-strand
wool, often colored at the ends in some cheap-looking shade of light
blue, or perhaps a violent pink, and left to form a loose, unattractive
fringe of considerable length. The weft is usually of cotton, and is
worked around three or four outside threads of the warp, forming
a compact selvage for the sides.

159

XI
PERSIAN
CANCELLING from consideration perhaps as many as half
a dozen varieties of Caucasian and Asia Minor rugs, well
nigh all of great refinement that remains in the Oriental
carpets of the present day belongs to Persia. It is there that the
Eastern carpet as an art product had its first home, and there, unless
some sudden and potent saving force intervenes, will be its last. Syria,
Arabia, and, in an original artistic sense, India, as producing coun
tries, have passed from the reckoning. Turkey and Turkestan are
going. It must be laid to the credit of Persia that, despite her de
cadence as a state and the painful decline of nearly all her indus
tries, a strenuous effort is being made to uphold the quality of the
carpets, in the face of demoralizing influences which have proved the
undoing of the craft in other sections of the East. The custom
of making truly fine carpets took root in Turkey, but only at some
what isolated points. The Greek culture, warring so vigorously
against Orientalism, repelled the carpet. It was only where the Per
sian influence gained indisputable foothold that the art survived in
aught resembling elegance, and its practitioners harked back always
to Persia as an exemplar. The native. artistic spirit of Persia is longer-
lived, as it is more spontaneous, but it is next to impossible to escape
1 60

Plate XVI. Herez Prayer Rug
6.1 x 4.8
Property of the A uthor
This is in the strong, heavy drawing almost universal in the Herez fabrics.
The rug is new, but the design is not of modern making. In a collection of
old pieces I have seen one or two antiques that were quite similar in figuration,
although wrought with a blue ground. The colors here are the same as are
found in the Herez and Gorevan large carpets, although there they appear in
huge medallions. At first glance, the prayer-arch formation is scarcely ap
parent, but when seen is found to be maintained throughout the whole length
of the rug, with repeated arches in heavy blue lines, and the tree feature run
ning through the middle. The sides of the pattern are well balanced, but the
devices, mostly floral, are very odd in character. In the border the Chinese
cloud-band is repeated, a mark suggestive of the great prevalence of Mongol
blood in the population of Azerbijan.

PERSIAN
the conclusion that these are its latter days. The mystery of Per
sia, the romance of it, are being dissipated at last. The hand of the
West, or to be more literal, the North, is upon it. It and its arts
are going the way of all the rest of the Orient, and though some
souls may cling to tradition, and strain their eyes to catch " the
light's last glimmer," the inevitable has happened. Persia has become
a business field. Its artisans are no longer fancy free, and even
when left to their own devices are disappointing. Its idealism, its in
vention, its imagination, and even its manual deftness have in great
measure departed. Commerce skurries along, like a man with a sack,
in the path where splendor has gone by, picking up fragments. He
mounts a box, now and then, to auction to the rest of the world the
treasures and the gewgaws he has found.
Even so, the finest rugs come to-day, as they always have, out of
Persia, but the fabrics which were once artistic marvels, as well as
models, are now made, and too often poorly made, for market. It is
not too much to say, however, that the standard in carpets is being
upheld more sturdily than anything else that the country produces.
This is due in part to the fact that until recently the rug-producing
districts of Persia have been a terra incognita to the Western buyers,
and the difficulties of inland travel are apt to remain an obstacle for
some time to come. Even the Constantinople dealers have found it
more to their comfort and about as much to their profit, to carry on
their dealings with the Persian weavers from the easy distance of
Stamboul, through agents resident in Persia. They have foregone
thus all accurate knowledge of the localities where the various Persian
fabrics are produced, and have contented themselves with nomen
clature which is erroneous chiefly because it is long out of date.
America, which has taken its knowledge at second, third or fourth
hand from them, has had slender notion of the Persian classifications.
But if knowledge has gone out in scant measure, the industrial

ORIENTAL RUGS
evils of the West have come into Persia in full volume, and the
weavers have been only too prone to welcome them. Now — rather
late in the day to be sure, but still in time to prove of infinite service
 the authoritative forces of the Empire have bestirred themselves to
check the spread of bad color and sham workmanship. And what
ever criticism may be passed on the Persian polity in other respects,
it must be credited with good intent in this. In the chapter on Dyers
and Dyes I have cited the law lately issued by the Shah, prohibiting
the importation of aniline colors. That it was the outcome of Euro
pean suggestion need not detract from the wisdom of His Majesty in
perceiving its ultimate worth to his Empire, and that he is sincere in
his intention to enforce it has had ample proof. During my brief
stay in the city of Tabriz there were destroyed, at public burning in
the caravanserai of the custom house, over four thousand pounds of
aniline dye, sufficient, had it not been intercepted by the officials, to have
spoiled many a batman1 of honest wool. The time was more than
ripe for a positive reiteration of the royal disapproval of anilines, for
a cursory journey through the bazaars of any Persian town shows the
chemical dyes largely in preponderance, and it is difficult, and in
many places impossible, to find embroideries or fabrics of any sort
which contain only the old-fashioned colors.
The carpet interests at Tabriz have been persistent in their con
tention for good dyes, since the only ground for criticism adverse to
the Tabriz products was that the colors were not fast. The effort
to maintain a high standard of excellence in the output of the Tabriz
looms has been continuous, and the results good in the main, but it
seems, contemplating all the conditions, to have been rightly observed,
in an earlier chapter of this volume, that heretofore the real con
servative force has been among the less polished tribes. Probably the
most trustworthy Persian rugs, "by and large," to be had in the
1 About ten pounds. 162

PERSIAN
American market to-day are those made in remote parts of Eastern,
Western and Southern Persia. It is in these, chiefly, that one finds
the admirable characteristics both of color and weaving, which once
distinguished the products of the middle district as well. This is
assuming that we are speaking of the modern fabrics, and not of the
half-worn but still beautiful creations of other days. It is true that
European designers are maintained by the rug manufacturers at
Sultanabad, and that designs made up of Oriental elements but with
novel color combinations are sent from America to Tabriz to be
wrought, as they are to India and Turkey, but Persian designers are
still at work in the bazaars of Tabriz, and the dwellers in the moun
tains are weaving still the old designs, to some of which reference has
been made in the chapter on Design.
The change of boundaries which Persia has gradually undergone
has stripped from her some large and important rug-making districts,
but the carpets from such parts, with some few exceptions, are lack
ing in what is recognized as distinctive Persian character. All the
fabrics illustrative of Persian style and method are still made in pro
vinces which remain under dominion of the Shah, and now and then
in them is found a gleam of the old glory.
A stout profession of faith in the abiding capabilities of the Per
sian weaver is made by Mr. Sidney A. T. Churchill, for many years
secretary of the British Legation at Teheran. He says, summing up
his review of the carpet industry of Persia :
" When the difficulties of the weaver are considered ; when one
remembers the very little remuneration the weavers receive for their
labor ; when one reflects that they are utterly uneducated, living in
squalor — more often in abject misery, fighting for bare existence — in
a manner the most remote from inducing to art combination and high
tone in color harmony, with scarcely any encouragement beyond
what comes from earning a miserable means of existence ; when to
163

ORIENTAL RUGS
these troubles one adds the seizing of labor at one fell swoop by those
in authority, visitation of epidemics, carrying off the weaver and bread
winner of a family or retarding her work, and the embarrassments of
maternity, the wonder is, not that the carpet industry of the present
day in Persia should have degenerated, but that under such misfor
tunes it should even exist.
"Nevertheless, I am convinced that with sufficient inducement
and encouragement the Persian weaver of to-day could be got to equal
the best efforts of his predecessors, if not to excel them."
Whether his sanguine view of the possibilities is warranted or
not, there is abundant proof that in his description of the drawbacks
which beset the weaver Mr. Churchill was well within the facts, and
the conditions have, if anything, grown more severe in the five years
that have passed since his departure from Persia. Journeying down
from Julfa, the customs port on the Aras river, where the Russian
and Persian borders meet, the story of poverty and depression is to
be read all too plainly. Nothing is in plenty, save tea and vermin.
These are the staples at every village khan and roadside caravan
serai. In one or two towns I saw, through open gateways in the mud
walls, a small loom or two, with rugs in process of making. The
designs were pleasing, partaking in a measure of the characteristics
of both Persia as now recognized and the Caucasian country which
long ago passed from Persian control. This commingling of patterns
made them resemble to some extent the weavings of Shiraz, but the
colors, it was clear at a glance, left much to be desired. As we passed
along the road which is the main highway between Russia and the
Shah's domain, the entire»country was in a state of excitement over
the expected advent of the ruler, who was then on his way out from
Teheran to seek treatment at the health resorts of Europe. Plans
had been made for his reception all along the route, and carpets, new
and indisputably bright, had been hung up to cover some part of the
164

PERSIAN
gray walls, the dreary monotone of mud. But for all the gaiety of
the fabrics, and the laudable purpose they served, it took only half an
eye to see that the dyes were aniline, of a sort to make the author of
the prohibitive law shudder, had he vouchsafed them any critical atten
tion. In the mountain districts south, east and west of Tabriz, how
ever, and throughout the uplands along the Turkish border, there are
some fast dyes and capital workmanship, and it is noteworthy that save
for some of the personally conducted carpets turned out from the
looms of Tabriz, the weavings of the tribeswomen enjoy the greatest
favor of any of the fabrics of Persia. The reason is plain. They
are done at leisure, without any spur to haste, and altogether, much in
the old fashion. The substitution of Turkoman elements, in
many of the Persian loom products, for the old Persian designs, is
easily understood, when it is remembered that the Persian of to-day
is a transplanted Turk, that the language used over the greater part
of the empire is a peculiar form of Turkish, and that the pure
Persian, the Iranian, is a rara avis in the land whose name he wears.
In northern Persia, at least, the best carpets of tribal manu
facture are woven by the Kurds, who bring them to market at Tabriz,
in considerable quantities. They ask rousing prices for the goods
upon arrival, but are kept upon tenter-hooks by the dealers until,
weary of the atmosphere of the crowded city, after a fortnight of
bootless waiting they dispose of their load for what it will readily
bring, and go back to their tents in the mountains and their endless
feuds. But the low prices at which the carpets are got by the Persian or
Armenian merchant do not maintain in his dealing with his customer,
for with the advent of a prospective buyer from the West the figures
are raised, and kept up until he either must purchase at about the
price demanded in Constantinople, or go home empty-handed. It is a
165

ORIENTAL RUGS
familiar saying in the East that it takes two Jews to beat one Armen
ian, and six Armenians to beat one Persian.
It is worthy of remark that throughout Persia the medallion idea
is taking the place of the old diaper patterns. Even in such terehs
as the Herati, the Djushaghan and even the minute all-over designs
of Sehna, the medallion has been introduced, in one form or another.
There are medallion centres, with the ground about them filled with
the old device, but gradually the space covered in that way is being
diminished, and solid grounds substituted, for the sole purpose, appar
ently, of saving time and labor. Fortunately there are a few designs,
such as the Shah Abbas and the Mina Khani, which do not lend
themselves readily to that sort of treatment.
AZERBIJAN FABRICS
Important as the part has been which this northernmost province
has played in all the history of Persia, ancient and modern, and for
that matter in the history of nations which preceded Persia, little has
been heard of it as a carpet-producing field until recently. From its
geographical position Azerbijan has been a battle-ground of the
peoples on either side of it, and since fighting was suspended has
served as chief point of contact between Persia and the Northern and
Western civilization. Its population, while for the most part Turk
ish, is diversified by strong representation of other races. The pro
vince is a part of ancient Armenia, and relics of Armenian domination
are many. In the eastern section, and particularly in Tabriz, the
Mussulmans are Shiahs of the most fanatical type, and in one or two
instances, when the matter has come to a test in temporal affairs, the
influence of the mollahs has outweighed that of the Shah and
his ministers. Around Urumieh, in the west, are Sunni Mo
hammedans, Chaldeans, Armenians and Kurds of a rough and
lawless type. It is no uncommon thing, in the bazaars of Tabriz,
during the month of Muharem, to come upon a religious gathering at
1 66

PERSIAN
noonday. Fifty or perhaps a hundred Persian merchants sit
grouped about upon their outspread carpets, or perhaps upon the
bales of goods, their silken robes wrapped around them and their
huge lamb's-wool caps set decorously at a backward angle, listening
to the voluble harangue of a mollah, who, perched on an improvised
pedestal above them, lectures on the Prophet's life, and more espe
cially on the martyrdom of the Holy Family, loyalty to whom is the
vital matter of the Shiah faith.
The making of carpets in Azerbijan is as old as the province, but
it was not until the vast trade sprang up in Tabriz that the Azerbijan
fabrics were known as such. All the industry here has practically
been developed since 1890. Prior to that Hamadan was the market
place for the carpets of all that part of Persia, and thence it arose
that the rugs of Azerbijan were classified as Hamadan products.
Even the Kurd weavings found their market in Hamadan. The
bales were made up there, and the whole output of the region, in
effect, shipped from there by long camel trains to Trebizond, and so
to the West. Fifteen years ago one or two New York buyers made
their way to Tabriz, despite all obstacles, in the hope of securing
fabulous bargains in all sorts and quantities of rugs. They found
nothing at all.
Some years later, more for convenience in the conduct of money
transactions than anything else, the trade of the districts to the south
and east began to go to Tabriz, and the carpet industry took on new
life there. To-day the output of the province is very large, not alone
the rugs made in the villages, but. the thoroughgoing fabrics of
Tabriz itself, which, it must be confessed, are largely the result of
European stimulation. There is all possible diversity in the carpets
of Azerbijan. Among them are found the crudest of hill products, as
well as the ornate fabrics made by boy weavers, under the supervision
of the most skilful loom masters. And in both classes the work
167

ORIENTAL RUGS
done in this hitherto unvaunted region is certainly equal, if not
superior, to any carpet-making known in Persia at the present time.
Tabriz. — The type of carpet which has come to be known as
representative of Tabriz bears the name of Kermanshah, generally,
in Western markets. This has given rise to an erroneous belief that
the carpets from which the Tabriz variety has been developed were
the product of the old outpost town of Kermanshah in the mountains
of Ardelan, the province which lies immediately to the south of Azer
bijan, and is included in the vaguely defined territory known as Kur
distan. The model on which the Tabriz rugs were really designed
is the ornamental and richly colored fabric of Kirman in southern
Persia, a region which has a larger proportion of pure Persian popu
lation than any other in the realm, and which by reason of its re
moteness from the tracks of travel has kept its pristine character to a
considerable degree. A certain part of the district bears the name
Kirmanshahan or Kirmanshah, and thence the confusion arose.
The Tabriz rugs of this order have also taken on some medal
lion features of the northern weavings, a characteristic which marks
the so-called Sarakhs, made by the Turkoman settlers around Bijar
in the Gehrous district, and in certain parts of the country around
Hamadan. Upon this as a foundation idea has been wrought all the
floral richness in which the old Persian artists were so fertile. The
result is a carpet which for ornamental quality, opulence of color and
fineness of texture has fairly outdone the present product, at least, of
Kirman itself. It is not easy to believe that any modern fabric con
structed for practical use, of like material and in like method, has
surpassed or is likely to surpass the carpets of Tabriz in craftsmanship.
They are as nearly perfect as they can be made by scrupulous care in
the selection of the yarn, loyal adherence to textile traditions which are
accounted equivalent to gospel, mastery of color combination, elabor
ate taste and versatility in design, united to ability and thoroughness
168

Plate XVII. Old Persian Silk Prayer Rug
5-5x3-8
From the Marquand Collection
Singularly enough, this rug is identical in design with that which occupied
this same place in the earlier editions of this book, save for small differences in
the floral array and coloring, which two centuries' difference in their ages would
quite justify. The other — and younger — rug was made in Shiraz, as the parti
colored over-casting, the figured webs and the tassels at the corners told plainly.
Whence this far older fabric comes it is quite impossible to say, since the fin
ishings have all been worn away. The similarity in design would, as the reader
is aware, not be conclusive. But it is plain, since this piece is so very much
older than the other, that it was parent to tire other. Whether this rug itself
was the first woven in this design, or is itself a copy, is a thing no man can
know. " At any rate the god whom the first designer worshipped must have
been a generous deity, for throughout it tells a story of plenty and gladness.
The idea of actual growth and continued blessing is especially emphasized by
the jardiniere, which is the central feature of the design, and from which spring
in great prodigality practically all the flowers that Persia knows. There is cer
tainly no floral form to be found in any Iranian carpet design, old or new, that
does not smile at us from this rug. The rose, the hare-bell, the henna, the
poppy and all the rest, even down to the little blue forget-me-not, all are here.
crowded as closely as the weaver could crowd them and keep the balance of
the design, and that he has done perfectly."

PERSIAN
in the art of weaving. And yet, the true Persian loves better the
mellow richness of the old Feraghan or Djushaghan, the fine-wrought
harmonies of Sehna, or even the flowery profusions which still bear
the names of Teheran and Ispahan.
The reason for his preference is plain. It is atmospheric. There
is little of spontaneity in the Tabriz carpets. They are brilliant,
showy, pictorial, beautiful ; but they are suggestive of fresco. To
the Iranian they sniff of lacquer. They are framed panels,
splendid, to be sure, but formal. To say that they are not Oriental
is a great contradiction, truly, and one that some persons will deny,
but it is nevertheless true that although representing something
nearly akin to perfection in every process by which the East produces
its textiles, the majority of Tabriz fabrics are less Eastern than many
of the rude nomad rugs.
The type of Tabriz is this : A central field, the color of ivory yel
lowed by age; clear and fine against it a superbly drawn, waving
band of ruby red, prisoning in the corner spaces, rich, perfectly tinted
blooms of the lotus, in pink upon a fawn ground, and other flowers of
many colors, and shapely leaves, spreading into the shoulders of the
corner areas, carried on exquisite stalks and vines of vernal green.
In the middle of the broad field of ivory a medallion, traced in un
dulating curves of deep heliotrope. Growing out of this at either
end, ornate pendants, heart-shaped, representations of the great lamps
which hang in the mosques. All this shapely ornament filled with
flowers and green leaves, upon an old rose ground, and wrought to
gether with arabesques of bronze. The main border stripes ground
ed in deep Persian red or bright blue, with splendid floral devices,
and all the intervening spaces overlaid with faint, shadow tracery of
graceful leaf forms, relieved at brief intervals with other flowers.
Tiny floral patterns in the borders, in deep dull red and green, upon
bands of misty blue. 169

ORIENTAL RUGS
It sounds very like a catalogue, but it is Tabriz. And this bril
liant panel, so finely toned and shaded in difficult colors, takes on an
added finish and lustre from the masterly weaving. The fineness of
the knots which, tied one by one, have grown into such a creation, is
incredible when it is remembered that the Turkish system is used.
Into a square inch of this space, oftentimes, as many as three -or four
hundred knots are tied. Hardness, perfect compactness, these are
the final desiderata of the Tabriz rug. In this they follow the
Kirman. When carpet manufacture first began to take on im
portance in Tabriz, Kirman weavers were brought to oversee it, and
their products, made on the Kirman designs, set the pattern for others,
who speedily took hold of the work. The designs gained popularity
at once, but the Azerbijan weavers, whose training had been wholly
in the Turkish school, persisted in the use of what has been termed
the Ghiordes knot. At first the weaving was done in houses, after
the primitive custom, and the carpets delivered to the merchants upon
completion. The immediate favor which they found, from the fact
that they took the place of the then scarce fabrics of Kirman, led to
the establishment of factories, with greater or smaller numbers of
looms, and the general installment of the Kirman manner of manu
facture. In Kirman, as will be shown elsewhere, the best weaving
had been done, time out of mind, by boys, under the direction of a
loom master. This became the system in Tabriz, and every year sees
addition to the number and capacity of these establishments. The
carpet industry seems to grow in volume as the city's other arts and
its general prosperity decline. Even now many rugs are made in the
houses, on private speculation, but the tendency is altogether toward
centralization, and some of the factories have as many as two hun
dred and fifty looms in operation.
Lads of seven or eight years sit, half a dozen or more in a row,
before giant frames, tying in the knots with a swiftness and accu-
170

PERSIAN
racy which are nothing short of phenomenal. The eye of the unini
tiated will strive in vain to follow the magical twistings of those small
fingers. For the double purpose of drawing the yarns through from
the back and cutting them when once the knot is made fast, the
small weavers are equipped with a knife, the blade of which is beaten
into a hook at the point, something after the fashion of a crochet-
needle. It serves them in lieu of several extra fingers, and they man
age it as expertly as they do their own small digits. In no land have
I seen a more intelligent lot of boys than the solemn, black-eyed
midgets who with big, black rimless wool caps on the backs of their
close-shaven polls, sit like old men and weave the superb color panels
of Tabriz. In the factory of Mr. Hildebrand F. Stevens, whose guest I had
the good fortune to be, there was being woven, at the time of my
visit to the Azerbijan capital, a copy of the renowned mosque carpet
of Ardebil (Plate XXII), now among the treasures of the South Ken
sington Museum. This famous original is perhaps without a peer in
the world ; a masterpiece of color, in the most intricate of old Persian
designs. And the master of the loom on which the reproduction was
being wrought was a lad of twelve years. Little, pale-faced, bowed
with his burden of responsibility, he spent the long summer days
walking up and down behind the eight or nine youngsters, some
smaller than himself, who in that dim and dusty place were tying in
the wondrous flower traceries over which the greatest Persian
designer, some four hundred years ago, toiled in the palace at
Kashan. I scarcely hope to see the American boy of twelve, with
out a day's schooling or an A, B, C to his name, who can carry on his
small shoulders a load like that, or keep that maze of colors in his
head. In the particular sort of Tabriz carpets of which we have spok
en, it is rarely that figures of birds, animals or human beings are
171

ORIENTAL RUGS
used. In this the Tabriz designs have departed from the Kirman
custom, but other designs are employed which follow the model of
the Saruks, the fine fabrics made in Feraghan. In such pieces,
which affect a more spontaneous floral treatment, the birds and other
forms will be found. In fact, the manufacture in Tabriz, at the pres
ent time, is coming to include all the old and fine designs. Many
carpets are being made on the designs of the kalin kiars, or printed
panels, sold in such quantities in Ispahan, and used so widely over
Persia for hangings both on walls and ceilings. Old Asia Minor
rugs are also copied, and the weavers have lately gone so far as to
take the designs of Valenciennes and other European laces, which
were borrowed from Persia centuries ago by the makers of fabrics
in Italy, France and Spain.
A favorite device for borders in Tabriz rugs is a succession of
small medallions containing inscriptions in the Persian characters.
It is common to say that these writings in the "cartouches" are
passages from the Koran, but it is seldom the fact. They are more
frequently verses from the Persian poets.
The greatest drawback, at present, to the success of the Tabriz
fabrics is a suspicion of looseness in some of the dyes, notably the
blue. I made this matter the subject of some inquiry and observa
tion, and though the criticism on the durability of the colors seems
overdone it is plain that Mr. Benjamin, former United States
minister to Persia, spoke wittingly when in a passage elsewhere cited,
he bewailed the lost art of making Persian blue. The dyers in the
great Persian rug centres frankly admit their inability to make the
old-time colors.
In Tabriz they lay the blame, and with some appearance of rea
son, to the water, which though brought from the outlying districts
gathers a large amount of impurity in its flow, and in Tabriz is dirty
as well as unhealthy. The floating particles in the water take the
172

PERSIAN
color and are deposited as dust upon the wool. This is, in part cer
tainly, the cause of the obstinate blue shadows which are sometimes
to be seen tingeing the white, ivory and yellow areas.1 It is found,
however, that washing the rug in cold water, sometimes for three or
four days, cleanses it of this dye-dust, and leaves it clear and bright.
So far as I was able to learn, the dyes now used in Tabriz, for carpet
purposes, are vegetable. One cogent reason for this has been given.
That they will run under the application of water is vehemently
denied, but that they will show the tenacity of the ancient colors, un
der exposure to the sun, is not, I think, to be looked for yet.
The warp of the Tabriz carpets is cotton, and in a few of the
finer wool pieces silk is used. Formerly it was customary to dye the
weft, usually with the dominant color in the carpet, and to weave with
it a narrow web at the ends. This has been abandoned and the ends
are now finished in white after the manner of most Persian fabrics.
In fineness the Tabriz work varies between ten by ten and
twenty by twenty knots. The average carpet has about thirteen by
thirteen, or one hundred and sixty-nine knots to the square inch.
The surface is trimmed close and industrious beating with steel combs
makes the fabrics very compact. There is a peculiar arrangement of
warp in these carpets, one set of threads lying clear forward of the
other, so that when the knot is tied, albeit the Turkish method is
used, every ridge visible on the back indicates a row of knots, unlike
the more loosely-woven Turkish fabrics, in which two rows are visible
on the back for every actual row of knots. For greater solidity, also,
a heavy cotton cord, of the same weight as that used in the warp, is
sometimes run straight across between the forward and rear warp-
1 " Among the real, good old Persian carpets there are very few patterns, though coloring and
borders vary considerably. A good carpet, if new, is always stiff; the ends, when doubled, should
meet evenly. There must be no creases nor any signs on the wrong side of darning or ' fine drawing '
having been resorted to for taking out creases, and there must be no blue in the white cotton fringe at
the ends. Carpets with much white are prized, as the white becomes primrose, a color which wears
well." — Mrs. Bishop: " fourneys in Persia and Kurdistan." '73

ORIENTAL RUGS
threads, and between the rows of knots. The weft itself, a lighter
affair, takes in the alternate threads of warp front and back, in the
regular way. This filling is a trick the Tabriz weavers have learned
from their neighbors of Kurdistan.
There are other imitations of the Kirman rugs made in late
years, notable among them those woven at Herek-keui, in Turkey,'
near Ismid, on the Sea of Marmora. The industry there is the fruit
of Imperial care for the people of Turkey. Silk is plentiful in the
neighborhood and wool easily obtained. So great, indeed, is the
plentitude of silk that even in the wool rugs of Herek-keui the central
panels are often woven of it. The Sultan, like the Tabrizlis, brought
Kirman weavers to instruct his subjects, and they found apt pupils.
The work done here is chiefly the copying of old Persian or Ghiordes
pieces, and the reversed direction of the stitches in many of the pro
ducts shows the skilled rug handler that the weavers, using the back
of the original for their model, have worked the new rug upside
down. The field of Herek-keui is one of general imitation, and the
so-called Teheran and Ispahan designs appear, though not in such
plenty as those of Kirman and Ghiordes. In several towns scattered
throughout Anatolia similar enterprises have been begun, since the
success of the Tabriz experiment has been made manifest.
1 Charles C MacFarlane mentions this place in his book, " Turkey and Its Destiny," published
in 1850. Writing of the Catholic Armenian Filatura di Seta, a silk handling concern at Broussa on the
slope of Mount Olympus, he says : " About a hundred and fifty women and girls were employed here
in winding off silk from the cocoons. They were all either Armenians or Greeks. Turkish females
cannot and will not be thus employed. They will rather do nothing and starve — and this was what too
many of them were doing at Broussa, even at this season of the year. The Greek ladies were reported
to be by far the quicker and cleverer, and the Armenians the more quiet and orderly. They could earn
from nine pence to eleven pence a day; and this was almost wealth, for the necessaries of life were amaz
ingly cheap even at this short distance from the capital. An exemplary order and cleanness reigned
throughout the establishment, which was under the direction of two intelligent, well-informed Italians.
The silk they produced was very superior to the old Broussa's; but it was all sent to the Sultan's own
manufactory at Herek-keui, on the Gulf of Nicomedia, and there either wasted or worked up at a ruin
ous expense, or left to accumulate in dirty, damp magazines. The wheels of this system ran somewhat
off the trams; and before we left Turkey this Filatura was shut up, and the hundred and fifty females
were sent back to their primal state of idleness and poverty."
174

PERSIAN
HEREZ FABRICS
The carpets of Herez, which for reasons already explained were
for a long time classed as a coarse grade of Hamadan fabrics, have
triumphed by sheer merit over the lack of favor which such an intro
duction would naturally invoke. It has, in fact, been customary to
class the weavings of all the villages in the Herez neighborhood as
belonging to the Hamadan districts, not alone those which were
plainly enough superior to the Hamadan proper but those held of
less worth. It was very difficult to see clearly how the Herez pieces
and the extraordinarily fine, well-woven medallion carpets known as
Serapi and Gorevan could come from the same looms or vicinity as
the Hamadans, most of which can be distinguished anywhere by their
fretted grounds and their broad outside bands of what is made to
look like camel's-hair. A very brief inquiry into the matter, near at
hand, made the error plain.
The Herez rug district, so called, lies in Azerbijan, a little jour
ney to the eastward of Tabriz, on the road which leads by Ardebil to
Astara, the Russian outpost, and other ports on the Caspian sea. It
is wholly dissociate from Hamadan and all its works, for between the
two lies a long stretch of Kurdish country, where rugs of an alto
gether different sort are made. Its relation with Tabriz is scarcely
greater, although it has taken some notions from the Tabrizli weavers
and the product of the district, perforce, goes to the capital to
be sold. The story of the Herez weaving industry is interesting, and the
different localities are so related to one another in it that it is hard to
make the customary division, but as now produced, the rugs of the
district may be set down as Herez proper, Gorevan, Serapi and Bakh-
shis. It will be necessary to begin with the inferior variety.
Bakhshis. — The first day's stage on the route eastward from
Tabriz brings the traveler to the mud-walled village of Bakhshis.
175

ORIENTAL RUGS
The name of this settlement, where the weaving is quite in evidence
as an occupation, has strangely enough never become prominent
among the rug-sellers of America, though its rugs long ago acquired
a standing among the Persian dealers, and its patterns were recog
nized among weavers throughout Iran. This attracted the notice of
the Sultanabad firm, which was first to promote in an extensive way
the weaving industry of the town. That was almost twenty years
ago. An Armenian had been the leading spirit in the management
of the business there, and made advances to the weavers in the usual
way, securing the carpets as soon as they were finished. Famine,
which is too often recurrent in Persia, brought about complications,
for in their distress the weavers spent the money entrusted to them
for food instead of wool. Another manager took up the task, and
for a time the rugs of Bakhshis were among the best of the Persian
whole-carpet output. A dealer began selling them in Constantinople
under the name of Herez. Then when they fell off in quality it be
came necessary to find some other title for the native products of
Herez, which retained their sterling character. The name of a
neighboring village was chosen, and from that time Bakhshis was
lost sight of in the Western market. The deteriorated carpets contin
ued to be known as Herez, and it was thus that they obtained classi
fication as a coarser grade of Hamadan, especially as at that time
Hamadan was the point of shipment. The Bakhshis of to-day,
which no dealer will call Bakhshis, is loose, full of colors which be
sides being of inferior quality are ill-combined. The designs, while
of the standard sort, such as Herati, Sardar, Shah Abbas and the
like, are wrought with such haste that they are far from perfect.
The medallions, when used, are apt not to be in the centre of the
carpets, the borders are clumsily woven and without corner-pieces.
The whole thing is eloquent of hurry.
Gorevan. — When it became necessary for trade's sake to change
176

KURI'ISH GlkIS A I THK Li

ki.M

PERSIAN
the name of the Herez rugs, they were entered upon invoices of
shippers in Tabriz as Gorevan, the name of a small village in the
Herez district — a village which had no status at all as a producer of
rugs. The name quickly took root and was utilized to the full by
dealers in Constantinople and Tiflis, for at that time, as has been
said, European and American buyers had scarcely found the way to
the market in Tabriz.
At first the carpets sold under this name were the old-fashioned
Herez products, which follow a type in design and color almost as
closely as do the Tekke and Bokhariot products of Turkestan. The
Herez idea, which has lately regained all the favor it lost by reason
of the Bakhshis carpets' masquerading under its name, has for its
essential the medallion, but this medallion, as well as the boundaries
defining the corner spaces, is in rectilinears and not with the curves
which figure in the designs of Tabriz. The corners are set off by
serrate lines, somewhat like the arches in the Kulah prayer rugs.
The smaller figure in the centre is plain, solid and unpretentious.
The color scheme is almost unvarying, and the dyes are all of a pecu
liar tone which distinguishes the genuine Herez at once from other
fabrics. The ground-color, outside the small central figure and
enclosed by the serrated lines across the corners, is an extraordinary
blue, which while bright is soft and of a peculiarly pleasing quality.
The corner areas are of a reddish brown, sometimes with small
figures to break the expanse. The borders in the better examples
are in entire harmony with the rest of the design. The main stripe
is very broad, buff-gray in the ground color, and with pattern large
and clearly defined. The Herez rugs have somewhat of the Sarakhs
in design, but the colors are softer and the weave not so heavy. At
first sight they impress one as being too pronounced, but they are re
markably wholesome, and in dining-rooms, libraries, or any apartment
where the woodwork and decoration are plain, and the furniture sub-
177

ORIENTAL RUGS
stantial, are among the most desirable of the large carpets. They are
made chiefly by women weavers, who work only in their leisure.
This, without doubt, explains the thoroughness of the workmanship.
Rugs of this type had become scarce at the time of my journey
into the Orient and commanded a very high price, whether singly or
in quantity. This was mainly due, of course, to the sudden accession of popu
larity, and beyond that to the state of practical famine that existed
throughout the Shah's dominion, for the Herez weavers who have
escaped from the control of the big contracting firms lacked money
to carry on their work. That by sterling quality these rugs have
regained good standing in spite of all disadvantages is an encourag
ing sign of the survival of native ability. It goes far to establish, too,
the main point for which I am bound to contend, that a just and
adequate price and ready sale can be found for honest rugs, honestly
dyed and in native design.
After the institution of the name Gorevan, Tabriz dealers began
sending designs into the Herez district to be woven by the women
there. This resulted in a new type of rugs, bearing the name which
had now come to be associated with the Herez. It was a medallion,
but of the Tabriz and Kirman drawing — reminiscent of the sixteenth
and seventeenth century art carpets. The ground about it, however,
was in solid cream color or ivory white, and the border of a heavy but
very ornate character. The thing aimed at was perfection in weav
ing, solidity and pronunciation. The result proved the experiment a
wise one. The rugs, while for the most part not of carpet size, had
all the Herez and Bijar firmness coupled with the Tabriz fineness.
In thickness they were something between the two. In workmanship
they left nothing to be desired. Their quality and finish commanded
a high price and their brilliancy made them impossible in plain
rooms. Gradually, after their introduction, the name of Gorevan
178

PERSIAN
came to be applied almost exclusively to these rugs, and Herez
resumed its rightful place in the catalogue.
Serapi. — Encouraged by the success of the new Gorevans the
Herez weavers went a step further and took from the Tabrizlis
some designs which, while preserving the medallion forms added
floral elements in the ground. These partook in a small measure
of the ornamentation found in the Tabriz rugs, but in color
scheme and general device followed the tereh Lemsa of the Sultan
abad factories — known in market as the " Extra Modern Persian."
In quality they were almost if not quite as admirable as the high-class
Gorevans. These rugs were named for the village of Sirab, and
American dealers have converted the Persian form into Serapi.
The graceful medallion shape in the Serapi field, commonly in
old ivory or a camel's-hair shade, is usually defined in some other
light color or combined with some other area of pale tint, to further
the general purpose, which is to make the whole fabric light and
bright and afford clear ground for the display of the elaborate vine
and floral designs, drawn in a half impressionistic fashion and in
colors strong but dull. All this light in the central part of the carpet
is balanced by generous use of similar values in the borders. The
Serapi is in nearly all respects a praiseworthy and desirable thing.
Despite some points of resemblance the elaborate details which strike
one in the Tabriz carpets are lacking here, and in the color scheme
there is no similarity. In the borders and sometimes even in the
field of Serapi, inscriptions are found, either inclosed in Arabic
medallions or on the plain ground. The method of weaving
employed in all the varieties is practically the same. The warp is
cotton, as in most Persian carpets, but the knot is Turkish. All
three varieties are apt to be broad in proportion to their length,
instead of following the long Persian shapes. In this section at the
present time few runners are found. »79

ORIENTAL RUGS
Kara Dagh. — Among the mountains in the northern part of
Azerbijan province, and to the east of the highroad leading south
from Julfa, are shepherd tribes of the most bigoted Shiah sect, who
weave rugs somewhat similar to those made by their neighbors in
Karabagh on the north side of the Aras. The designs, which are
bold, have more of Persian character than the Karabagh, and resem
ble in some points those of the Kurdish rugs. The colors are rather
more diversified than those of the Karabagh and differently distrib
uted. The flowers, which are employed in imitation of the old Per
sian designs, are put in broadcast, which, it may be well to repeat, is
the mark of the nomad. It seems to be a cardinal principle with the
weavers of the Kara Dagh (Black Mountains), as it is with the
Tchetchens, never to leave an expanse of ground-color vacant.
It is noteworthy that the Kara Dagh weavings are not often
seen in market, but that they have maintained their quality welL
The reason is not far to seek. The Karabagh weavers are within
two days of the Russian railroad. They have the great market of
Tiflis at their doors, and with that incentive, as shown in the Caucas
ian countries, sacrificed everything to a rage for increased production.
The Kara Dagh people, on the other hand, took their carpets to
Tabriz, where they were brought into competition with the Kurd fab
rics and other excellent products of the western uplands. The com
parison discouraged them and they practically withdrew from the
field and continued to make carpets in the old way, merely for home
use. Even among these mountaineers the aniline colors have gained
a substantial foothold, though not to the extent noticeable in some
other localities.
Weft and warp of the Kara Daghs are wool. The weft, if not
dyed, is usually in the natural brown color, and is woven into a sel
vage at the sides. At one end the foundations are made into a sel
vage and turned over, at the other is a selvage and fringe.
1 80

PERSIAN
EASTERN KURDISTAN FABRICS
In some respects the carpets made in Eastern — or what is pop
ularly called Persian — Kurdistan, are the best that come to market.
The Kurds in their fastnesses have kept more aloof from the demor
alization of towns than any of the other races found in Persia, and
have been slower to take up with the meretricious tricks which other
weaving folk have learned with such lamentable thoroughness.
Their rugs have always been accounted representative of what is good
in texture and color, and since they are woven principally in the tents,
away from town influences, the quality has been fairly well preserved.
Another element which goes far toward maintaining it is that Kur
distan has an unfailing supply of wool which is not surpassed any
where, unless it be in Kirman and certain parts of Turkestan. The
greater part of the yarn, moreover, is spun by hand and with infinite
care, and the result is apparent in most of the rugs which the Kurds
bring to town for sale.
The aniline invasion has made headway among them, and that
is not surprising in view of the fact that throughout the wilds of
Kurdistan the dye-shops are as rare as Eiffel towers. The Kurdish
weavers are their own dyers, and the ease with which chemical dyes
can be mixed is tempting. Nevertheless, after examining many hun
dreds of rugs, in the bazaars and on the looms, I am of opinion that
the Kurds have clung to the old colors more tenaciously than any
other of the weaving peoples. If the old processes are to be saved,
they must, it would seem, be sought among the Kurds. In the dye-
shops in the towns, certainly, they cannot be learned. Take, for ex
ample, the single matter of Persian blue, the essential color in all high-
class Persian carpets. It is confessedly lost. I put to the most com
petent dyer I could find many questions concerning his variegated
business. He expounded and explained and brought samples of his
dye stuffs and his mordants, but at the close admitted that while he

ORIENTAL RUGS
could make dozens of desirable blues the old color was beyond him,
and he didn't know anybody who had any more idea of producing it
than he had. The average Persian will lie, on principle, but the
proof that this dyer was telling the truth was that the best blue that
he had to show was a dead and uninspiring color when contrasted
with a ragged scrap of an antique Herati rug, which I had found
kicking about the bazaar in Tiflis.
Two days later, looking over a mixed lot of runners collected
during the preceding six months by a Persian merchant, I saw a Kur
dish pair, comparatively new, but in one of the best old Persian de
signs, and grounded in that same indescribable dark, deep and yet
almost translucent blue, which had forced such a frank confession
from the dyer. Under a voluminous turban, somewhere in the moun
tains of Kurdistan, the ancient secret of color lurks. A decade hence,
in all likelihood, it will have gone the way of all the good things
which once made the Persians the most enviable people in the world.
In the rugs of the Kurdistan region there is wide variety.
Within its confines are made not only the finest, thinnest and most deli
cate fabrics in Persia, but also a profusion of the heavy, board-like and
unfoldable carpets before spoken of as " LuleV' There are all the
intermediate grades and a diversity of designs. Most of the spon
taneous product of the region is in the shapes used for component
parts of the triclinium, and the long runners or kinari predominate.
Sedjadeh are few.
Sehna. — In the single matter of fineness of texture these rugs,
named for the city of Sehna, situated in the mountains near the
Turkish border, have few equals. They are of a peculiar character
and not apparently close kin to any other floor covering, even of
Persia. They are fully equal to the Tabriz in quality, perhaps better,
but in design, texture and color theory are of an altogether different
order. Barring the deterioration which has come to all the Eastern
182

PERSIAN
weavings they have remained virtually unchanged, which is singular
when the location of the city is borne in mind. On every hand
Sehna is surrounded by rug-producing districts, each with its special
type and all furnishing fabrics as different as possible from the
Sehnas, but from none of these do the Sehna weavers seem inclined
to borrow. In design these rugs run to small patterns and diaper arrange
ment, principally the pear or the fish pattern, woven with infinite
fineness and with a skilful toning produced not by shading or grad
ing, but by minute variations in color. The pear, and other small
patterns, with the arrangement of stalks with which some of them are
combined in the body of the rug, as well as the fine border devices,
are all wrought by painstaking and artistic method into a harmony
which makes the whole fabric at once rich and restful as it is fine of
texture. In most of the Sehnas the diaper of small patterns covers
the entire field, but in many a diamond- shaped centre-piece appears.
This is covered with a close array of the small figures, while the sur
rounding space, except the corners, is in solid colors or in some fine
diaper pattern different from that of the centre either in the character
of the device, or the tint of the ground-color, or both, just sufficiently
to make the demarcation distinguishable. In any case the even
ness and harmony are preserved. For ground-color wool white
prevails, although blue, red, or the ivory tint is sometimes used. The
borders are divided into well-adjusted stripes, the middle one very
wide in proportion to the others, and carrying a form of the Herati
border design. They are all in fine consonance with the general
character of the fabric, red and yellow predominating in the larger
border devices. A few Sehna rugs have the pear pattern wrought
upon a large scale, perhaps half a dozen pears covering the whole
field, but even in these the device is treated with the characteristic
minuteness and the soft effect is retained. 183

ORIENTAL RUGS
The maximum size of the old Sehnas is about five feet wide by
eight feet long, but owing to the constantly growing demands for
larger rugs they are now made in other sizes. Except in rare
instances the modern fabric is inferior to the antique. The material
is coarser and the colors not so soft, so fast or so delicately blended.
Sometimes the Sehnas are confused, through the general similar
ity of tone and pattern, with other varieties, notably the Feraghans,
but they may be distinguished by the weave. The maximum in the
Feraghans, even in the antiques, is about one hundred and sixty knots
to the square inch. The true Sehna has far more than that. It has, in
fact, no equal in this respect save the Kirman, Tabriz, Saruk and a
few very old Turkestan rugs.
The warp is of cotton, linen or silk. So tightly are the knots in
some of the old Sehnas put in that a slight puckering is visible on the
back — an appearance suggestive of crepe. The effort at compactness
often results in a curling up of the fabric at the sides. This, and a
growing decadence in the quality of the colors, are the chief faults in
the modern Sehnas. The pile in the best pieces is more closely
trimmed than any other rug, save the finest old Tekke or so-called
Bokhara. Imitations of the Sehna are now included in the general
manufacture of Tabriz.
Kurdistan Proper. — The geographical position of Persian Kurdis
tan has had a remarkable influence in fixing the character of the rugs
produced by its tribes. They are different in almost every respect
from those made by the Kurdish tribes just over the border, in the
hill ranges of Mosul and Van. In these provinces, as has been said
in the note on the Mosul fabrics, the products are of the nomadic
order, loose of texture and rough in appearance. The Persian Kurds,
on the contrary, have learned and continue to practice a more finished
form of craft. Propinquity to the cities of Azerbijan, Ardelan and
Luristan has made them familiar with the carpets produced by the
184

Plate XVIII. Mina Khani Sarandaz
16. i x 4.1
Loaned by Mr. Robert L. Stevens
The Mina Khani design is one of the simplest, but most effective that has
ever come out of the East. Although copied into the rugs of Khorassan and
Turkestan, after their own methods, it belongs distinctly to the Kurds and
they alone have been able to avoid giving a hard mechanical appearance to it.
This is undoubtedly due to their independence and skill in the use of color,
and also to the fact that the Kurdish colors, particularly the blues and yellows,
are of a splendid quality, which lends to this design its strength. This parti
cular piece is woven by the ruder class of people, as the lapses from accuracy
and even from general regularity, especially in the handling of the vines, proves.
The filling of the side spaces in the field with small nondescript items instead
of perfecting the vine arrangement, shows this very clearly. The piece has
undergone hard wear, but is still thick and incredibly heavy. These reds are
always beautifully softened by age, which increases their effectiveness in such
a. color combination as this. It will be seen that the weaver has indulged in
the prevailing Kurdish trick of leaving bands of color;, for no less than three
distinct shades of blue are here; but it is altogether intentional, and the charm
of the carpet is much enhanced by it.

PERSIAN
skilled artisans of those districts, and the points of resemblance
between the rugs are many. The influence of Kermanshah, where
for a long time the finest of weaving was done, has had much to do
with uplifting the character of the weaving throughout the entire dis
trict. The ideals thus established seem to have lingered among the
Kurds. They have even outlived the glories of Kermanshah itself.
In place of the long pile common among the Mosul Kurds, their rela
tives of Persian Kurdistan trim many of their fabrics almost to the
closeness of a pure Persian carpet. They show a great diversity in
design, and a particular leaning to repetitive patterns, arranged usu
ally in rows so as to form a diaper. In some parts of Kurdistan, to
the north, the weavers have caught the Karabagh and Kabistan idea,
and have taken up with large geometrical forms for the central fields,
and compromised by filling in the remaining space with the small
patterns peculiar to Persia. Another concession to the Caucasian
idea is their choice of method. The fabrics are tied with the Ghior
des knot. That with this it is difficult to effect the minute alter
nations of color distinctive of the finer Persian carpets is, without
doubt, the reason that these Kurds have fallen back, when weaving
rugs for market, on Caucasian designs for filling in the central space.
Where the Sehna or Saraband influence predominates, the entire
field of the rug is well covered with small figures, closely crowded in
regular rows, vertically and horizontally. Popular patterns for this
pu/pose are flowering shrubs, probably a modification of the widely
distributed tree pattern. To most of these the limitations of stitch
have imparted erectness and symmetry which only frequent diversifi
cations of color soften and save from being mechanical. A typical
form of this device has an upright stalk, with a cluster at its roots.
The first output of branches, ascending, is quite broad, heavily
leaved, and flowered at the ends. Then come four other and longer
branches, two on either side, bearing lumpy clusters at the ends.
185

ORIENTAL RUGS
One similar but smaller cross branch is above these, with clustered
ends, and a clump of foliage at the junction with the trunk ; then the
heavily leaved crest, and above that one flower as a top tuft, red bod
ied, perhaps, with a border of bright blue. All the branches stand out
at right angles with the stem, and so far has the figure taken on geo
metrical character, that to any but an imaginative person, study is re
quired to discover that the design in all of its varied forms is
arboreal. In the Turkish rugs and some Caucasians this same device,
in even more geometrical drawing, may be found playing the part of
border. To produce a precise stripe effect in the rows of these pat
terns, diagonally, the colors in the different parts of the figure — pale
blue, brown, old gold, black, olive, and several shades of red — are
alternated in every second figure. On the ground of dark blue or
perhaps red, this effect is striking, and the number of these figures,
crowded into the field, makes it seem ornate and flowery. The main
border often carries the same pattern.
Frequently, however, there is in the body of the rug a central
design of some established medallion shape, covered with small figures,
while the space about it, if dark blue, is filled with repetition of the
pear, in dark red. If the ground-color be red the pear figure is in
blue. Occasionally the central design consists of several large,
lozenge-shaped figures, minutely decorated with smaller patterns. In
the border, which carries a rich array of red and blue, relieved with
bright yellow in small dashes, are small, variegated block and key
patterns carried through the length of the stripe. The wider stripes
are varied with daisies, wrought with much accuracy. The borders
show concessions to both the influences by which the makers are sur
rounded. The Kurdistans are finished on one end with a small fringe, and
the sides are overcast with worsted yarn, usually some shade of
brown. The general effect and finish must be relied upon to distin-
186

PERSIAN
guish them, as their patterns are too widely used in other rugs, both
Persian and Turkish, to be at all characteristic. One mark which
is almost invariably found in Kurd rugs is a single line in colored
wools, embroidered on the webbing across one or both ends. The
warp should be wool. The " Irans " — as certain of the Persian
nomad products are called — are often mistaken for Kurdistans, but
in almost every case may be recognized by their cotton warp, and
usually by a difference in the knot used.
Kurdistan rugs are very often found in which a coarse, heavy,
two-strand wool yarn is passed straight across, between front and
back weft-threads, after every row of knots, as filling. In such, one
of the regular weft-threads is omitted. The weft is the smallest of
dyed single-strand yarns, just sufficient to hold the filling and knots
in place. The result is amazing firmness and durability. The Bijars
illustrate this method of filling.
Kermanshah. — Amid the mountains which stand sentinel against
the Turk, all along the western border, is the outpost town of Ker
manshah. It has long been a foremost town of the province of
Ardelan, and the chief fortress of the West. Any intelligent Persian
will tell you that it got the name of Kermanshah from the fact that
one of the governors who was sent to administer its affairs, so long
ago that tradition fails to fix the time, came from the southern prov
ince of Kirman. However this may be, Kermanshah, with its famous
bazaars, its extensive garrison and its busy population, was a place of
moment, and, thanks to the carpet-making carried on in the palace under
the governor's patronage, its weavings became famous throughout all
northern Persia. It has been customary, until very lately, among the
rug dealers of the West and Constantinople as well, to attribute the
Kirman rugs to Kermanshah. The fabrics here, however, while
more pretentious in some ways than those of the surrounding Kurd
country, are no longer te be classed with the weavings of Kirman.
187

ORIENTAL RUGS
The days of the palace are ended. The population of the town
has dwindled from forty or fifty thousand to one-fifth the number.
There is still a garrison of some strength as Persian garrisons go,
which is saying little. The fortress and the walls are in ruins, the
once crowded caravanserais are empty. The carpet industry, as a
matter of fact, is no longer carried on to any extent in the town.
The rugs which come to the Persian markets with the name of
Kermanshah are chiefly made in the surrounding mountains, but the
weavers hold in some measure to the traditions of the olden time.
This is evident not only in the designs but the shape of the fabrics.
The sedjadeh are still in vogue, which cannot be said of the other
districts in that part of Persia, most of which produce only runners
and the large, long centre-pieces.
In design, the best of the Kermanshahs affect the floral treat
ment. The texture is looser than in many of the rugs in Persian
Kurdistan. The pear is used in design, but in the coarser rugs it is
woven after the manner of the Mosuls. In many ways, indeed, the
influence of the Turkish models is made manifest in the common
grade, but in the better pieces much of Persian quality is displayed.
The pear pattern in these, for example, has quite the Iranian charac
ter. Instead of being drawn as it is in the Saraband and Shiraz, it
appears with a shape and degree of elaboration suggestive of the
Khorassan and Kirman designs. A singular arrangement of the pat
tern, too, is frequently seen in the Kermanshahs. Instead of being
placed in rows, unattended by any other element, the pears are
trained on undulating vines, which run diagonally across the field, and
each figure is surrounded by some floral conceit. This design is also
found in Kirman rugs and lately has been adopted, as everything has,
by the factory weavers of Tabriz. The colors in some of these floral
designs are rich and unusually good, and considerable skill is shown
in the shading, which in most districts has been abandoned.
188

PERSIAN
There are also found in abundance the standard Persian and
Kurdish terehs. The knot of the Kermanshah is Turkish, the warp
sometimes cotton, another survival of the palace teaching. The sides
are overcast with dark brown wool like most of the Kurd rugs, and
the finishing of the ends conforms to the custom of the group.
Sarakhs or Bijar. — These are the true " LuleV' They take their
name from the old fortified city on the Tajend, in the angle where
Persia and Afghanistan come to the borders of Turkestan, and
where now the Russian bear rests preparatory to swallowing both.
They are of what may be termed native production, to distinguish
them from factory products of the cities. Their makers are Turkish
tribesmen who came under Genghis and Tamur from the districts
around old Sarakhs and settled in the neighborhood of Bijar, in the
Gehrous district of Kurdistan. The name Sarakhs is not known in
Persia in connection with these carpets. Some of the older pieces
which are preserved in collections were apparently the work of skilled
artisans, and the graceful Arabi-Persian curves were used in defining
the great central medallions which constitute the Sarakhs design.
The ornamentation was limited, since in the old carpets even more
than in the new, the characteristics were simplicity and power.
The medallions found in the best Gorevans are imitations of the
oldest and finest Sarakhs. The modern fabrics preserve the gen
eral design, the strong color-massing, and for the most part the
colors also ; but they have yielded to the seduction of the straight
line. The hues are few and elementary. Blending seems to be an
almost unknown art to these people, but the plain grounds are dexter
ously shaded. In the staple carpets recently turned out at some
weaving centres, effort has been made to imitate this peculiarity, but
the intent is so apparent and the deftness of the Sarakhs weavers so
plainly lacking, that the charm of the thing is lost, and the variation
ISO

ORIENTAL RUGS
set down as rayah, one of the cardinal sins in the eyes of the mas
ter weaver of to-day.
Red predominates in the Sarakhs, but the primary blues, greens,
yellows and even black and white are used in brave plenty. The
common design is a central piece in a medallion frame, surrounded by
a field of plain color. The corners are set off sometimes in curves,
but oftener in rectangular triangles, a decadent substitute for the
masterly scrolls which beautified the old examples. The grounds of
the border, field and centre-piece, if not in any of the camel's-hair
shades, are usually in the wonderful Sarakhs red or some bright blue,
upon which are boldly displayed vari colored rectilinear flowers or
unequal figures of some sort. The pear shape, crudely drawn, is
often met with, and the daisy of our own fields is truthfully if rudely
shown. Nothing could be more indescribably gay than the modern
Sarakhs carpet of purely nomad manufacture. The fear which
haunts the school-trained colorist, of clashing with accepted theory,
does not hamper these hill folk. Contrast, not complement, is their
creed. They have been accustomed to see the greenest of trees
against the bluest of skies, the most flamboyant of reds and yellows
side by side in the sunset. This model they know no valid reason for
not following, with such fidelity as their scant skill in dyeing makes
possible. The result is a marvel of consistency in high key. These
rugs have a particular place in furnishing. Western industry and in
vention probably could not have designed them or an equivalent for
them, and if it could, would not have dared. Every color is a climax,
and their crudity gives a breadth and massing which are most avail
able to complete and set off apartments where the wood, walls and
furniture are dark, and the general effect is coarse and heavy. Their
design has been followed, and elaborated, in many of the great Ana
tolian carpets.
iqo

PERSIAN
There is in some of them, too, a brightness other than that of
tingent. The weavers have drawn, from some source, a reckless
tendency to ornament their works by the inweaving of birds, animals
and men. Their production does not seem to be along the Chinese
or Persian lines, however. The figures are more European, but it is
the pictorial art of the child rather than of the ancient. The men
and cows, the hens, horses and sheep are of the selfsame order as
those which the American school boy draws upon his slate, but there
is abundant evidence of close observation, of a humor far keener and
broader than the power of expression which bodies it forth. It is the
humor of the unskilled caricaturist. The man with the three-cornered
head who stalks in the field of the nomad Sarakhs, has a body shaped
like a city block, viewed from the avenue side, but the rainbow of
gaudy horizontal stripes which makes his whole torso gay, is doubt
less a memorial to some tribal dandy, or a message of fellow feeling
to the lurid youth of the Occident.
In lieu of the medallion design there often appear scroll-like or
shield devices, with some conventional floral bits interspersed. These
are distributed sparsely upon a field of richest blue or red. The col
ors are dark and indescribably rich, the small scrolls, for example, be-
ing laid in deep leaf-green, true madder red, and a peculiar blue sev
eral shades lighter than the ground, and so lustrous that it seems to
be woven in silk. In this same blue the main border ground is often
laid. This border is broad, and usually carries a graceful design of
the Herati order. Sometimes where the field is of dark blue, the
border ground is a correspondingly deep red, and the figures in light
shades, with pronounced effects in yellow and old ivory, which give
brightness to the whole expanse. These also appear in the central
field. Warp, weft and pile of the Sarakhs are of wool, and the mate
rial with which the best of them are piled is as fine as in many of the
i9i

ORIENTAL RUGS
costly Persian carpets. As in the Kazaks, one end is often finished
with a fringe, while at the other the warp is turned, twisted and
woven back upon itself with the weft, to form a broad, heavy selvage.
The sides are overcast. The knot is Ghiordes.
Koultuk. — There are made in the many small villages of the dis
trict lying between Gehrous and Zenjan, partly in the province of
Ardelan and partly in the northwest corner of Irak Ajemi, a multi
tude of small runners of various sorts, including even some of the
Herez type. They are worked on a cotton warp and with woollen
weft and in other respects follow the Kurd models. They are heavy,
but not of the " Lule " weight. The knot is Turkish. One end has
a plain selvage ; the other a selvage and loose ends. The new dyes
are used in most of these and the coloring of course is not of the
best. A dealer in Zenjan, on the road from Tabriz to Teheran,
began collecting these pieces, adding to them such as came to hand
of the Kara Dagh and other weavings, and marketing the whole
as Koultuk or Zenjan. The extreme diversity noticeable in these
shipments forbade their taking rank as a distinct class. Constan
tinople rug men, reassorting the bales, cast each piece into the lot
which it resembled most closely, and abandoned, so far as American
invoices were concerned, both Koultuk and Zenjan ; so neither of the
names has ever found a prominent place among the shop titles
employed in this country. The " variety " is in reality merely a hodge
podge of the same sort as the so-called " Guendje," in which are com
prised the odds and ends of all the Caucasian and Mosul weavings.
Souj-Bulak. — Another variety of rugs offered in considerable
numbers in Persian markets comes from the neighborhood of Souj-
Bulak, the old Kurdish capital on the border, some distance to the
south of Tabriz and Lake Urumieh. The population of the district
is overwhelmingly Kurd, and the rugs are in all the essentials Kurd
ish, with slight local variations. The yarns are doubled, which makes
192

Plate XIX. Old Feraghan Sedjadeh
6.8 x 4
Property of the A uthor
An excellent example of eighteenth and nineteenth century work in the
Feraghan district. The Herati, or " fish " pattern in very compact form, with
the corner spaces distinctly set out and a species of Herat border. In the nar
rower stripes will be observed the pear pattern, something after the manner of
the older Khorassans. The broad border has the characteristic light green
ground, which appears in most of the better and older rugs of the pure Ferag
han Weave. This green wears down quickly and leaves the other colors in
relief. The pile yarns are trimmed closely in the beginning, and long wear
has brought them very near to the foundations, but the design is still clear and
the general color effect is of almost a heliotrope quality.

PERSIAN
the fabrics very compact The wool is of the best and the pile soft
and pleasant to the touch, but by reason of the close texture it stands
straight instead of flattening like that of the Kazaks. All the pat
terns are Kurdish and the colors are dark — chiefly red, blue and
brown. While strong and serviceable, the Souj-Bulak rugs are far
from maintaining the standard of the first-class Kurd products.
Two rows at the back of the rug indicate the single Ghiordes
knot and the number of these to the inch measuring vertically is
greater than when measured on the weft. The average is 7-8 by
101 1. The finishings are of the Kurdish character.
FERAGHAN FABRICS
Mainly for the purpose of condensation and in order to bring
the matter into easier focus, I have chosen to consider the Feraghan
rug district as comprising practically all the central province of Irak
Ajemi, extending from the eastern slope of the Bakhtiyaris to the
great salt deserts or " Death Valleys " of Persia on the east, and from
the Caspian Sea southward to the grim left shoulder of the Kuh
Banan. The adjustment is somewhat arbitrary, and considered from
a geographical standpoint would be erroneous, for the Feraghan dis
trict is clearly defined by the maps and does not include the localities
where some of the rugs here classified as of the Feraghan group are
manufactured. There will be imparted to the Feraghan by this ar
rangement a great diversity, but in reality not greater than the small
territory enjoys, since the actual Feraghan industry has become
wholly commercial, and under direction of European managers the
weavers of the province now turn out copies of almost every known
fabric as well as the original variety which made it famous.
But aside from this, viewed as a whole its fabrics show, under
the present classification, more nearly than those of any other section,
all the features of design and color common to Persian carpets,
whether recent or traditional, though in all save one variety they are
193

ORIENTAL RUGS
lacking in the peculiar ornamental character which abides in the Kir
man and Tabriz. In examples which will be noted, it is plain that
some of the group have to a certain extent been made in imitation of
the medallion rugs. Where they have been the expression solely of
the Persian genius they preserve more of apparent spontaneity ; there
is more of nature in them, more likeness to the carpeting of blossoms
upon which, in imagination if not in fact, the Persian treads his whole
life through. There is close resemblance between some of these carpets of
Feraghan and the fine fabrics of Sehna, which, as has already been
said, are, in spite of proximity to the Turkish towns of Bijar, Hama
dan and Tabriz, fairly loyal to Iranian tenets and fashion in art. The
difference between the several products of this comprehensive group
lies mainly in the designs adopted and the quality of material used.
As floor coverings they are of about equal value. Exception,
however, must be made to the common grades of Feraghan proper.
This variety marks in Persia, as the low class Ghiordes does in Turkey,
the maximum of deterioration from an artistic standpoint. With
quantity alone in view and with an ancient reputation to trade upon,
quality, for which its name was for centuries honored, seems to have
been lost sight of for a time.
Feraghan Proper. — The saving clause in whatever may be said
of modern Feraghan rugs must be that until lately they have retained
the typical patterns and colors, but it requires some imagination
to form from some of the Feraghans of to-day an idea of what
their prototypes were. More wholesome, well wrought and alto
gether likeable floor coverings than the old-time Feraghans it would
be hard to find. To the Persian they are the acme of carpeting.
The Herati design, which has been held almost a distinctive mark of
the Feraghan, has been, on the whole, quite steadfastly adhered to
in one form or another — possibly because familiarity enables the
194

PERSIAN
weavers to produce it quickly. In the better examples it is repeated
upon a ground usually blue, with rich but modest variations of color.
The borders, well balanced in width against the body of the rug, are
wrought after the common plan of alternating rosettes and palmettes
upon a waving vine. The borders have more white and pale tints,
and more pronounced blues and red than the body. The ground of
the main stripe is often laid in some shade of green. The very old
pieces leave no room for doubt that this diaper and the same general
character have long been distinctive of Feraghan carpets.
The other design most often found in old and finely wrought
Feraghans, is the Guli Hinnai, or Flower of the Henna, to which
reference has already been made in the chapter on Design. It is
more ornate than the Herati, and when well woven and in the antique
coloring makes a much richer and more effective carpet.
Within the past year or two the Sultanabad firm, which is para
mount in Feraghan, and some weavers in other sections, have begun
reproducing this design in some excellent rugs, though chiefly in
small sizes. For some time hitherto the Guli Hinnai had been much
used in large, slipshod form, in coarse carpets.
Many modern Feraghans, borrowing from all sources whatever
will fill space, have a huge medallion in the central field, which, with
the small corner spaces, has usually an ivory or white ground. The
medallion is broken by three more or less geometrical diamond-
shaped devices, two in blue, supporting a central and larger one in
red. All of the central field not taken up by these labor-savers is
filled with the recognized small Herat pattern on a blue ground.
This design for Feraghan has been largely adopted by the manufac
turers of Persian carpets in America as well as in the factory towns
of Persia and Turkey. Its borders sometimes preserve vaguely
the old conventional Herat or Persian ideas, but more often the main
stripe is made up of separate flower devices. Running patterns are
195

ORIENTAL RUGS
retained in the small border stripes. Some of the latter Feraghans
have wandered so far from their traditional designs as to use, for the
central medallion, geometrical shapes somewhat like those of the Cau
casians, or the singular medallion with plain ground so common in
the Hamadans. The true Feraghans are worked in the Sehna knot. The weft
is of cotton, which in the moderns has deteriorated commensurately
with the rest of the fabrics. Their pile is of wool. Instead of from
ninety to one hundred and fifty knots to the square inch, moderns
sometimes run as low as thirty.
Sultanabad. — In its practical phase the whole enormous rug in
dustry of the province of Feraghan itself and much of that of the
surrounding territory centres in Sultanabad. It is the carpet head
quarters of the European firm which controls so large a part of the
weaving business of this section of Persia. Aside from the old de
signs and the modifications of them to which reference has been made
above, the Sultanabad carpets are the conceits of European and
American designers, working, in a way, on the old Persian models,
but changing the colors and supplying such additions as seem likely
to meet capricious demands. The regulation grades are heavy
carpets of the same sizes as those made in Ghiordes and Oushak, but
rather superior to those in quality. In the American markets the
Sultanabads are often called " Savalans," after the ranore of moun-
tains which towers to the north of the district. In the wholesale
trade they are classed as " Extra Modern Persians." The designs of
this order are known to the weavers as tereh Lemsa. The ground
work is usually of a pale yellowish cast, and the patterns, vines, flowers
and the like, are boldly drawn, in stable shades of red, blue and green.
The general effect is brilliant and the carpets have on the whole given
satisfaction. Harsh criticism has been passed on the Sultanabad en
terprise, in various quarters, on the ground that it had urged the
196

PERSIAN
weavers to hasty work and by confining them strictly to the designs
placed in their hands had substituted European ideas for the " spon
taneous originality " which in times past has been the greatest charm
of all Oriental art. On the other hand it may be, and is, contended
that the Persian populace, having little or no means to prosecute the
work of carpet-making, would have been forced to forget its craft en
tirely if some competent agency had not intervened to supply the ne
cessary materials and support. In this measure, at least, concerns of
this sort have been conservative forces and the employment which they
have afforded has without question kept life in the body of many a
poverty-stricken Persian who otherwise would long ago have surren
dered in the struggle for the wretched bread of the country.
Saraband. — It has been commonly believed that the name Sara
band, as applied to floor coverings, had some connection with the
Saraband dance. In a way it has. The Saraband rugs are made in
the district of Sarawan, lying immediately to the south of Feraghan.
It is easy to understand how the Mediterranean dealers, familiar
with the graceful terpsichorean function known as Saraband, inter
preted the Persian Sarawan into something that was sure to strike
gratefully upon Western ears.
In the Sarawan district the tereh Mir, so called from the village
where it is said to have originated, is the almost universal design,
and outside influences have not availed to wean the weavers from it.
Artisans in other localities have copied the Mir Saraband, changing
the borders or coloration to suit their fancy. Even the Herez pea
sants have taken to making large kali in this design, but after their
own textile methods.
The pure Saraband rugs are probably as clearly defined and
adhere as closely to type as any class of carpets in Persia. Almost
without exception the field is filled with the pear pattern.
In its arrangement in the Saraband alternate rows will in most
"97

ORIENTAL RUGS
instances be found to have the stems turned in opposite directions,
which adds more than might be believed to the balanced effect of the
design. The colors are quiet but rich. The deepest Persian red and
blue are used for ground-colors, one almost invariably appearing in
the border when the other is used for the field. Sometimes the main
ground is white or ivory color. In such cases the pear pattern ap
pears in red or blue.
A feature of the Saraband, which adds much to its attractiveness
and decorum, is the multiplication of the border stripes. These are
all narrow, but of different widths, and sometimes there are as many
as a dozen of them. The undulating vine is always present, but in
very small form, and little rectilinear flowers are thrown in in place of
the recognized lotus forms. The narrowness of these border stripes
could scarcely be defended if the design in the body of the rug were
other than what it is. If it were pretentious and coordinate the
multiplicity of small stripes would be beneath it in dignity, and the
imposing Herat or Persian borders would be in order. But the
adaptation of the border value to the small pear shapes which make
up the filling shows these Sarawan weavers to possess a sense of
balance and harmony which could scarcely be improved.
The adoption of geometrical elements into the borders is only
one of the several evidences in the Saraband of influence other than
Persian. Another is what has been called the reciprocal trefoil,
referred to as a feature of the " Polish " carpets and having a place in
certain Caucasian fabrics. It is found in a vast number of Sarabands,
and the reciprocal saw tooth is perhaps even more common.
The genuine Mir Sarabands are tied in the Sehna knot. It is
not unusual to find the date of manufacture worked in them.
There is common in the Levantine marts, and frequently found
in rug stores in this country, a fabric known to the Turkish dealers
as Selvile. It is nothing more or less than a coarser form of Sara-
198

PERSIAN
band, made by the mountaineers and copied by the weavers in other
sections. It is tied with the Ghiordes knot, and is of about the qual
ity of the upper middle class Shirvan, which in some of the border
patterns it much resembles. It presents the pear pattern in large,
loose form, and the field is overweighted by the number and solidity of
its border stripes. It has a two-thread overcasting at the sides, made
with the colored weft. The narrow web at the ends is of the same
color. On one end there is a rather long knotted fringe of the warp
which is of fine, grayish wool. On the other end the loop of the warp
through which the rod has passed is allowed to twist and left for
finishing. Rugs of this description are sold in this country under
whatever name happens to be most convenient at the time.
Hamadan. — In the shadows of Mount Elwund, in and around
the city of Hamadan (ancient Ecbatana, burial-place of Esther and
Mordecai), a great rug industry is carried on. Most of the fabrics
made here have, until lately, followed an established theory in design,
and to a large extent in color as well. Within the past two or three
years, so great was the success of the Hamadan weavings, looms
have been set up in nearby neighborhoods where before no rug-mak
ing was done. In these the designs of other parts have been imi
tated, and the object is to substitute a regular " factory " output for
the old production, which was wholly characteristic of Hamadan.
Cause for this may be found in the decline in popularity which the
typical rugs of the district have suffered. There is little difficulty in
distinguishing the Hamadan carpet from all other weavings, unless it
be from others made in imitation of them at the time when their
vogue was greatest.
A considerable quantity of filik, as well as camel's-hair in the-
natural color, is used in the pile. The prevailing colors are red, blue
and yellow, all in strong values, which gain a lustre from the materi
als. The real camel's-hair antique examples are very rare now, and
199

ORIENTAL RUGS
vast prices are demanded for them. The moderns, while rougher,
and harsher in color than the older rugs, are honest and service
able fabrics.
They have generally a plain color, in most cases ivory-white or
some shade of camel's-hair, for the groundwork of the central field ;
if not this, then a fret diaper in camel's-hair shade upon a back
ground of ivory-white or cream color. There is a medallion of some
pretension in the middle, and the corner spaces are set off to accord
with it. These divisions are very positive, but the outlines are shapely.
The flower patterns with which the inclosed areas are adorned, are
laid in a rather light blue and striking shades of red. Around the
outside of the rug is the tevehr, or broad band of natural camel's-hair,
of a tint like that used in the body, or of wool dyed in some pale
ivory or primrose tint. Sometimes a stripe of rich red is thrown in
just inside this band, fetching up against the border stripes, which
are adorned with rectilinear forms of the vine and flower pattern.
There are also some peculiarly compact diaper patterns used in
the Hamadans, which are seldom found in any other fabrics. The
most common of these is known as Ina Dar — or the " Mirror" de
sign. It is complex and leaves little if any of the ground space visi
ble. The essential outline of the design is at first glance indistinct
It is involved with the accessories in such a way as to obscure it.
The colors, dull red, blue and yellow, are so intermingled as to give
the whole design a dull pinkish tinge, which comports well with the
plain band of camel's-hair with which it is enclosed at the sides and
ends. The general color effects of the typical Hamadans are shown
in Plate XIV of the illustrations.
Among the principal tributaries of the Hamadan market is the
Kara-Geuz field, lying to the east. It has long been a weaving
section and the workmanship is fairly well up to the Hamadan stan
dards, solid and substantial. In order to supply a demand made upon

Plate XX. Shiraz Rug
10.4 x 4.10
Loaned by Mr. Reginald H. Bulky
This piece, though made for practical use, is fully up to the best traditions
of Shiraz weaving. The three principal colors, rose, ivory and blue, are equal
to those found in any part of Persia, even of old time. It is woven of the
Niris wool, extremely soft and glossy, but the body of the fabric, thanks to
stout foundations, is most substantial. All the characteristic finishings of
Shiraz are here.

PERSIAN
the Tabriz, Tiflis and Constantinople dealers, runners from twenty-
five to thirty-five feet long are now made in the Kara-Geuz. They
are in all sorts of designs, and in some of them the anilines are
rampant. The old Kara-Geuz runners resembled in many respects certain
rugs of Kurdistan. They have been sold in America under the name
of Iran, a never-failing retreat for the vendor who is in doubt about
the precise origin of a Persian rug. The warp and weft in most cases
are of cotton and the sides are overcast. The texture constitutes the
chief difference between them and the Kurdistans.
On the road leading south from Hamadan is a group of villages,
chief of which are Oustri-Nan and Burujird, where some sterling rugs
are woven for the Hamadan trade. They are compactly made; the
ground of the border is white, with some conventional device remote
ly derived from the pear set at short intervals transversely of the bor
der, and with the apex of the cone pointing inward. The Saraband
pattern is used for the field, and but for the borders and texture the
rugs might be taken for Saraband. They have cotton warp and
weft, the latter dyed. They are overcast with colored wool. There
is a solid finish at one end and a fringe at the other. The knot is
Turkish and the average from seventy-five to ninety to the square
inch. A new and important branch of the Hamadan system is Bibik-
abad, where the industry has recently been begun upon a consider
able scale. The designs are diverse, the texture somewhat looser than
that of the Kara-Geuz rugs and the colors, up to the time of the
Shah's edict, not all that could be wished for.
Teheran-Ispahan-Saruk. — Nothing could illustrate better the
way market-places throughout the Orient give their names to com
modities brought to them for sale, than the survival of these names
in rug nomenclature. Just how long a time has elapsed since carpets

ORIENTAL RUGS
in any number were made in either the present or former capital of
Persia, it would be difficult to determine, but there is scarcely a rug
shop of note which has not Teheran and Ispahan rugs to offer to the
customer. In the Tabriz bazaars the dealer has no idea what is
meant by Teheran and Ispahan. And yet the types, as represented
in America, are fairly well defined. After careful inquiry, and exami
nation of rugs sold in Persia, I believe that all the fabrics called
Teheran and Ispahan are the products of the village of Saruk in the
Feraghan district, and, for the rest, vagrant pieces which come
from the looms of Kirman, by the way of Bushire or the Indian
ports, to England. In Kirman, longer, perhaps, than in any other
place in Persia, the ability to weave well the pure floral and realistic
designs has endured. A similar form of craftsmanship still exists in
Saruk ; the old designs of this order are also copied faithfully in the
great factories of Tabriz.
In these " Teheran " and " Ispahan " fabrics the national genius
for rich realistic floral decoration maintains very clear expression.
There is in them a profusion that makes them known instantly. The
freedom with which the designers have gone abroad in the whole
realm of nature in quest of forms has resulted in a prodigality of or
namentation which only halts short of redundancy. All the forms
and hues of trees and plant life, birds, animals, fishes, clouds, ara
besques, thus broad is the field in which the designer of these carpets
counts it his privilege to gather materials. With such a range it is
plainly impossible to suggest anything nearly approaching a common
design. It is the very richness and multiformity which are typical.
There can be little doubt that many of the designs seen to-day
were devised in another century, and that they have been copied with
slight variation, generation after generation. The best of them re
flect an artistic spontaneity which does not abide in the atmosphere
of Persia or any other part of the Orient in our time. It is likely

PERSIAN
that such designs of this class as impress us as being meagre and in
ept have undergone the greater changes and express more truthfully
the present tendency.
In most of the " Ispahan " rugs there are to be found, prominent
among the forms upon the dark red or blue field, the clearly marked
cones of the cypress tree. Its peculiar dull green, in such perfect
complement to the value of the red which is usually dominant, lends
a sombre suggestion, a note somewhat funereal in the midst of all the
vernal brightness. It is strikingly demonstrative of the artistic mel
ancholy which pervades the Persian mind. This cypress, indirectly
an emblem of mourning, but really conveying, as all trees do, the idea
of perfect and renewed life, distinguishes the great carpets made for
use in the mosques and the grave carpets, once so much used in Per
sia. Additional evidence of their character is afforded, especially in
those of Ispahan, so called, by the presence of a willow with solemnly
trailing branches — a combination recognized by Persian weavers
under the name of Tereh Asshur. The cypress and willow, carved
upon headstones in the old graveyards of our own land, may perhaps
be a survival of this design. The prayer rugs of this variety often
have the willow in the centre, and a succession of cypresses along the
sides of the field, with two of them so inclined as to meet at the top,
forming the prayer arch.
Some of the " Teheran " rugs show a more formal tendency in de
sign and while retaining the local richness of color have their fields
covered with small pear patterns of the elongated forms found in Per
sian and Indian shawls. Sometimes the effect is made diagonal, when
the small patterns are used, by alternating the colors.
In the borders the old pattern of vines carrying rosettes at regu
lar intervals, is common ; so in the " Ispahans" is the Herat border.
In many "Teherans" the realistic flowers take on a formal decorative
character, and the spaces between them are occupied by the long
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ORIENTAL RUGS
medallion forms known as "cartouches." In rugs of the highest class
these cartouches often contain, after the Moorish fashion as preserved
in the decoration of the Alhambra, verses from the national poets,
appropriate to the designs, or — though religious scruples make this
rare — passages from the Koran.
The designs here described have recently been made in the fac
tory towns in very large, almost whole-carpet sizes — another indication
of the change which has come over the weaving art of the East. Rugs
are now looked upon as carpetings — and little more. But these big,
new pieces have retained the old patterns and coloring, and to a remark
able degree the fineness of stitch. There has been for some time
past, until the present year, a scarcity of rugs of this order which
showed any sign of age. This year has found the markets of Con
stantinople well supplied with the profuse floral pieces.
A word further should be said concerning the village of Saruk
and its weaving. It is situated in the Feraghan district proper, but
its rug-makers have stubbornly refused to come under the protection
of the European firms. They turn out only a limited number of
pieces in a year, pieces of a fineness to put Tabriz to the blush.
Nearly all these are taken to Teheran and immediately bought up by
wealthy Persians, who pay for them a far higher price than they would
command if offered for sale in the open market. The interesting
feature of it is that these same Persian magnates, who might reason
ably be expected to stickle for carpets dyed with vegetable tingents,
never demur at the loose colors which are the only drawback to the
Saruks. This contradiction seems to be universal throughout the
kingdom. I visited the home of a Persian merchant, and upon
arrival, was ushered into a reception room where we had tea Persian
fashion, that is, sitting on the floor. In the apartment there were
spread half a dozen or more sedjadeh pieces — the floral panels of Kir
man. From all of them the color had faded. In some only misty
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PERSIAN
shadows remained of the designs, ghosts of what — and not so very
long ago — had been riotous masses of color. The master of the
house, with Persian quickness, saw that his carpets had attracted notice.
"I know what you are thinking," he said. "You are thinking it is
strange that a Persian who can afford anything else should content
himself with carpets dyed with anilines. The truth is, I like them.
The softer the tone of the carpet, the less aware you are of the colors
in it, the more restful it is. These loose dyes fade quickly under the
sun, and then you have — that. It is beautiful."
And so the fine, flower-strewn rugs of Saruk, with their question
able dyestuffs, are sold for three prices, before the warp of them is
stretched upon the loom.
"fooshaghan," or Djushaghan. — Among the best carpets in Persia
are the soft-toned but hard-woven fabrics which are called Joo-
shaghan. The name is another of those which are brought in for
every emergency. The genuine carpets of this variety have not been
largely sold in America, since the district where they are made is
within easier reach of the Persian Gulf ports than the markets of the
North. The fabrics are therefore better known in England than
here. The Djushaghan or Dshushekan district is some distance south of
Feraghan. Its weavers, like those of Feraghan, have shown a de
cided loyalty to the local design, which, when in its purity and
well woven and colored, is one of the most pleasing to be found in
Persia. In general effect it resembles the Saraband, but the design
has not the definition which is afforded by even the most delicate
rendition of the pear pattern. It has something of likeness to the
"Mirror" pattern found in the Hamadans in point of color, and also
in the fact that the main features do not obtrude themselves upon
notice. The foundation of it is Arabic, and the outline, like so many
of the Arabic traceries, is continuous, passing on from one figure to
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ORIENTAL RUGS
another. The principal element is a cross, the ends of which, instead
of being square, are angular, and the lines forming this angle inter
sect each other, and are carried along to form points of adjoining
crosses. This, it will be seen, leaves an eight-pointed star space be
tween every four crosses. This space is filled with the subordinate
elements of the design, and the centre and arms of the cross itself are
likewise adorned with conventional floral figures — four-petaled flow
ers and a diagonal arrangement of leaves. The border ground is of
much lighter red than the body of the carpet, and the patterns are
small floral shapes in dull colors, relieving a geometrical key shape
similar in conception to the X-shape in the Shiraz rugs. The entire
fabric is usually in a soft tone of red.
The warp is wool, and there is a hard, thin, narrow web at the
end. The sides are overcast, and the knot is Turkish. There are
from nine to twelve knots to the inch measuring horizontally and
eight to eleven perpendicularly.
KIRMANIEH FABRICS
All the rugs sent from the southern part of Persia between the
Shat-el-Arab and the Persian Gulf on the west, and the plains of
Seistan and Beluchistan on the east, may be classed as Kirmanieh
fabrics. They are made chiefly by the nomadic Karmanian tribes,
some of them descendants of the old Parsees, though the Turkoman
elements contribute largely to the product of the district, and their
fabrics are thorough counterparts of some of those still found in the
Caucasus. The excellent carpets made by the people of the villages
throughout Laristan are included under the head of Kirmanieh.
The honesty of these weavings has hitherto brought them great
popularity, and though signs of demoralization are visible, remoteness
from the avenues of commerce and travel makes it seem likely that
some time will elapse before they can come wholly under the influence
which has utterly changed so many classes of Eastern carpets. An
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PERSIAN
English firm, however, has established an agency at Bushire on the
Gulf coast and another at Bassorah, for the collection of carpets from
this territory. Their collectors journey to up-country towns, hire a
khan or building of some sort, and send out word into the surround
ing hamlets and countryside that they are there to buy. The heads
of weaving families bring in their whole year's product in response to
this notice, and thus a thoroughgoing market system will ultimately
be built up. The rugs can be got to Bender Abbas or Bushire,
and thence shipped to England or Constantinople.
The materials used in the best of the Kirmanieh fabrics — the
Kirman proper and the high-class Shiraz — are taken from the flocks
which herd on the shores of the salt lake Niris.
Kirman. — American rug dealers have never had very intimate
acquaintance with the rugs of Kirman, capital of the southernmost
Persian province. In the early days of rug importation to this
country Kirman, like other and even less remote parts of Persia, was
little known. The European travelers who had visited it were few.
Those entering Persia from the south disembark at Bender Abbas or
Bushire, go to Shiraz and thence directly North, to Ispahan, leaving
Yezd, Kirman and the desert far on their right. Kirman's commun
ication is chiefly with the East. Even to-day it stands out of the
beaten path of travel, and the cities of the North, which count Shiraz
as neighbor, though not a very near one, still look upon Kirman as
far away. This explains, in a measure, the confusion which has always exist
ed in regard to the character of the Kirman carpets, which hitherto
have come in limited numbers to this country, though in London they
have enjoyed renown. In the section devoted to Kurd rugs reference
has been made to the current belief that Kermanshah, in the moun
tains of Kurdistan, was the birthplace of these very interesting fab
rics. This error, which only existed outside the confines of Persia,
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ORIENTAL RUGS
has been dispelled. Now that the Tabriz rugs, modeled after the
later fabrics of Kirman, have fairly choked the markets, the Kirman
exports have begun to appear in comparative plenty in Stamboul.
The carpet industry in Kirman is old, and has been, if Reclus is
to be believed, more tenacious of life than some of the arts which
throve there in other times. He says ; " Since the visit of Marco
Polo Kirman has lost its manufacture of arms, but its embroideries
and carpets are always high prized." The endurance of textile indus
try here, when other arts have failed, is due, no doubt, to the plenti
tude of unequalled wool. The descriptions given of the manner in
which carpet weaving is carried on in Kirman show that it was done
studiously, and freedom from contact with the rest of the world served
to perpetuate local methods and characteristic designs.
In the book of Sir F. J. Goldsmid, upon " Eastern Persia," pub
lished in 1876, is to be found the clearest utterance regarding the
carpets of Kirman, an utterance formulated on the notes of eye wit
nesses of the manufacture. It says : " The curiosities of Kirman
are the carpet and shawl manufactures. The former, once the most cele
brated in the East, have much diminished in number since the siege,
from which date all the calamities of Kirman. In the governor's
factory alone are the finer qualities produced. The white wool of the
Kirman sheep, added perhaps to some quality of the water, gives a
brilliancy to the coloring, unattainable elsewhere. In patterns the
carpets are distinguishable from those of the North and West by this
purity of color, and a greater boldness and originality of design, due
probably to a slighter infusion of Arab prejudice on the subject of
the representation of living forms. Not only flowers and trees, but
birds, beasts, landscapes and even human figures are found in Kirman
carpets. The Wakil-ul-Mulk gave me two in return for a pair of
breech-loading pistols of greater value that I presented him with, and
I purchased a still finer one in the bazaar."
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PERSIAN
This is supplemented by the report of Major Oliver B. St. John,
embodied as part of the same volume. His description of the way
in which the Kirman weaving is done would serve almost equally
well as a picture of the work in the Tabriz factories.
He says : " From the shawl manufactory we went some little dis
tance to that of the no less celebrated carpets. These are manufact
ured in a way reminding one strongly of the Gobelin tapestry made
at present, or rather, before the war, in Paris. The looms are
arranged perpendicularly, and the workers sit behind the loom, but in
this case, unlike the Gobelins, they have the right side of the carpet
towards them. The manufacture of carpets differs from that of
shawls in this particular, that each carpet has a painted pattern, designed
and drawn out by the master of the manufactory, which is pinned to
the centre of the carpet, and which the workers can consult if neces
sary, from time to time. Advantage, however, is rarely taken of this
facility of reference, for the boy who sits nearest the pattern reads
out in a monotonous voice any information required concerning it.
The carpets are made entirely of cotton, woven by the fingers into the
upright web. Their manufacture is tedious and costly in the extreme,
but they are beautifully soft and durable. The work is constantly
hammered close together by a wooden hammer every few stitches.
The man whose manufactory we visited was said to be without a rival
in Persia either in the designing of beautiful rugs, or in skill in mak
ing them. We saw a beautiful carpet that he was making for a
shrine at Meshhed, which was to cost five thousand tomans, or two
hundred pounds, being eleven yards long by about two and a half
broad ; than which nothing could have been more beautiful. The
boys and men do not look so unhealthy as those in the shawl shops."
The designs of Kirman, to this day, are of the floral order, but
in the recent carpets — those which have been taken as models for the
Tabriz rugs — the medallion idea is paramount. The panels are not
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ORIENTAL RUGS
so hard or so heavy as those of Tabriz in appearance ; the flowers are
treated with a light and natural touch and with that appearance of
relief found scarcely anywhere else, save in very old carpets of the
neighboring province of Khorassan. But in the older Kirman pieces
— the sort which one seldom sees nowadays, there is evidence of
greater freedom, of individual conceit. An indisputable example of
this was found in a loan exhibition in the Library of Pratt Institute in
Brooklyn, N. Y. Its origin was proven by an inscription woven in a
cartouche in its border, " Amli Kirman, made at Kirman," and then,
" Karim," doubtless the name of the weaver. It was an old rug and
the registration of its date, which was also included in the inscription,
brought to light another interesting fact, that Karim, the weaver, was
not of the ordinary type of Mohammedan Persians, but a descendant
of the ancient Persis or Zoroastrian fire worshippers, who had refuge in
the city of Kirman. That city and Yezd are known to be now the
only places in Persia where any considerable colonies remain of the
Zoroastrians, who in modern Persian are called Zerdusht Record of
date in Eastern carpets is usually made by the reckoning of the
Hegira, now inching along into its fourteenth century. This rug of
Kirman bore date of 2918. The solution was obvious, since this is
the thirtieth century of the Zoroastrian era. Rough computation
showed that the rug was in the neighborhood of a hundred years old.
The pile had been so worn away that it was difficult to determine the
knot used. So Karim, the weaver, had years ago been gathered to
his fathers, but this old rug, perhaps the meanest of his handiworks,
was one to do him credit. It amuses one to wonder what would have
been the thoughts and impressions of Karim if he could have seen it
hanging there with the trader's tag upon it, and the strange, " Fer-
enghi "-looking people staring at it and looking up its number in the
catalogue. It was listed, by the way, as an India Kashmir. And
there is yet another story, for much of the export of Kirman is across

PERSIAN
the desert to the East and out of India by way of Bombay. It is
thus, without doubt, that so many of the Kirman rugs have found their
way to England.
At any rate, the rug of Karim was thus : About four feet by
seven, with a ground of " soft buff-gray." Upon this were woven in
rows, transverse and diagonal in effect, instead of perpendicular, blue
vases full of roses. They were like the flowers of Khorassan, drawn
in perspective and with the petals shaded. They seemed to have
body. There were long stems with buds, marvellously made buds,
hanging over the sides of the vases, and, besides these, three full
blown flowers, upright and magnificent, in each vase. So lavish was
this rose show that comparatively little of the ground-color appeared.
There were eighteen of the vases, all of exquisite pattern, all with
variations of the blue in their coloring, and some small, scarcely dis
coverable difference in their ornamentation.
The border stripes were five, the middle one broad, and grounded
in a yellow so golden that one must wonder how it could be obtained
in wool. The narrow stripes immediately adjoining this were black
of ground, but so filled with little flowers of red and yellow, and
leaves of pale green, that the contrast with the border stripes was all
but done away with. The innermost and outermost stripes, again,
were yellow as gold. All the stripes were floral and the flowers were
chiefly red, with exquisite offsetting foliage in delicate green tints.
And the weaver had wrought some magic into his rug. In the
daytime the reds of the roses seemed to lie asleep, to be dulled
almost to crushed colors by the years which had gone over them ;
only the golden yellow of the borders shone in the brightness of day
as if it were burnished. Under the glare of the lights, when night
came, the fabric was transformed. The gold vanished. The yellow
was almost of a part with the " soft buff-gray " of the field. But the
roses of Karim, with their wonderful shading, burst into a mass of

ORIENTAL RUGS
flame. It was as if he had laden them with all the fire his old Iranian
ancestors worshipped. Such was the true rug of Kirman.
For all that, it is only due to the spirit of technical accuracy to
add that the old weaver had used a two-strand cotton warp and
woollen weft of a single strand ; that the sides of the fabric were
overcast, and the ends finished with only a narrow web and the
white tips of the warp, which, across half of one end, were plaited
into little ropes. Karim put in about a hundred and twenty knots of
Kirman wool to every square inch of his rug. May his soul dwell
forever in the smile of Ormuzd.
Shiraz. — Here in Farsistan is one of the most Persian towns in
Persia, for here during a dozen centuries the ancient Parsa had its
capital. Shiraz, home of wine, roses and nightingales, birth-place and
tomb of Hafiz, smiles to-day in the very shadow of older Persepolis,
"the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep."
While Shiraz remained the centre of government, the palace
manufacture of carpets to be given by the Persian lords to potentates
of other countries was conducted upon a splendid scale, and the work
produced was the finest of which the Persian genius was capable.
The few specimens of the old handiwork which remain show traces of
northern influence, but their workmanship and color handling do not
suffer by comparison with the most artistic creations of old Kirman
and the later capitals of Persia. The untutored elements have, how
ever, so far prevailed in the rug-weaving of late years that the fabrics,
while thoroughly good floor-coverings and attractive to a degree,
show none of the several phases of artistic advancement which have
distinguished the weavings of places farther north, or, in days gone
by, of Shiraz itself. The distribution over a wide expanse of country
of the people who make the Shiraz rugs, and their exposure to differ
ent decorative influences on all sides have resulted in a wide variation
of design ; but in most of these the same clear, clean drawing is mani-

Hoy Weavers or Tah

ri/.

PERSIAN
fest, and the colors — blue tones seeming to predominate — are bright
and strong, and have the merit, even now, of being largely vegetable.
Numberless Shiraz carpets are found with the central field cover
ed with pear patterns. They may be distinguished from the pure
Sarabands without difficulty, since the Shiraz treatment is on a rather
larger scale and more rectilinear than that found elsewhere, excepting
in a few Kabestans and some of the carpets of Mosul. The whole
field, again, may be filled with a succession of narrow perpendicular
or diagonal stripes, in plain colors, or adorned with figures, animals,
and trees. In yet other examples appear the rectilinear central figures
of the Caucasians, with hard, clean-cut decoration like that of
Daghestan and Shemakha. But in such case the ground surrounding
the central figure invariably carries rich, bold flowers, or the pear
or tree figures.
The borders are almost always of generous width, and richly
ornamented. Some of the flower patterns are quite large and gay,
but still conventional. The waving vine is poorly, but almost invari
ably illustrated in the narrow stripes by a typical pattern, consisting
of two full, oval-shaped flowers, in alternate red and blue. Another
favorite small stripe is made of X-shaped figures, with diamonds in
the spaces between them. The Shiraz displays unusual features of
finish. At the ends of some rugs, for example, between the pile and
the narrow cloth web, the weaver makes a heavy but very narrow sel
vage, by weaving together in a coarse check pattern, in the Sumak
stitch, red, white and blue yarn, in thick strands of each color. Some
thing resembling this is found in certain of the Turkoman rugs and
in many Kurdistans, where it takes the form of stripes of colored
yarn embroidered across the narrow web at the ends. The sides
of the Shiraz are usually overcast, sometimes in one color, some
times two or three. Additional lengths of all the yarns used in
the piling are occasionally laid along the sides and bound in by the
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ORIENTAL RUGS
overcasting. This does the double service of strengthening the edges
and making them as thick as the piled part. In some rugs an orna
mental use is also made of this binding. At intervals of from twelve
to fourteen inches, loops of these added strands are left outside the
overcasting, and then cut so as to form a series of particolored tufts
along both sides of the rug. The effect is very odd. The foundation
threads are of wool, fine and white, or in coarse, colored grades,
according to the rug's quality. Shiraz carpets are made as large as
nine by twelve, but such sizes are rare. The small pieces include
many saddle covers, in the making of which the nomads of Farsistan
excel. Most singular, perhaps, among the Shiraz fabrics which reach
America are certain rugs having a field of plain color, and for borders
successive three- or four-inch stripes of several colors, all without ves
tige of a design. They are about four and one-half by seven feet,
and have on an average eighteen or twenty knots to the square inch.
The paucity of stitches does not indicate flimsiness of texture, as
might be imagined, for after each row of knots there are six or eight
threads of dyed weft, causing the pile, which is long, to lie flat. The
wool is extremely fine and soft These are nothing more than " com
forters," made to be used as coverings, but the genius of trade has
converted them into carpets. They have the Shiraz peculiarities of
finish, the checked colored selvage at the ends, and tufts of yarn adorn
ing the overcasting at the sides.
It will be well to recall here the fact that Shirvans, of the
Caucasian fabrics, are frequently offered as Shiraz. The true Shiraz
rugs may be known almost invariably by the small checked selvage
at the ends. They are worked in the Ghiordes knot, which makes
the task of distinguishing them from some Caucasians a difficult one
where the patterns are alike.
Niris. — These rugs are made by the hillmen in the uplands
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PERSIAN
around the salt lake Niris, in Laristan, A city of similar name is
near by. The fabrics show many marks of relationship with the
modern Shiraz, especially the checked selvage at the ends, and
though usually rougher than the Shiraz, excel them in some respects
as floor-coverings. They are never as closely woven as the finest of
Shiraz products, but on the whole are stronger and more durable.
The wool of the sheep grown hereabouts is unsurpassed. The best
of it is used by the Niris weavers for piling their rugs. Both warp
and weft are of stout, well made woollen yarn.
Madder red is the prevailing color. The designs vary, though
not to so great an extent as in the Shiraz. In some Niris rugs there
is a well wrought centre-piece, surrounded by a wide space in plain
color, and corners elaborately woven. In some an all-over design is
employed for the field, showing a pronounced stripe effect, one per
pendicular row of odd geometrical figures alternating with a row of
stiff floral forms. The borders are quite elaborately woven. In
these, as in the Shiraz, the barber-pole stripe of the Caucasians occurs,
but in both cases shows several strong, contrasting colors instead of
simple alternation of red and white, as found in the Caucasian forms.
The Niris are also worked in the Ghiordes knot.
These rugs are one of several varieties which have long been
grouped together by English rug men under the name of Laristan.
The peculiar geometrical figures mentioned as occurring in the field
are souvenirs of the Mongols, who overran these parts, and whose
posterity still remain in force in some localities. Some of the designs
are clearly Tartarian, and the fabrics seem more like some product of
Turkestan than of southern Persia.
Mecca. — One of the pet delusions of rug purchasers, which has
for years been industriously fostered by the trade, is that there exists,
for commerce, such a thing as a " Mecca " rug, and that it can be
bought with all its sanctity upon it, in shops in this country.
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ORIENTAL RUGS
" Mecca," as a name for a rug, tells nothing positive concerning the
locality of manufacture, and usually nothing but untruth in any regard.
" But," a New York dealer said, " you must have something which
you can tell them is a Mecca."
There journey to the holy city of the Moslems, each year, more
than half a million Mussulmans, bound upon pilgrimage. They come
from all parts of the vast territories of which Abdul Hamid II. is
spiritual, if not temporal, ruler ; from Morocco and the Barbary coasts,
from the South, from India, from Persia and Afghanistan, an endless
procession moves to display its faith at the Kaaba. Through Con
stantinople, by boat from Batoum, one hundred thousand of these
devotees pass from the Trans-Caucasus, Turkestan and the north of
Persia alone. All of this multitude bring offerings proportionate to
their store, to be laid upon the shrine. Jewels, shawls, scarfs,
armour, furs, perfumes — everything of value is accepted, and the accu
mulation creates an admirable stock in trade for the mercenary mol-
lahs, whose happy function it is to fix the rates of sacrifice. This
consecrated gentry drives a thriving trade in textiles, jewelry, and
bric-a-brac, and the carpet export from Mecca is enormous, and hete
rogeneous in proportion.1
1 All the rugs and other commodities carried by these pilgrims upon their journey are not in the
nature of religious sacrifices. The Prophet left them this thoughtful paragraph in his message : " It
shall be no crime in you if ye shall seek an increase from your Lord by trading during the pilgrimage."
The Prophet's understanding of his people, past, present, and to come, was intimate and acute. That
it was based upon experience and practical test rather than pure inspiration, is strongly suggested by
the first set of tenets which he established, and which later were much modified to meet the require
ments of the Mussulman case. Among them are these :
i . Do unto another as thou wouldst that he should do unto thee.
2. Deal not unjustly with others, and thou shalt not be dealt with unjustly. If there be any
difficulty of paying a debt, let the creditor wait until it be easier for him to do it ; but if one remit in
alms it will be better for him.
3. O merchants, falsehood and deception are apt to prevail in traffic. He who sells a defective
thing, concealing its defects, will provoke the anger of God and the curses of the angels.
4. Take not advantage of the necessities of another to buy things at a sacrifice ; rather relieve
his indigence. There are commandments here which, conscientiously kept, would alter the whole complexion
of the Eastern rug trade, were that trade in the hands of Moslems, which it is not.
216

PERSIAN
As a rule, the rugs purchased from the mollahs, who bring them
down to Jiddah — since no infidel foot is permitted to enter the con
fines of the Holy City — are of good quality, for a faithful Moslem
would scarcely offer an unworthy gift to his Deity; but they are of every
sort that the Orient sun shines upon. The greater number are
Shiraz. To such an extent have these been wont to predominate
that a certain order of Shiraz sedjadeh of a blue cast, and about five
feet wide by seven feet long, came to be known in the trade as
" Mecca " rugs.
This was the doing of the English dealers, who, having received
shipments direct from Jiddah, had noticed the predominance of the
Shiraz type, and so called that type Mecca. The maintenance
among American rug sellers of the belief that these are really Mecca
rugs is primarily due to the fact that until fifteen years ago only a
very few buyers for American houses had ever gone to Constanti
nople to secure carpets. The rest, instead, had bought from the im
porting firms in London, and taken their terminology with the goods.
Nearly all the carpets left by the pilgrims, and thousands with
which no pilgrim has ever had aught to do, are sent from Jiddah up
through the Suez Canal to Cairo, to be sold to tourists. Others are
carried to England, and an infinitely small number to Constantinople.
Of late years, so great has grown the business of the Mecca priests,
thrifty captains of sailing vessels and tramp steamers plying in
the Persian Gulf pick up at small prices what rugs they can in sea
port towns, and as they come out through the Red Sea on the way
westward, drop them at Jiddah, and sometimes turn a pretty penny
thereby. This, doubtless, accounts for the prevalence of the Shiraz
type. One thing is certain, that since the great majority of American
merchants do not go to Cairo, but to Stamboul and Smyrna for their
rugs, the actual number of Mecca relics of the textile sort which find
217

ORIENTAL RUGS
their way to this country is almost wholly confined to the private
purchases made by American idlers about the Delta of the Nile.
So greedily are the rugs picked up there, that consignments are sent
from Smyrna and Constantinople to be peddled in Cairo as sacred
things from Mecca or furnishings from Egyptian palaces.
KHORASSAN FABRICS
Sterling carpets, some of which possess much artistic merit, come
from this far eastern province of Persia, which even now extends
from the borders of Irak Ajemi, in Central Persia, to Afghanistan,
and from the Turkoman boundaries of Asiatic Russia, southward to
the province of Kirman. Most of the western portion of Khorassan
is desert, in the scattered oases of which only small villages are found.
The greater part of the weaving is done in the hill country, along the
northern and eastern borders. Fragments of many races populate
the province — Iranians, Arabs, Turkomans, Kurds, and what not —
and the fabrics therefore are of many sorts. The Iranian element is
for the most part sedentary, and has assimilated many of the Arabs and
Kurds. The Tartar tribes are wanderers, as they have ever been.
The Afghans and Baluches who roam in numbers along the eastern
and southeastern confines are robbers to the manner born, and prone
to violence. The best varieties of Khorassan fabrics show something of the
same opulence in design which is found in old Ispahan and Teheran
carpets, though with more of the treatment of the Kirman rug previ
ously described. The works of the nomad classes are devoid of fine
ness, but like those of similar tribes in the Caucasus and Asia Minor
are rich in bold effects, and durable beyond belief. In Khorassan
both the upright and horizontal looms are used, also both methods of
knotting. Khorassan Proper. — The realism which marks certain carpets of
the Feraghan group is fairly outdone in many of the proper Khoras-
218

PERSIAN
sans. There is, perhaps, not so much of poetic feeling apparent, but
the floral designs are more interesting for the reason that passably
successful effort is made to portray them in perspective. In draw
ing and coloring the floral masses with which the grounds are covered
in some of the more pretentious Khorassans suggest European treat
ment. The largest and most difficult forms are undertaken, not only
without much concession to Oriental decorative convention, but with
evident intent to depict them as growing out of the ground. As
compared with the flowers in the Teheran and Ispahan rugs, these
are as exotics to the exuberant growths of the field. In brilliancy of
color and general treatment they resemble somewhat the Kirmans ;
but even where the central medallion is used the " painted panel "
appearance of the Tabriz fabrics is absent
In some rugs lavish use is made of animal figures, birds and
humans. They are all most brilliant in coloring and are drawn with
much skill though in rather bad proportion. They are not repre
sented in motion, as is customary in the Teheran and Ispahan fabrics,
but in the most photographic and everlasting of poses. A favorite
device in these creations is the Persian heraldic emblem, a lion, sword
in hand, with the great sun rising at his back. The geographical
location of Khorassan and its history go far toward explaining the
prevalence of many of the features in design. That part of the prov
ince in which the rug-making is almost wholly carried on lies in the
main track of travel between Teheran and the East. Its cities have
been for centuries the religious centres of Mohammedan Persia, al
though they have been taken and occupied at intervals by Mongol
invaders. Nishapur, most important of these during the Middle
Ages, and under one dynasty the capital, was the home of Omar
Khayyam and other learned men whose writings have survived to our
era and found translation into other languages. Thus, in close touch,
with China, and yet a home of Persian culture, and withal famous
2I<;

ORIENTAL RUGS
for the industrial skill of its people, this one city alone must have
had much to do with the establishment of the high type which pre
vails in the best of the Khorassan carpets even now.
It would seem, however, that for a long time the superlative
carpets of Khorassan had been made farther to the south. Bellew in
his book, " From the Indus to the Tigris," says :
" Birjand, the modern capital of the district of Ghayn, or Cayn,
an open town of about two thousand houses, ... is the centre
of a considerable trade with Kandahar and Herat on the one side,
and Kirman, Yezd and Teheran on the other. It is also the seat of
the carpet manufacture for which this district has been celebrated
from of old. These carpets are called kalin, and are of very superior
workmanship, and of beautiful designs, in which the colors are
blended with wonderful harmony, and incomparable good effect The
best kinds fetch very high prices, and are all bespoke by agents for
nobles and the chiefs of the country. The colors are of such delicate
shades, and the patterns are so elaborate and tasteful, and the nap
is so exquisitely smooth and soft, that the carpets are only fit for use
in the divans of Oriental houses, where shoes are left without the
threshold. The best kinds are manufactured in the villages around,
and those turned out from the looms of Duroshkt Nozad enjoy a pre
eminent reputation for excellence. . . .
" Sihdih, as the name implies, is a collection of three villages on
the plain to which they give their name. Only one of these is now
inhabited, the other two being in ruins. Very superior carpets are
manufactured here, and they seem to fetch also very superior prices,
to judge from those asked of us for some specimens we had
selected. . . .
" Ghayn exports its silks mostly to Kirman raw, but a good deal
is consumed at home in the manufacture of some inferior fabrics for
the local markets. The carpets known by the name of this town are

PERSIAN
not made here, but in the villages of the southern division of this
district." The genuine Khorassan is not however, confined to large,
showy designs. All of the more minute patterns in vogue among
the artisans of the other districts of Persia are made use of by the
people of the eastern province. The pear, the fish pattern, and the
conventionalized floral devices recognized as belonging to the
Persian decoration are frequent. In their use of the pear, the
Khorassan weavers have devised a complex pattern of their own,
which, though it has been adopted into other families, is looked
upon as the property of the inventor. Two small pears in light color
rest their narrow ends, or tops, upon a larger one, at right angles, so
as to form a cross, the arms of which lie diagonally to the field of the
carpet, and the repetition of the pattern makes of the small, light-
colored pears a pronounced diagonal stripe throughout the entire
area. The large, dark red pears are so arranged that their stripe is
broken at regular intervals. At these points of fracture two of
the large pears are placed side by side and a new stripe is begun.
The smaller pear figures are jewelled with tiny patterns in bright color.
A recurring perpendicular stripe is made by yet other and longer pear
shapes, placed vertically between the cross patterns. The blue of the
ground, showing between these groups, itself forms a horizontal
stripe, and the effect of the whole is rich and striking.
Sometimes the medallion is used, always covered with a skilfully
arranged design in small figures. A pronounced waving vine is
usually found in the main stripe of the border, drawn in white on a
ground of dark red. Frequently, as a substitute for the rosettes,
palmettes, and lotus buds common in Herati design, the pear groups
are used. The narrow borders repeat the undulating effect, some
times in two vines on a blue field, or in some mixed pattern on a
lighter ground. Where the body is filled with the great, rich flower

ORIENTAL RUGS
designs before mentioned the border usually presents a consistently
large pattern composed of the established Assyrian elements.
The knots of the old Khorassans are closely woven. The com
pactness which this insures makes the rug lie firmly, even on a highly
polished floor, a virtue which looser fabrics have not. In length of
pile the Khorassans vary, but in almost all lengths, even in some of
the more closely trimmed examples, there is a peculiar appearance of
surface, similar to that of rugs which have undergone wear, and in
which the corrosive effect of certain dyes has begun to be apparent.
It is most evident in pieces which have large patterns, and in which it
is not necessary to bring out minute points of color. This uneven
clipping adds to the softness given by the fine wool with which the
rugs are napped. It gives to a carpet which has from a hundred and
twenty-five to a hundred and fifty knots to the square inch, and in its
foundations is excessively solid, the appearance of being fleece to the
foot. This same peculiarity occurs in some varieties of antique India
rugs. Through ignorance, probably, vendors often sell old Feraghans
for the fine-patterned Khorassan. The Khorassan dyes have hither
to been to a laudable extent vegetable. Lately a new line of pro
ducts has been brought to this country, woven in the Feraghan
pattern, but upon a red ground instead of blue, as is the custom in
the real Feraghans. The foundations are cotton, but the weaving is
compact and careful, better, in fact, than most of the modern proper
Feraghans. The pile is not finished like the Feraghans, but is trim
med unevenly, after the Khorassan fashion. The dyes in these new
fabrics leave much to be desired.
Meshhed. — This, the capital of Khorassan, was once almost
wholly a city of worship ; it holds the shrines of Imam Riza and
Caliph Haroun al Raschid. It lies in the eastern part of the prov
ince, and for centuries has been the objective point of Mussulman

PERSIAN
pilgrimages from all over Asia, particularly by the Persians and others
of the Shiite sect whose saints are entombed there. Thousands
whose scant worldly store did not warrant them in making the jour
ney to Mecca have contented themselves and no doubt demonstrated
their fidelity satisfactorily, by accomplishing the devotional trip to
Meshhed." It is really the most central place in Asia, a veritable
hub, from which great highways, like the spokes of a wheel, run out
in all directions. More or less weaving, some of it of the highest
merit, has always been done in and about the city. Many rugs were
brought, too, by the pilgrims as offerings, and a vast trade in textiles
sprang up. Little by little Meshhed lost its religious tone. Its situa
tion made it a perfect emporium, a natural commercial centre. Its
wonderful road system, by which it can be directly reached from any
part of Asia, has been utilized more and more every year by caravans,
until now it is one of the greatest marts in all the East.
The rugs vended here are among the best that the Khorassan
district knows. Traditionally they are rich and lustrous beyond
measure. All the opulence of color and perfection of floral and ani
mal design that distinguishes the pure Khorassan is found in the rugs
which bear the name of the Shiite Mecca. The chief features of the
antiques are preserved, but the more modern fabrics, while they hold
high rank even among the Persian loom works, have sacrificed much
of artistic finish to strength and durability, and are now almost as
substantial as the Herati or even the Kurdistan Sarakhs. They
present as patterns the great cone or pear shapes, in larger form
perhaps than any other rug. In the border these take the long form
1 How great a multitude of rugs came into the possession of the mollahs is indicated by the
statement of Dr. Bellew. He describes the vast graveyard at Meshhed to which, from all parts of
Persia people brought the bones of their kinsfolk to be buried. " Prior to the famine," he says, " these
interments amounted to forty thousand annually. After the great national disaster poverty caused a
widespread neglect of the custom, and the number fell to something like twelve thousand. It has
never returned to its former maximum since Meshhed, of late years, has taken on the character of a
commercial centre.'' 223

ORIENTAL RUGS
common to India and Kashmir; they are placed transversely and
often alternated with the crossed arrangements described as a feature
of the proper Khorassans. The designs in the most pretentious
examples include also the animal forms, set in luminous colors upon
the brightest of grounds. The pile is not trimmed in the uneven
manner of the other Khorassans, but presents the smooth, compact
surface common in the Herat, to which they are nearly related. In
finish of ends and sides they follow the Khorassans. They are worked
in the Ghiordes knot.
Herat. — The state of facts which has seemed to warrant the
classification of the Mosul fabrics with the Caucasian finds exact du
plication here, in the case of the carpets named for Herat, the City
of a Hundred Gardens, which, from its strategic importance, has
become famed world-wide as the " Key of India." Though now
outside of the geographical confines of the Persian realm, it bears in
timate historical relation to Persia, and its carpets are allied in design
and coloring to the Persian family of textiles, rather than to those of
the Turkoman districts on the north, or the Mongolian on the east.
The fish pattern, which has been referred to as prevailing in Ferag
han rugs, is in its purity known among experts as the Herat pattern.
It seems tolerably clear that it originated neither in Herat nor in the
Feraghan district, but was primarily a gift, in which two at least of
the older civilizations contributed each its part. However that may
be, the design, as a diaper for the body of the rug, and the accompa
niment recognized as the Herat border are preserved in their integ
rity in the modern Herat fabrics. The Herat border has been uti
lized, with more or less modification, in half the rug-making sections
of the Orient. In many of the finest pieces in the European collec
tions it is used to enclose a central design of the purest Persian, the
distinctive Persian character being maintained, as one authority
points out, by the employment of dark red for the ground-color of
224

Plate XXI. Tekke Prayer Rug
5-4 x 4
Loaned by Mr. Ralph O. Smith
The octagonal device of the Turkoman weaving is familiar to almost every
one, so common, in fact, that it is reproduced in numberless machine-made fab
rics, the regularity of the pattern lending itself particularly well to mechanical
repetition. Equally prevalent in Turkestan is this design for the prayer car
pets. With some small variation as to coloring and border ornamentation it is
used by nearly all the weavers of the Turkoman steppes. The piece here shown
has a band of lighter color in the ground at one end of the field, a quite unusual
manifestation among the Tekke weavers, though frequent enough in the rugs of
Kurdistan and parts of Caucasia.

PERSIAN
the central field, and a corresponding value of green for the ground
of the border, a combination which seems to have enjoyed the high
est favor among the Persian masters.
The majority of Herat rugs adhere religiously to the old de
sign, and whatever their dimensions are in every essential point, ma
terials, dyeing and weaving, unsurpassed by any which come out of
the East Aside from the recognized Herat pattern, almost the only
other device used is the pear shape, repeated throughout the field
after the manner of the Sarabands, save that the Saraband has the
hook turned in opposite directions in the alternate rows, while in the
Herati it is drawn uniformly. This seems to be employed only in the
finest of the modern examples, and the elongated, gracefully curved
shape of the patterns gives indication of the close relation which, by
reason both of trade and conquest, has for centuries existed between
India and the Afghan capital. When used for the field the pattern
is often upon a ground of cream yellow or some other light shade,
though the usual ground color is blue. In the border which accom
panies it, in these instances, the weavers retain the typical Herat
forms. Although the fish patterns used in Feraghan and Herati are
essentially identical, the latter is woven in the Ghiordes knot, the
former in the Sehna.
It is a common belief that the Herat rugs are woven in Khoras
san. The ground for this is without doubt the thoroughly Persian
character of the fabrics, the knot being the only point of variance.
In this connection it is important to know that the Herati do not
speak of their country as Afghanistan, but always as Khorassan, a
usage dating back to the time when the Persian sway was less cir
cumscribed than it is to-day.
There is a coarse form of Herat carpet which is offered under
the name of Aiyin, or Kayin.

225

XII
TURKOMAN
FROM the Caspian Sea to the Chinese frontier, and from the
Sea of Aral to Afghanistan and Persia, stretches an immense
territory, comprising thousands on thousands of square
miles, and inhabited by numberless rug- making tribes.
In the deserts and sand-hills of Turkestan, both east and west
of the Oxus, and among the foot-hills of the Hissar and Turkestan
Mountains, the rough, quarrelsome Turkomans, most of them under
Russian rule now, make rugs which follow quite closely a general
type, and which have attained a high degree of popularity as strong,
well made, and serviceable. Some of them, too, are models of fine
ness and solidity. The wool used in them is of good quality. The
lower grades of wool are made into heavy cloaks, tent-coverings and
thick felts, all of which play a large part in the wild, outdoor life led
by the Central Asian hordes.
In considering these Turkoman weavings we encounter again the
misunderstanding which has arisen in the case of so many rugs. The
great majority of the Turkoman fabrics are accredited to Bokhara,
and by that name are widely known in Europe and America. The
plan adopted in this volume — of letting the accredited rug names
stand for what they have stood for hitherto, instead of inviting the
226

TURKOMAN
reader to learn a new distribution — is particularly harassing here,
for what are called Bokharas in America are not Bokharas, and no
one in Asia, save the most case-hardened rug vendor, understands
what an American means by "Bokhara" rugs. On the way up the
Black Sea I talked rugs to a Frenchman who for years had been
" expediting " all sorts of Eastern carpets — Persian, Caucasian, Turk
oman and1 even bales from farther east.
" Do you have any Tekkes in America?" he asked.
I told him I had heard the name applied to khilims, and to
some coarse nomad weavings out of eastern Anatolia.
" Oh, no ! " he said. " That is not the Tekke. You must see
the real Tekke of Turkestan. When we arrive in Russia I will
show you some, but they are not for sale. All the veritable Tekkes
are in private hands, and no one will part with them, for they have
become very rare. Once in a while one is offered for sale, but the
price is very, very high."
When we reached Batoum I saw the Tekke — the "veritable
Tekke." If it were displayed in a Broadway window, the rug mer
chants would declare it the finest Bokhara they ever saw.
Before the Trans- Caspian railroad was built, the wild tribesmen
of all that part of Turkestan, it seems, always took their rugs to Bo
khara for sale. When they reached Tiflis or Constantinople, which
latter they did years ago by caravan to Trebizond, the rugs bore the
name of the Turkoman capital from which they had been "expedited."
That name has become fastened on them, and will not be
changed. Tekke rugs, or their unworthy successors, will continue to
be sold as Bokharas. But what is even more perplexing, under the
circumstances, is that the carpets which are made in Bokhara itself,
and far to the south and east of its confines, are the coarse, Brobdig-
nagian forms of the Turkoman design which we know sometimes as
Afghans and sometimes as Khivas. For the rest, the Samarkands
227

ORIENTAL RUGS
and the Chinese weavings have been included in this group, not
because they resemble the others in any respect (for they are es
sentially Mongol) but solely upon geographical grounds.
"Bokhara" or Tekke. — In the whole range of Eastern fabrics
there is probably no pattern which so conclusively identifies a textile
as does the hard-and-fast division into squares and oblongs and the
unvarying octagonal device which are the features of the so-called
Bokhara. These rugs, which are now found in almost tiresome
plenty, are made by the Tekke-Turkomans who inhabit the plains to
the west of the Oxus, and who, until the Russians whipped them
into something like civilized procedure, found their chief delight in
stealing their fellow-men of all other races whenever opportunity
offered, and, having tortured them for diversion, selling them into
slavery. The Russian artist and traveller, Simakoff, who has been spoken
of elsewhere, told in the all too meagre letter-press of his splendid
book something of these Turkoman weavings. Each family or clan,
he said, had its carpet design, as one has a sign manual. Nothing
that could be offered could ever tempt them to weave any other.1
Several of the characteristic tribal designs he reproduced in his very
interesting work. The particular conceit which in the West has
come to be considered most thoroughly typical of Bokhara is one
which when once seen cannot be forgotten. No matter in what
minor details it may vary, one feature will proclaim it instantly. The
lines of demarcation in the pattern are heavy and hard, and as true

1 ' ' Types des dessins les plus frequents dans les tapis des Tourkmenes. Ils se distinguent par
la finesse et le caractere serre du tissu, la solidite des couleurs, et I'harmonie reposante des nuances. Ces
dessins sont composes de figures fantastiques, formees de lignes droites, que ne rappellent ni des fteurs, ni
des oiseaux, ni d'autres animaux. Les figures rappellant des oiseaux que Ton voit sur un fond d'octo-
gones, dans le tapis " a ' ne se rencontrent qu'i lVtat d'exception. II en est de ces dessins comme de
ceux sur les tapis e'troits ci-dessus mentionnes [the narrow strips used for friezes around the tent walls];
chaque famille Tourkmene a son dessin propre, qu'elle travaille et varie, mais a aucun prix elle ne vou-
drait en executer un autre." — " L'Art deVAsie Centrale," par N. Simakoff.
228

TURKOMAN
as those of a checker -board. The arrangement of the devices on
these oblongs is also characteristic. A single figure does not lie
within a single oblong, but on the intersection of the lines. Each
quarter of it is in one corner of each four adjoining oblongs. The
centre, usually filled with a diamond shape, marks the actual point
of intersection. The pattern itself is an elongated octagon, divided in
four parts by the lines referred to above. Inside of it lies a similar
shape, the diagonally opposite quarters of which are colored alike,
and in contrast with the alternating quarters. For example, one and
three will be of red and brown, two and four of white and black. In
the outer part these colors are reversed, which gives balance to the
pattern. The ground of the rug and its dominant color throughout
is red — kermes, madder, or glowing scarlet. The other colors are
brown, black, blue, white and sometimes a shade of orange. All
these are, however, thoroughly subordinated to the dominant reds.
Some conventional diamond-shaped figure occupies the spaces be
tween the octagons.
In some of the smaller pieces there is a complex border, the
stripe effect of which is multiplied by many narrow lines of contrasting
color, arranged after the fashion of the Chinese fret, between the
broader stripes, which carry a definite pattern contrasting with the
bold body of the carpet. The red-and-black effect is maintained, but
lightness and brightness are imparted by the addition of small areas
of orange and diminutive fillings of pale blue and white, and some
times, though rarely, of green. This border, which has much of the
East Indian about it, is wider at the ends than at the side, and of a
more broken design, usually suggesting some form of the tree of life.
A feature of many Bokharas, shared by kindred fabrics, is the web,
sometimes ten or twelve inches deep on the ends. It is a Turkish
device, and has travelled with the race. In color it is similar to the
pile in most antiques ; and through it, in most of the pieces, run
229

ORIENTAL RUGS
narrow stripes, single or double, at intervals of two, three or four
inches. They are blue or black and white. Instead of this there
is sometimes a plain piled surface, running out clear to the small
selvage and carelessly twisted fringe which finish the ends. In the
small moderns the web is white. The rugs come in all sizes, though
it is only within the last few years that they have reached real carpet
dimensions. The prayer rugs differ entirely from the sedjadeh. Barring the
borders, there is little to indicate that they are of the same variety ;
but in each the type is strictly adhered to. The bold reds of the
carpets are usually missing from the prayer rug, which, when of fine,
antique quality, is soft, sedate, but indescribably rich. The cus
tomary color tone is mahogany, relieved with the wonderful deep
copper bronze tint found in some few of the Beluchistans ; and the
skilful, artistic use of the lighter shades gives to the variations of
the design a lustre little short of marvellous. There is a multiplied
tree pattern in the border, the high lights of which are in thin lines
of pure white. The conformation of the arch and niche would be too
heavy and severe if the coloring did not soften them so completely.
The field design is of the same order as the borders, presenting in
more elaborate but still rectilinear form the tree motive. Across the
field, midway, runs a broad horizontal band, which, aided by a
perpendicular, divides the whole area into four quite distinct parts,
in each of which the tree appears. What the significance of this
division may be it is hard to say. So plain in some points of the
prayer rugs is the likeness to the Beluchistans that it is not wholly
unreasonable to believe that the quartering, even though the fab
ric be Mohammedan, harks back in some way to the quadruplicate
division which maintains throughout all the Vedic worship writings
of India. It is worthy of note that the Bokharas are wider in proportion to
230

TURKOMAN
length than most other prayer rugs, always excepting the Ladik and
Bergamo. The only light color used in them, aside from the white
and yellow and the orange values, is pale blue, in which the minute
floral patterns are sometimes laid. The pile, which is woven in the
Sehna knot, is trimmed very close in the old pieces, and the surface
is fine and velvety. Very rarely a pure Bokhara is found with a
field of blue instead of red. These are greatly prized. What are
frequently sold in America as " Bilooz," or " blue Bokharas," are
Beluchistan rugs, made in a blue tone instead of the reds and bronzes
which prevail in most of their class.
Many of the multitude of Turkoman designs of which Simakoff
speaks could be seen up to a few years ago in Tiflis, whither the
Turkestan bales were sent for redistribution ; but since the extension
of the railway to Bokhara and Samarkand the Turkoman tribes can
intrust their weavings to the freight agents at any point on the rail
way, with the knowledge that they will go straight through to the
Constantinople dealers. The result is that in Tiflis, where ten or a
dozen years ago good Tekke carpets could be had, there is now
an utter dearth of them, and small fragments of the old rugs are
deftly sewn together to make a piece as large, perhaps, as a prayer
rug. For these patchwork affairs astounding prices are asked.
It is impossible for any one to fix the right names and places of
manufacture for the manifold weavings of Turkestan, unless, indeed,
it be a native intimately acquainted with all the strolling companies
scattered over that well-nigh boundless waste.
They differ in detail, but the fundamental parts of the design, as
well as the general scheme of color, vary little. It is well to take
what we know as Bokharas as a point to reckon from. There are
designs which approach this very nearly, and there are others which,
while following the color scheme and general arrangement, have
eliminated many of the features. What some American dealers have
23>

ORIENTAL RUGS
chosen to call Khiva- Bokhara, for example, are identical with the
Bokharas in knot, color and finish, and so nearly resemble them in
pattern that at first glance they are easily mistaken for the Bokhara
pieces. There are points of difference : first, the Khiva-Bokharas
are inferior to the Bokharas in fineness. Superlative Bokharas have
as many as two hundred knots or even more to the square inch, and
a good specimen has a hundred and twenty. The best of the Khiva-
Bokharas has not more than a hundred. Second, scrutiny reveals
that the hard division into squares or oblong spaces which is the
feature of the Bokharas is omitted from the other class or classes.
In yet other pieces which have departed even more widely from
what we have adopted as a standard design, animal figures are used
to diversify the quarterings of the octagon, instead of the geometrical
and quasi-floral shapes. This, there is little doubt, denotes that the
rugs were woven by tribes making their home in the more westerly
part of the plain. They have caught, though in a degree diminished
by distance, the fashion of the Caucasus, so frequently illustrated in
the Kabistan and Kazak rugs. They have adhered, however, rather
strictly to the Bokhara traditions, and the rugs are a happy and con
venient medium between those formal fabrics and the less conven
tional weavings of the Yomuds.
The " Bokhara pattern" has found greater popularity in America
than any other of all the Turkoman lot. It is repeated and repeated
in rugs great and small, which are sent to this country by thousands
annually. In the majority of them, lately, the colors are bad. Effort
to make antiques of some pieces by washing has reduced them from
glowing reds to the palest of pinks. The market weavers have
abandoned, apparently, the other designs, and yet the finest speci
men of Tekke weaving I saw presented an altogether different pat
tern — one which was based upon the diamond shape, after the style
of the Yomuds, and not on the square and octagon. These were the
232

TURKOMAN
carpets of which my fellow-voyager had spoken. They had an
incredible number of knots to the inch, a surface fine as velvet and
while thin and flexible, almost, as paper, were strong, and in their
design and texture perfect.
Dealers offer to sell what are known as "Royal Bokharas."
If there were any " Royal Bokhara," it would be the kind I have just
mentioned, and they are made no more — and probably never will be.
Yomud. — There is one variety of the Turkoman weavings
which carries upon its face indisputable proof of its origin. Its de
signs tell where it was woven.
Away at the western end of Turkestan, scattered over plains,
along the shores of the Caspian and in the foot-hills of the mountain
chain which has for a time stopped, nominally, the southward march
of the Russian, dwells the great Yomud horde of Turkomans. There
are, perhaps, no rugs which from an ethnological standpoint are more
interesting than theirs. They are satisfying, not more by reason of
their warm color, admirable weaving and neat, cleanly defined pat
terns than because in every minutest particular they are what one
observing the geographical position of the Yomud territory must
expect them to be. Following religiously, on one hand, the color,
textile traditions and general theory of the Tekke folk, with whom
they are by race, customs and political affinity allied, the Yomud
weavers have yet reached out across the Caspian to their near neigh
bors of Daghestan, Derbend, Kuba and the Shirvan district, and
borrowed for the borders of their rugs and the adornment of the pure
Turkoman figures all the elements and decorative tricks which distin
guish the fabrics of these parts. With a skill of which they might
scarcely be suspected, they have perfected in these praiseworthy
carpets an adaptation, or better, an amalgamation of patterns, in ideal
accord with the outline of the process as given in the chapter on
Design. *3J

ORIENTAL RUGS
The task has been simplified by the fact that the decorative
quantities with which they have had to deal, on both sides, are purely
rectilinear ; nevertheless a great obstacle lay in the way, in the mat
ter of coloration. To so temper the uncompromising blood-reds of
the Bokharas on the one hand, and the bright yellows and blues of
the Caucasians on the other, that there should be peace and harmony
in the finished carpet, was a labor for masters. It has been accom
plished in masterly manner. To judge by the side borders alone,
one might reasonably say, looking at some of the Yomud rugs, that
they had come from the Shirvan or Daghestan looms. And yet the
end borders and the body of the rugs are Turkoman. In some cases
the colors follow the red schedule of the Tekkes ; in others that is
mellowed almost to an old rose, to meet and harmonize with the alien
hues of the Caucasus. They retain the striped red web and the long
fringe of goat's-hair ; they retain in general the Tekke division, but it
is in the drawing of the Caucasus. The latch-hook is everywhere.
In many cases there is a broad white or wool-colored stripe at the
outer edge of the web on the ends, and in it, oftentimes, a small out
line border pattern, embroidered in red yarn. Occasionally the fringe,
instead of being left loose all the way across the end of the rug, is
twisted at irregular intervals of from three to eight inches into stout
ropes like those of the Kazaks. Between these the warp-threads of
goat's-hair lie loose.
In the majority of Yomuds the pattern is an array of diamond
shapes, distributed upon the field in the Turkoman order, but
equipped inside and out with the latch-hook. In the borders, too,
Caucasian hand-marks are apparent. There is the stiff form of the
swaying vine. Where it crosses from one side to the other it is
heavy with latch-hooks. Where it lies parallel with the sides it is
nothing but the barber-pole stripe found in nearly all the Transcau
casian fabrics, and in so many Kabistans. Even in the rugs in which
234

TURKOMAN
it may be held to have originated, this stripe does not play a more
important part than in the Yomuds. It furnishes both broad and
narrow elements for the sides and in the end borders ; it figures as
trunk in the tree patterns, the branches of which are composed of a
form of latch-hook.
There is one feature which seems to be wholly the property of
the Yomuds. It is a coarse side selvage of two ribs, which, instead
of being wholly red, has alternate squares of red and blue, red and
brown, or two shades of red, in each rib, so that a sort of checker
board effect is secured. Even when the rugs are piled out to the last
thread of warp (body finish,) this is preserved in the pile. The nearest
approach to anything of the sort, in any other rug, is the selvage of
red, white and blue at the ends of the Shiraz, but that is worked in
the Soumak stitch, while the selvage of the Yomuds is in the khilim
or tapestry stitch. The piling of the Yomuds may be either in the
Sehna or Ghiordes knot.
One division of these Turkoman carpets, which avoids on the
one hand close adherence to the Bokhara device,' and on the other
the latch-hook style of the Yomuds, is called Beshir. In the matter
of web and fringe it follows the example of the rest of the group, but
the web is more generously adorned with stripes than in any of the
other varieties. The patterns manifest somewhat more of the Arab
character, but the manner of arranging them upon the field is still
that of Bokhara. A feature of the border is the " reciprocal saw
tooth," the sechan disik of the Persians.
Afghanistan-Bokhara. — Another interesting although perplex
ing feature of the confusion in which these rugs of Middle Asia have
become involved is that what we have been wont to purchase as
Afghan carpets are really the product of Bokhara, though they are,
naturally enough, made also by the dwellers in northern Afghanistan,
on the slopes of the Hindu Kush and all along the Bokhara border.
*35

ORIENTAL RUGS
They are great, coarse carpets with the Bokhara octagon device
much enlarged, and without the dividing-lines which make the field
of the finer fabrics look like a decorated checker-board. Though on
a greater scale, they are more after the order of the Khivas, and have
been commonly sold under that name. All of boldness, all of wild
force, that is read or imagined of the dwellers in these stern uplands,
finds record and expression in the Afghan carpets. They are fierce
and full of character. The spirit of the mountains and gorges is in
them. The gloom of wind-swept highlands is over them. They are
of a dark, savage red, or rather of two reds — one with an ugly
suggestion of blood in it, the other darker and more sombre, dulled
by the admixture of indigo almost to brown.
The patterns, great and grim and impressionistic, are thrown in
with much freedom and energy. Dashes of white, positive to a
degree, but minute in such a desert of grimness, only emphasize the
rude grandeur of the fabrics. The border is crude, but in it is
recorded the finer spirit of the people. Whatever there is in them
of leaning toward civilization and the politer arts has its expression
here. Outside of this, formed by the ends of the goat's-hair warp,
is a long, straying, ashen-brown fringe, suggesting the beard of the
Cossack. Some pieces — the minority — are wrought out in lighter
shades, but the ratio between the values is still justly maintained.
The web takes on a brighter tone and better finish as the colors of
the pile grow brighter ; the fringe is a lighter gray. The consistency
of it shows a certain artistic impulse strong in the nature of the
people. Other examples manifest a leaning to orange and bits of
light blue. In some the squares are resumed, some of them being
laid in orange, others in rich green. The borders grow in com
plexity, and flower patterns creep in ; but at the brightest they are
in harsh contrast with the flower-strewn carpets of the Persian or
the brilliant panels of the Caucasian. 236

A K it; Makkkt i\ Iran

M

TURKOMAN
The Afghans are sometimes made of goat's-hair and some
times of wool. The warp is of brown wool or the coarser hair of the
goat. Spinning these filaments is a difficult task. When wet they
curl so tightly that they cannot be spun at all ; therefore the hair is
not always washed, but after the shearing is carefully combed. There
sometimes remains in a warp made of this thread a strong odor
which it is quite difficult to remove.
The nomad products of Afghanistan itself show a diversity which
quite entitles them to a separate classification, after setting apart the
Herat carpets, which have been placed with the Khorassan group of
Persia, and most of which are to-day really made in Persia. Perhaps
the most singular, as they are the rarest, of these "independent" Af
ghan fabrics are made by the Turkoman tribes dwelling in the defiles
of the Barkhut Mountains, the gateway through which is the renowned
Pass of Herat. Their rugs are a positive announcement of their
position on the map, for they have borrowed the design, fish pattern
and all, from the Herati, but have wrought it out in the colors of
their kinsmen and neighbors on the north. The relationship, the
strong general likeness of the fabrics in color and theory of contrast,
and finally that they are both worked in the Sehna knot while the
Herati use the Ghiordes, would perforce lead to placing these rugs
in the same class as the Tekkes. This version of the Herat pattern
is wholly rectilinear. The leaves which inclose the rosette are like
bent spear-heads, and the flowers and stalks are stiff to the last
degree. Aside from the blood-red of the ground and the dark brown
or blue which is used to outline the patterns, there is small show of
any color in the body of the rug. In the borders there is more life.
The pattern here, usually a great, indented octagon, combined with
some form of the tree, is adorned with several bright colors, orange,
light blue and the like. Its lines are plainly copied from the old
Beluchistans. 237

ORIENTAL RUGS
These weavers seem to have caught from the Herati, too, the
notion of magnitude. The carpets are meant for chef-d'ceuvres, and
are pretentious affairs. Some of them are twenty feet or more in
length. Until the manufacture of whole carpet sizes in the Bokharas
was begun, — after the railway had opened the wilds of Turkestan
to commerce, — these Afghan fabrics were far and away the largest
of all the Turkoman carpets. They have the broad web at the ends.
Some of them have coarse goat's-hair for warp, and the pile contains
sufficient of the soft goat's-fleece to give them a lustre like to that
of the finest of the Tekke fabrics.
Throughout the southern ranges of Afghan hills, down as far as
Kandahar, rugs similar to these are woven, all copying in some meas
ure from the Persianized patterns of Herat and Khorassan, but
adhering to the stiff, rectilinear treatment found in Turkestan and
Beluchistan carpets. Many of them have the Beluchistan coloring
instead of the Bokhara red. All these are without doubt the fabrics
referred to by Mr. Robinson in his "Eastern Carpets" thus: "The
weavers of these particular carpets are not able to give the floral
patterns they use their true forms ; and the explanation of their
inability to do so probably lies in the fact that they are a Turanian
people, settled among Aryan neighbors, by whom they have not yet
been completely Aryanized."
Beluchistan. — The rugs of Beluchistan, ever since rugs began
to be an article of commerce, have been brought laboriously across
the rugged reaches of Afghanistan to find market in the Turko
man cities. They are of many types. Some of them are of no type,
embodying features from more than one form of decoration. They
have not escaped the general decadence. The modern Beluchistans
have fallen about as far from the high standard established by the
old ones as any rugs which find their way out of the East to-day. It
is not surprising, for the production is enormous, and even the
238

TURKOMAN
coarsest and poorest of these are stable and full of "wear." This
modern stuff from Beluchistan is nearly all made on one model, with
some small diversity in color and less in design. The old rugs were
in many forms, and although the colors differed according to the
influence under which each piece or collection of pieces was wrought,
there was always a depth and luminous quality in the dyes, a lustre
in the wool, which, with certain textile peculiarities which never
seemed to be omitted, made them easy of recognition. That they
should have maintained any fidelity at all to pristine design is sin
gular when the geographical location and history of the country are
considered. On one side they have the Kirman province, where the
old Iranian creed and textile methods are still preserved ; on the
northwest is Khorassan, with its rich floral fabrics, bright in color
and full of realism ; to the north is Afghanistan, whose principal
carpets, from the earliest times to the present day, have retained
the most perfect Persian character, and have, as a matter of fact,
been sold as Persians ; on the east, India, where Persian models
have for at least three hundred years been followed with scrupulous
fidelity. This little four-cornered country has been constantly traversed
through all the centuries by Greek, Arabic, Persian and Mongol in
vaders of India, and by the great caravan trade which long before the
Christian era was carried on between India and the Mediterranean
coast. Still the Beluchistan fabrics have preserved a system of design
and coloring which bears little resemblance to any other of the East.
There is found now and then among the Yuruks of Asia Minor a rug
which in general tone, patterns and principal colors forcibly suggests
the Beluchistans. Ethnologists are at a loss to determine the derivation of the
Beluchees and Brahoes, who inhabit Beluchistan, having long ago
wrested it from the Hindus. They are generally believed to have
*39

ORIENTAL RUGS
come from Syria or Arabia, but in the turbulent course of time the
stock has been replenished by wandering tribes of Kurds, and even
large bodies of Grecian adventurers are known to have settled there
and ingrafted themselves permanently upon the population. It is sig
nificant that the Beluchistan weavers use the Sehna knot Aside
from this there is small trace of Persian influence in their weaving.
The predominating influence in Beluchistan for several hundred
years has been Turkoman. The chronicles of invasion show it, and
there are corroborative marks which still abide in the textiles. Occa
sionally a piece is found which while borrowing something from the
Chinese, with whom the Beluchees have always had caravan com
munication, follows in a general way the Tekke arrangement and also
the Turkestan theory in coloring, while preserving in its finishing the
Beluchistan marks.
All the Beluchistan rugs are heavy in tone. Where the principal
figures are laid in madder or deep blues, they have a richness not
surpassed. The greater number of them, in the American market at
least, are of a brown cast The range of colors is narrow. Few
bright ornamental figures appear, though orange and some light
shades of red are sparingly used. The rug in such cases takes on a
brown key, and the design, which invariably has a certain ruggedness
about it, is drawn simply, in lighter shades of the same. Brightness
and accent are sometimes secured by working the outlines of the
patterns in orange or a yellowish white. Most of the figures are
big hexagons, octagons, — all sorts of loose geometrical devices, —
ornamented inside and out with broad lines and keys in parallel
arrangement, which emphasizes the rectilinear effect. The field in
many Beluchistans is divided into two or three parts by transverse
stripes of the same character. Sometimes, in the old rugs, these fig
ures are woven in floral form, suggesting garlands. The derivation
of the treatment is not clear. 240

TURKOMAN
The pile is quite long and compact. The ends have a web like
that of the Bokharas, extending sometimes ten or twelve inches beyond
the pile. This, figured in colors or worked in a minute diaper pat
tern, makes a most artistic finish.
Although in point of propinquity these carpets might naturally
enough be counted among the India fabrics, the rug dealers and rug
makers of the peninsula do not so consider them. Even the wool of
Beluchistan is not, as a rule, taken for the modern India carpets, since
most of it is of a dark hue, and experiments have failed to make it
take on the light colors required in the India designs. Bleaching,
which has been industriously tried, serves only to impair its quality.
Perhaps this has had much to do with the long preservation of dis
tinctive character in the Beluchistans, a character which makes them
easy of identification, even among a multitude of other fabrics. The
weavers have made of necessity a virtue which has redounded greatly
to their credit and to their advantage as well. They have utilized
the dark natural hues of the wool, and attained additional depth,
lustre and softness from a free admixture of goat's-fleece, which is
produced in plenty in their mountains.
Samarkand. — The rugs named for the city which was the capital
of the conqueror Tamur, and which is now his burial-place, are in
numberless characteristics eloquent of Mongol influence. Most of
them show only the smallest trace of Persian or Caucasian form.
The central field, to begin with, is usually covered over with the intri
cate Chinese fret, laid in some shade of red or blue on a ground of
some other value, or red on blue, or vice versa ; sometimes it is in a
pale tint of fawn brown on a background of yellowish white. Dis
tributed in this area are medallions, one, two, three, four or five, —
seldom more, — in which sometimes appear Chinese devices, such as
the dragon, fish or pheasant, and sometimes flowers. These medal
lions are round or polygonal. Occasionally there is a single large
241

ORIENTAL RUGS
one in the centre, and rectilinear floral forms appear about it. In the
borders the fret is further utilized in various shapes and colors, or
there are decorative symbols of animal origin but floral form, which
alone bear the mark of Persian treatment. Yellow predominates in
the borders, giving the fabric a warm tone.
In many of the rugs of Samarkand the fretted field and its me
dallions have been abandoned for an attempt at floral display, but the
rich, almost lurid coloring remains ; the reds and yellows, and in a
smaller degree the blues, in which these flowery fields are wrought,
are superb. But amid the profusion there always creeps in some feat
ure reminiscent of the old pattern. In most cases it is the largest of
the flower forms, which stand out so straight, so heavy, so prominent,
so octagonal, that they utterly obscure the accompanying patterns,
and, stripped, before the mind's eye, of all the stems and leaves which
surround them, are naught but the old figures after all.
It is to be noted, in connection with this Mohammedan floral de
velopment in the rugs of Samarkand, that upon the taking of Baghdad
and other Western cities the Mongol ruler took back with him to his
capital the greatest artists and artisans, in the hope of instilling a new
art impulse into his people. The elaboration noticeable even in the
present day in many of the Samarkand carpets must be considered a
remote result of that effort.
The borders of the Samarkands carry two main stripes, of me
dium width. One usually presents the undulating vine in more or
less angular form ; the other, a lotus pattern, three flowers on a stem,
which calls to mind the similar formation in the old Ghiordes border.
All around the outside of the rug is usually a narrow band of some
solid color. In nearly all the Samarkands four threads of the weft,
which is of cotton or brown wool, are carried across after every
row of knots, as in the Kazaks. The warp is usually of cotton.
The knot is Sehna. The ends are finished with a narrow web
242

TURKOMAN
and loose warp-ends. Sometimes the broad Turkoman web is em
ployed. Armenian dealers often apply to the Samarkand rugs the name
of " Malgaran," mentioned heretofore as a common substitute title for
Tcherkess and Mingreli. The confusion arises partly from the
tenacious belief that Mingreli is a corruption of Mongolian.
Yarkand and Kashgar. — Little is heard in American markets
of the rugs of Yarkand and Kashgar. They are exported from Asia
through Peking, and a few examples have found their way to Constan
tinople with other consignments, and have been picked up by American
buyers there. Of late there has been a considerable influx of these
fabrics to American markets. The Yarkand district is somewhat out
of the way of the Persian influence. The city is a hundred miles or
more east of Kashgar. It is well aloof in a southeasterly direction
from both Bokhara and Samarkand, being eight hundred miles from
one and six hundred miles from the other. After the shaking off of
Chinese rule and the establishment of an East Turkestan empire, with
capital at Kashgar, Yarkand became an important trade centre, but
on the death of Yakub Beg in 1877, Kashgar was again taken by the
Chinese, and Yarkand reverted to the old sovereignty. Cut off by
such a stretch of wild upland country from the trade centres of the
West, and with the Great Pamir and other vast mountain ranges tow
ering between it and the markets of India, Yarkand for a long time
escaped the demoralization which had attacked most of the rug-mak
ing districts. Mr. Robinson found its fabrics many years ago at
Srinagar in Kashmir, along with some of the weavings of Thibet.
He described the old examples as being made with silky wool, taken
probably from the yak. " The quality of these rugs," he adds, " is
admirable, and the colors harmonious, the designs having a Tartar
character in the geometrical figures, circles, medallions and octagons,
alternately blue, red, green and yellow — the green of an emerald
M3

ORIENTAL RUGS
hue, obtained by dyeing strongly with Persian berry over in-
digo." It is plain that either the quality of these carpets has declined
amazingly, or that those which Mr. Robinson saw were show-pieces
and far superior to the average, for the consignments which have
come to America during the past two years have presented little that
was attractive. Consistency is their chief merit. Interest in them is
based principally on their oddity. They are nothing if not Chinese.
They show no trace of the Western influence noticeable in the Samar
kands, no indication of effort at floral diapers. The fretted grounds
are most frequent. The circles and octagons, with their Chinese em
blems, are a multitude. Dragons and fishes and variations of the fret
are everywhere. In some pieces the medallions, instead of being
large and few in number, are small, contain a wonderful diversity of
figures, and are distributed, more or less regularly, all over the field.
A favorite form is the combination of four dragons, so arranged that
they form a swastika. The entire filling in some examples is made
up of realistic animals.
The border space is small in proportion to the size of the rug.
There are usually three stripes, a broad middle stripe, with a guard
stripe on either side, but the guard stripes are not figured alike, as
is customary in Persian or Turkish rugs where the borders are simi
larly distributed. In most cases there is some form of the Chinese-
Greek border, most frequently of two meanders, so intertraced as to
form swastikas at intervals, and so shaded as to present the ma
terial effect of relief. The narrower stripes are adorned with some
fret forms or Chinese floral conceits.
The colors are garish, and, though in some cases brilliant, are
not warm nor attractive. Pale terra-cotta, tending to pink, is common.
Some rugs are made up of grayish white and yellows ; others present
only white with two shades of blue, suggesting delft. The greens
244

Plate XXII. The Ardep.il Mosque Carpet
32.0 x 16.0
Considering that the actual size of the Ardebil carpet, which is now in
the South Kensington Museum, is sixteen feet in width by thirty-two feet
in length, the enormously reduced representation here offered preserves quite
well the essential features. Beyond question the Persian masterpiece of the six
teenth century, made for the tomb of Sheikh Ismael, is to-day the most famous
piece of weaving in the world. The fabulous fineness of its workmanship, and
the accuracy of its design, may be proven by selecting at random any flower upon
either side of the field ; examination will discover its companion-piece in
the same relative position on the opposite side. A monograph on this carpet
was published by Edward Stebbing in London in 1893, in folio,- with hand-
painted plates, which showed its splendid color effects.

TURKOMAN
and yellows are of the lemon order. There is some vermilion and
orange in the figures.
As to texture : the material is coarse wool, the pile about the
medium length of that in the Demirdji carpets ; the warp is of four-
strand cotton ; the weft is thrown across four threads at a time,
as in the Samarkands ; the sides have a selvage built upon two
threads of the warp, and the ends are finished with the loose warp-
threads.

245

XIII
KHILIMS
T^HE hard, smooth coverings known as khilims (double-faced)
are exported in large quantities from different parts of the East,
and are of such thoroughly Oriental character as to entitle
them to a prominent place in consideration; but their scope in the
matter of execution is so limited, they follow type so closely, that there
is no call, and indeed no latitude, for exhaustive discussion of them.
In many respects there are no carpets made in the East which are
more attractive than genuinely good khilims. There they have been
employed as floor-coverings from the very earliest times ; in America
they are used for portieres and covers. The artistic skill shown in
them consists in the novel adjustment of colors. So deft are the
Eastern weavers in this that two rugs of the selfsame design, but with
colors differently distributed, look utterly unlike, and will pass for
altogether dissimilar conceits. The hues are broad and in some
degree crude. The treatment is wholly rectilinear, but harmony and
softness of effect are secured in most of the khilims by projecting a
series of rectangular extensions from one body of color upon that
adjoining, as in Daghestan, Soumak and other Caucasian piled rugs.
This peculiar but most effective edging does not interfere in the
least with the design. It is as complete as though its outlines were
246

KHILIMS
smooth and direct instead of being broken by such numberless serra
tions and indentations. Indeed, when it is considered how confusing
these irregularities are, the skill of the designer and weaver seem
magnified fourfold. To one unfamiliar with the fabrics the serration
and diversification seem paramount. It is only when viewed from a
distance, where the unity of the design may be seen and the soften
ing effect of these notched edges understood, that the comprehensive
beauty of the khilims is apparent. This singular factor, which rather
engrosses attention at first, is only the skilful means to an end; but
it accomplishes its mission so well that it seems to be the ruling
motive of the fabric, and it creates in the khilims some subtle force
of fascination which precludes their ever becoming wearisome. And
to heighten even further the efficacy of the square-notched edges, the
weaver puts in at the end of each of the reciprocal projections a tiny
patch or line of some third color, often woven into ornamental shapes.
At first inspection this escapes the eye ; it is only when one wonders
how these uncomplementary colors can join in such a restful ensemble
that this fine device is discovered. The small patterns are usually
outlined all about, in the same fashion and with the same purpose.
It is doubtful if such an array of startling colors, in such large areas,
could be combined in any other way without palling. The necessity
for some such trick as this, in working out the khilim design and color
scheme, suggests itself at once. In the first place, they are smooth-
surface carpets, and so devoid of all the softening effects which natu
rally come from the use of pile. The yarn of which they are woven
is twisted so that it is harder and more linen-like than any wool yarns
used in the pile carpets, and makes, where entirely different colors
are brought close to one another, the most severe line of demarcation.
The method, or stitch, is calculated to emphasize this harshness.
It is probable, from the general character of the stuffs, that the
khilims present more nearly the primitive fashion of weaving — work-
247

ORIENTAL RUGS
ing out with weft-threads of different colors, by passing them around
the warp, the patterns which in most Eastern fabrics are produced by
knotting.1 Sellers of rugs rarely go to the pains of distinguishing between
the several varieties of khilims, and indeed it may be difficult to do so,
save in the case of the Sehnas, which differ radically from all the
rest. In everything except the difference of method they are exact
reproductions of the Sehna piled rugs, and can be identified by the
description given of the Sehnas under the head of Persian Fabrics.
The designs and colors are the same, and in point of fineness they as
far excel the other khilims as the Sehna piled products do the rugs
of Karabagh or Shirvan.
Aside from them, nearly all the khilims offered for sale in America
are comprised in four classes — Kurdish, Shirvan, Merv, and Tekke
or Karamanian. The Karamanian and sometimes the Kurdish are
made in two sections and sewed together afterward. The discrep
ancy between the two sides, where parts of the pattern are supposed
to unite at the seam, is greater or less, but rather adds to the interest
in the fabric than detracts from it. The Kurdish khilims are made all
through Kurdistan, but those from the Persian side of the border
show more of finish. The Karamanians are mostly woven by Yuruks
and Turkomans in the Sanjak of Tekke in old Cappadocia, along the
plateaus of the Taurus. The population is mixed, but Turkomans
predominate. Some khilims which bear the name Karamanian are
also woven by Christian women in the towns.
The Kurdish and Karamanian khilims differ chiefly in point of

1 "As velvet probably originated in Central Asia, and certainly felt, I think it very likely that
there also the Turkish tribes first developed the art of sewing tufts of wool on the strings of the warp
of the carpets they had learned to make from the Persians, and that the manufacture of these piled
carpets was thus introduced by the Saracens into Europe from Turkestan through Persia. The Turks
were driven to the invention by the greater coldness of their climate." — Bird-wood: " Industrial Arts
of India. " 248

KHILIMS
coarseness. The Kurdish are finer. There are noticeable in both,
and also, in a lesser measure, in the Sehnas, small open spaces at the
edges of some figures, where one figure ends on a certain warp-
thread, and the adjoining one begins on the next. The uniting
stitches of a third color referred to above are omitted, and the multi
tude of open spaces thus left makes the design seem like a loose
insertion. In the heavy pieces known as kis khilims, or winter
spreads, these gaps are less frequent, the aim being to make the
fabric as compact as possible.
The patterns are chiefly the geometrical ones of Turkestan and
the Caucasus, but though some of the Persian and Arabic ornamental
forms appear, all are worked out in a manner peculiar to themselves.
Many seemingly intentional irregularities are found. Where, for
example, some figure is to be repeated several times in white, it is
woven once or twice in cotton, while all the rest are in wool ; or where
two or more small variegated patterns balance each other, and seem
at first to be alike, examination shows that the weaver, evidently out
of sheer caprice, has made some curious difference between them.
The border stripes are not, as a rule, the same all the way
around the fabric, as is customary in most of the piled rugs. The
stripe patterns across the ends are different from those along the
sides, like those of most Turkoman carpets, and the rotation of colors
is by no means regular. There is much latitude for the exercise
of individual whim in the khilims, and the weavers avail themselves
of it to the full.
In the Merv fabric the number of open spaces is reduced to a
minimum. Instead of making the patterns rectangular, and ending on
the perpendicular line of the warp, where a gap must be left or the
additional labor of joining be incurred, the defining lines of the figure
run diagonally, the projections are more pointed, the gap in the web
is avoided, and the carpet gains greatly in compactness.
240

ORIENTAL RUGS
In design these Merv khilims, some of which are of great
size, are not so startling as the Kurdish and Karamanian. The
garish colors are few ; the white is more sparingly applied. The field
is usually divided transversely into three or four parts, by ornate line
patterns. The designs strongly suggest the Beluchistan rugs in this
regard. The high lights, as in the Beluchistans, are found in the
border — white lines, serrated, very pronounced, running sometimes
the entire length of the fabric, with small geometrical devices worked
in the angles.
The methods of weaving are much alike in all the khilims thus
far named. The work is done with shuttles, on which the weft-
threads are wound. By passing them the colors are carried in and
out across the warp, making an even, corded surface, the " grain "
of which is the warp itself. Whole figures of the pattern are woven
separately. It is this that causes the open spaces between them.
The Shirvan khilims follow in general the Daghestan idea of
design. The Persians have a khilim known as doru, woven in simple
stripes all the way across the field. It is made in manner similar to that
of the Kurdish and Karamanian. In Turkestan there is made what is
known as the Bokhara khilim, which is an altogether different thing.
A web is woven in the deep Bokhara red color ; upon this is embroi
dered with thread and needle the characteristic Bokhara design. In
Shirvan the same thing is done ; all through Turkey, in fact, are
made these djijims, following the rug patterns in vogue in their re
spective localities. They resemble the khilims but little, and should
properly be classed with the Baghdad portieres. Among the Kurds
and Karamanians, but rarely among the Persians or the people of
Merv, the khilims are woven in the form of prayer rugs. The niche
in the Karamanian and Kurdish prayer khilims is patterned after
the Ghiordes. 250

KHILIMS
Khilims have of late been extensively made in Servia, Bosnia
and other parts of Turkey in Europe.
In many parts of the Orient a fabric called tzoul or tzul is made
of coarse wool or goat's-hair and in the khilim stitch, but with no
effort at design, except in some cases stripes of the several natural
shades of the hair. It is strong, durable and sometimes water-proof.
It is the burlaps, the tent-canvas, the horse-blanket, the grain-sack,
the travelling-bag — in short, the universal handy wrapping material
of the East. It is also used as a filling on floors, and the gay-colored
rugs are placed upon it, gaining in brightness by contrast with its
dull shades. Among the Karamanians in eastern Anatolia it is cus
tomary to work some lively designs upon these tzouls with the needle.

251

XIV
INDIA
WITH the barely possible exception of two or three varie
ties, the Indian carpets sold to-day are wholly modern
creations. The antique fabrics, many of which were
admirable, are no longer to be had and scarcely to be seen, least of all
in American markets. Such of the genuine old-time examples as re
mained after the English exploitation of Indian arts and industries
were obtained by English and European collectors, and have disap
peared from view. The East India Company, owner of most of the
good ones, sold them, and so eagerly were they taken up that even
the British museums were in the end unable to secure such specimens
as would have been desirable. The industrial development of India
under English rule dissipated the old methods so rapidly that within
twenty-five years after the first public exhibition of these fabrics in
London, in 1851, the carpet product had become entirely altered in
character, There are preserved in the museum at Jeypore a number of the
old India carpets found at the time of the British occupation. All
give proof of Persian derivation. The story of carpet- making in
India, and in truth of all Indian arts, dates practically from the
supremacy of Akbar in the sixteenth century. There is small doubt
252

Plate XXIII. Yomud Turkoman
10.2 x 7
Property of the A nthor
While this rug, by reason of the old rose tint of its ground color in certain
lights, must be classed as a Yomud, there is a certain paucity of coloration in
the border, to wit, an absence of yellows and blues and other shades prevalent
in the Caucasus, which makes it likely that it was woven among the Akhal
or Salor Turkomans, or some tribe a little remote from the Caspian coasts.
The central design, however, with its tendency to an ornate and picturesque
diamond device instead of one bounded only by the hard octagon of the
Bokhara, so-called, shows that the carpet is not a product of any of the eastern
Turkoman provinces. It is a sterling rug and the extreme accuracy with which
the patterns are wrought predicates at once the fineness of texture — which it
has— and skill on the part of the weaver. There is a suggestion of vine and
flower in the latch-hook and tarantula arrangement of the border stripes.

INDIA
that by reason of previous invasion the Persian manufacture and use
of carpets had already become to some extent popular among the
vanquished people. It was one of the wise accomplishments of Akbar
to crystallize the custom, establish it as an industry, elevate it as an
art. Following the system which has prevailed in the great cities of
Persia, he set up looms in the palace, and installed weavers there.
How thoroughly the Khorassan and Persian-Afghan influence domi
nated Indian art from that time forward is shown by the antique car
pets of Lahore, one of which Mr. Vincent Robinson has reproduced
in his " Eastern Carpets." The central field is almost identical with
that of the Herat fabrics heretofore described. The border presents
a long, straight, graceful cone pattern, in a most ornamental shade
of light blue, approaching turquoise, and so ornate in its workman
ship that it seems to belong to a shawl design rather than to a car
pet border. The example set by the Emperor was followed almost Universally
throughout India, not alone in the weaving, but in all the arts.
Rulers of provinces and districts and even the village dignitaries
maintained an extensive patronage. With such support weaving
took on a sumptuary character, as it had in Persia. With these royal
examples to inspire them, the weavers wrought ambitiously in their
less pretentious pieces. The village and caste systems did much to
foster effort and to perpetuate high standard. By the first of these
each community was established as a unit, under control, generally,
of one mai whose function it was to assess and collect the town's
share of th : imperial tax ; the second, which attained in India such
perfection )f development as it has known nowhere else in the world,
made the rades and professions hereditary. The weaver's son suc
ceeded to his father's station, and strove to emulate his accomplish
ments. In the weaving families each generation, reared to the art,
studied to add new worth and beauty to the designs, the fundamental
253

ORIENTAL RUGS
elements of which had been the proud possession of its forebears.
There could be only one result of such a system. Mr. Robinson
says : " The spread of this manufacture extended over the whole
of India, and as late as the middle of this century was practised, very
much in its integrity, from Kashmir to as far south as Tanjore."
It is almost inexplicable that a system so strongly grounded, so
literally and figuratively inwoven with the family and civil life of the
people, could in so brief a time have been destroyed ; but such seems
to have been the case. The apparent first cause was the desire of the
Indian government to furnish occupation for its prisoners in jails
throughout the empire, and incidentally to neutralize the expense of
maintaining the corrective system. Brought thus into competition
with prison labor, the caste weaver was undersold, and had no resource
save to cheapen his product and increase its volume. The jail manu
facture was at first looked upon as a splendid invention, since the
singular aptitude of the prisoners enabled them to master the weaving
readily, and when they were herded together their work could be
overseen and orders enforced. Originality in design was discounte
nanced, forbidden, and chemical dyes were introduced.1
The lack of wool had always been a drawback to carpet- weaving
in parts of India. In fact, the only carpets made there prior to the
Mohammedan domination were wholly of cotton, or cotton mixed
with silk. The support of the nobles, who had no need to spare
expense in securing materials, had for a long time overcome the diffi
culty, and wool was brought in quantities from the grazing countries
to the north, as it is to some extent to-day. When the new system
supplanted the old, cheaper materials were introduced. Hemp and

1 " Take, for instance, such a common thing as the black dye of Kanchipuram, and the red dye
of Madura in the Madras presidency, which was famous throughout the world. European black has
taken the place of the one, and that rich russet red which delighted the eye of the painter is replaced
by magenta." — Georgiana Kingscote: " The Decline of Taste in Indian Art."

254

INDIA
jute took the place of cotton in the foundations, and the general
decadence of the native product was complete. In an article in The
Nineteenth Century, in 1 891, on "The Decline of Taste in Indian
Art," Georgiana Kingscote, speaking of the spontaneous native indus
try, says :
" At one time there were more than two hundred houses where
there are now twos and threes, and the famished inhabitants cannot
even afford to keep a stock of carpets on hand, and as soon as one is
finished are only too ready to sell it, at a loss even, simply as a means
of subsistence; and the trade is at such a low ebb that if you want an
Indian carpet you must advance the money, and wait until they can
get through it, as they cannot afford to employ many workers.
" The coloring of the Indian carpets originally came from Persia,
and these colors, especially reds and blues, were as beautiful as those
of that country still are. Now, unfortunately, the revival of carpet
manufacture is principally carried on in the jails, under English super
vision, and the patterns are decidedly English, and the texture thick
like English pile, thus encouraging the loss of that extremely fine
work peculiar to the Persian carpets. Here, again, magenta, being a
cheap English color, plays a great part, and spoils the harmony of
the coloring. One drop of water is enough to spoil the carpet by
making the magenta in it run into the white ground. French and
English machine-made carpets and Brussels carpets are invading
India, and the carpet trade is sinking fast as, if not faster than, any
other." The same verdict was pronounced at about the same time, and in
a much more authoritative manner, by Mr. Robinson. After thirty-
five years spent in actual endeavor to uphold and latterly to save the
ancient art of carpet-weaving in India, he closes in this wise his review
of the subject: "Every encouragement was thus afforded, and the
way smoothed for Trade versus Art ; and notwithstanding all the pro-
2SS

ORIENTAL RUGS
tests made by those who became aware of threatened dangers, the
manufacture went on in the jails, and the art languished. It is now
no exaggeration to say that in India, from the Himalayas to Cape
Cormorin, no means exists for the fabrication of art carpets like those
found in most of the places here enumerated, nor can the art element
in this industry ever be resuscitated until means are found for restor
ing the conditions under which the originals were produced."
It is a new and, it must be confessed, wholly commercial manu
facture that has sprung up in India on the ruins of the art industry
which had its splendid beginnings with Akbar. Availing themselves
of the fabulously cheap labor to be had without limit in India, the
English, French, and latterly American houses have established there
factories for the making of rugs according to their own conceits, or
following in some sort the characteristic designs of Persia. Provisions
of the law interfere with the importation of the prison-made fabrics to
America, but the output of the prison looms at Lahore, Agra, Jabal-
pur, Benares, and Bangalore has fairly flooded the English market
for years, being sold for a price which defied all honest competition.
Even there, however, it is likely the fabrics will be excluded before many
years shall have passed. But that, it is plain, will not restore the art
Two dealers in New York, both interested in the Indian manu
facture, have summarized the whole matter in statements made to the
writer. The first said : " There is not a rug-making town in all India
to-day where the native patterns are used." The second said : " An
effort was made to introduce some new shades at Mirzapur; but
although careful search was made throughout all the district, not a
dyer was found who knew how to dye pukka, — the Hindu term for
the old vegetable dyes, — and dyers had to be brought from Amritsar
to do the work."1

1 It is only fair to say that another well-known rug man, to whom these declarations were
repeated, denied them vigorously. 256

INDIA
And yet Mirzapur, up to 1850, was one of the greatest manufac
tories of art carpets in India.
The bold offers made by certain India carpet concerns, princi
pally in Amritsar, of large monetary forfeits to any person who shall
find evidences of aniline color in their fabrics, and, in fact, the personal
declaration of American dealers interested financially in the Indian
manufactures, lead inevitably to the conclusion that the use of vege
table dyes is being resumed, or, at any rate, that by some means
greater stability is being sought in the coloring.
In many respects, however, the methods of manufacture now pur
sued are identical with those in vogue in the prisons. The chief feat
ure of the prison system which recommended it for commercial pur
poses was that all the weavers employed upon a particular contract
were herded together, where supervision was easy and obedience to
orders imperative. Here, too, the personal equation was eliminated.
Individuality in design was suppressed, an advantage which the con
tracting firms have never been able to obtain in dealing with the
Turkish, Persian or Caucasian weavers, save in the three instances cited
in the chapter on Persian carpets — Sultanabad, Kirman and Tabriz.
In all the other weaving districts in the Mohammedan countries
the weavers have stubbornly refused to work en masse, but weave
upon looms reared in their own houses, where, free from super
intendence, they often exercise their own ingenuity, and give to the
fabrics a touch now and then of the true Oriental character, which
accords so ill with the demands of the Western firms.
This lesson was learned from the jail system, and although in
some towns of India home looms are retained, the weavers of the
great carpet centres work in droves, within walls and under guard.
They are searched when they quit the workshop, and upon the com
pletion of the carpet every atom of the wool remaining from its con
struction must be returned to the owners. Under the old system the
257

ORIENTAL RUGS
workmen and workwomen kept these leavings, and used them in
other and altogether different fabrics, to effect the variant note so
potent in warding off ill luck.
In India the women do no weaving. The great majority of the
weavers are boys, ranging in age from six to fifteen years, and most
of them under twelve. They are under the absolute sway of the
native masters, a sort of padrones, and when, from one reason or
another, the " boss weaver " leaves a factory, he takes his entire follow
ing with him. This is an altogether uncomfortable state of things
for the firms carrying on the business, since in places like Amritsar
the defection of a large body of these tiny toilers can cause incalculable
inconvenience and delay. The maximum wage of one of these child
weavers is about five cents a day. Skilled adults work by the thou
sand stitches, and a great day's earning is about twenty-five or thirty
cents. What has been said in another chapter on the transportation of
designs from one part of the Orient to another, and their adoption
into other ornament systems, applies in its fullest force to India.
Considering the illimitable conservatism of the Hindu, it is difficult
to understand how the Mohammedan designs could have crowded out
those of the earlier races, while the language, religion, and social cus
toms remain. All through the north of India the Persian forms were
used almost exclusively, though taking on a rich ornamental char
acter which even in the most finished of the Persianized products sug
gested the native, half-barbarian splendor. In the south of India
there were retained many of the old creations ; but even these were
of the same ancient origin as the Persian, although altered by cen
turies of native Indian usage. They had been brought into India
by Aryan invasion further back even than the time of Darius, and
thus, after long separation, the currents of the primitive and univer
sal symbolism were again united. 258

INDIA
The treatment in many of the modern India carpets is little more
than a burlesque ; but some pieces made upon special orders preserve
with comparative fidelity the details of the Persian rugs from which
they are copied. In the weaving both the Sehna and Ghiordes knots
are used, and in the cheap grades a simple twist, which is no knot at
all, but merely a turning of the yarn around the warp, depending
wholly upon the tension of the weft to hold it. It must have been
rugs of such workmanship which prompted Sir George Birdwood to
say in his " Industrial Arts of India," in 1884: "The foundation, as
now scamped, is quite insufficient to carry the heavy pile which is a
feature of this make, and is, moreover, so short in the staple as to be
incapable of bearing the tension even of the process of manufacture.
Jabalpur carpets often reach this country, which will not bear sweep
ing or even unpacking. I know of two which were shaken to pieces
in the attempt to shake the dust out of them when first unpacked.
The designs once had some local character, but have lost it during
the last five years."
There are among the Indian carpets of to-day, nevertheless,
some fabrics which are stout, soundly made, quite well dyed, and,
being copies of good spontaneous Persian designs, are meritorious in
that regard. It is not hard to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.
In selecting from among these carpets there is probably no rule other
than of personal preference in design, supplemented by the general
requirements as to material and texture, and the customary tests for
solidity of color.
Amritsar. — Reference has already been made to the natural
qualification which tends to make Amritsar a home of carpet-weaving.
Most of its water is of good quality, and it is near to the course of
wool-supply. In addition it has within easy reach the Kashmir dis
trict, where skilful dyers and weavers became plentiful after the deca
dence of the shawl manufacture. It is, moreover, a centre of trade,
259

ORIENTAL RUGS
and one of the chief stations on the Punjab railway. Thus its manu
factures find easy transportation to the coast.
In a system so purely commercial as is the Indian carpet-making
of to-day, all these are ample reasons for the general transfer of fac
tories from other parts of the empire to Amritsar. For a long time it
was the custom of the Kashmir shawl-weavers to journey down to
Amritsar to weave shawls during the winter months. In this manner
the Kashmir methods were brought into vogue here. The manufac
ture of heavy carpets for the trade has outgrown the old industry.
Many of the Kashmir customs have been abandoned, but one impor
tant feature still prevails. A rug, or pattern, is divided into sections,
as many as there are weavers at work upon the looms, and in a book
are written down in Kashmiri characters all the stitches in each sec
tion, with the colors, and the exact sequence in which they must be
put in, from the beginning to the finishing of the rug. Each weaver
has a number corresponding to that of the section upon which he
is employed. It is the task of one boy to read off these stitches, day
in and day out, through the making of many carpets. While he
reads, the loom masters, each having three or sometimes four looms
under their control, go about and inspect the work, for errors. When
such are found the weavers are compelled to pull out all the faulty
knots and replace them. There are probably five thousand men and
boys employed in the carpet industry of Amritsar, counting wool-
handlers, dyers and weavers, and the work of so many facile hands
makes up a mighty carpet export.
W. S. Caine, in his book on " Picturesque India," says : " Some
of the finest carpets in India are woven at Amritsar. One dealer just
inside the first gate, entered from the railway station and hotels, em
ploys from seven hundred to one thousand hands in carpet-weaving,
at a wage of from three to six annas per day [nine to eighteen cents].
He works mainly for three or four great London firms, and I have
260

Plate XXIV. Samarkand
16.5 x 7.2
Loaned by Mr. William McLaren Bristol
The old-time weavers of Samarkand made strenuous effort to attain the
Persian profuseness in design, but as has been set forth in the text, were ham
pered by Chinese influence, which dictated the use of the heavy round or
octagonal medallion in the field, and of the old Mongol religious emblems.
The discovery of this old and in every way interesting carpet was a piece of
good fortune. Here, it will be seen, the entire space in the field is covered with
repetitions of the Chinese cloud band (compare Plate I), but the arrangement is
in rows, like that of the vases in that purest of Persian designs, the old Kirman
shown in Plate XVIII. Further concession to the Persian — a sign manual, in
fact — is found in the minute pear figures thrown in at intervals throughout the
ground, apparently without rhyme or reason. The Turkoman elements are
plain here, too, in the broad, striped webbing at the ends, and the border de
signs, which are merely the tarantula and scorpion devices, with a suggestion
of the tree.

INDIA
seen no worthier results in any of the carpet manufactories I have
visited up and down India."
The output of the Amritsar looms, therefore, is perhaps the best
by which to judge the present-day carpet product of India. That
part of it which is handled by American firms is probably the
best which these great factories have to show, better, no doubt,
by reason of the fact that the agents dealing directly with India can
and do dictate concerning designs, colors and all the points of con
struction. But the whole system is distinctly commercial, and for the
general stock the same patterns are produced in all grades, ranging
from three knots by three to twelve by twelve, to suit the needs of the
buyer. There is a corresponding variation in the quality of the dyes
and the workmanship, and some of the staple stuff would discredit the
tepee of a Piute. The designs are taken chiefly from the Persian,
and the Feraghan seems to be a favorite. Others are copied in the
most impossible of colors from huge, glaring designs of English car
pets. Many small mats are made, which suffer sadly by contrast with
even the poorest of the yesteklik which come from Anatolia.
In the lower grades, whether of mats or larger pieces, there is
seldom any effort at artistic finishing of the ends, an enormously
heavy and badly bungled overcasting taking the place of the attrac
tive fringes which adorn the ends of the Turkish, Persian and Cau
casian rugs. It must be said for Amritsar, however, that since it
became the factory of the better class of whole carpets for American
firms, the concerns dealing in the wretched low-grade fabrics just re
ferred to have transferred their manufacture to other towns, where
labor can be had more cheaply; so that Amritsar probably merits
the good word spoken by Mr. Caine.
The best grade of carpets made here are what are known as
"pushmina," from the fact that they are made oi pas him or pushim,
the fine wool found next to the skin of the sheep. Some of these, in
261

ORIENTAL RUGS
which closeness of texture is aimed at, have a silk warp. The stitches
are sometimes as many as fourteen by fourteen. Raw-silk rugs are
also made in Amritsar, but the manufacture has not met with great
success. Kashmir. — Since we are dealing with floor- coverings, there is
little to be said about Kashmir. Its fame was won in the manufac
ture of shawls, and although some carpets were made there of old,
they showed in colors, materials, patterns and workmanship, even at
the best period of their development, the effect of propinquity to the
shawl industry. Sir George Birdwood describes one of the older
examples as having " grounds of pale yellow and rose color, and floral
patterns in half-tones of a variety of colors. The borders were weak
and not distinct from the centre, but the coloring and general effect
were serene and pleasing."
" Its peculiarities," Mr. Robinson says, " were in some degree due
to the use of shawl wool for the fabrics, and to a method of arranging
designs quite its own. The width of the borders was nearly as exag
gerated as in those of Tanjore in the south of India, but the filling
of the design differed from them by being minute in proportion to
the space occupied. The scale of coloring also distinguished it from
other manufactures and was probably the effect of chemical properties
in the water."
Of the modern fabrics of Kashmir, which, though they are quite
different, still retain some peculiarities which had their birth in the
shawl-making, nothing can be said which has not been said of other
varieties of Indian goods. The general run of the staple product is
poor, but the carpets turned out to order for English and American
firms are of a better style and design, and where the selection of
materials is made by the Western agents, and the contractors are fast
bound by stipulation, fairly good fabrics are produced.
Mirzapur. — There is probably no city in India whose carpet in-
262

INDIA
dustry has known a more extraordinary series of ups and downs than
has that of Mirzapur. Situated on the south bank of the Ganges, it
is in the centre of the richest and most cultured part of India. It is
near neighbor to Benares and Allahabad ; it is on the railway, and is
but half as far as Amritsar from Calcutta. It is fairly populous, has
extensive manufactures of brasswork, and is a still famous mart for
cotton and grain. The Hindu element is strong here, and the city
presents, on the river-front, some remarkable Hindu temples. This
atmosphere had undoubtedly much to do with the designs of the old
Mirzapur carpets, which, before English commercial manipulation
began, showed a pronounced Hindu character in distinction from the
Persian forms. Instead of any manner of floral diapers, they displayed
medallions, within which all the floral forms were traced.
It was only a little while after the introduction of the Mirzapur
carpets into England that English firms began to lower the quality
of them. Efforts to restore it scored desultory success, and as late as
1867 the fabrics maintained a fairly good reputation. The jail sys
tem, coupled with precipitate trading, finally finished them. The
texture became coarse, the materials poor, the colors of such sort as
has been indicated in the introductory part of this chapter.
The present development is doing something to redeem the in
dustry, but merely to the end of securing a satisfactory workshop, and
probably not with any view of again producing the fabrics as they
were before the great era of decadence began. The modern Mirza
pur carpets show round, floral figures, with dark red as the prevailing
color, usually arranged in rows upon a pale yellow or cream-colored
ground. Dark red, almost maroon, prevails also in the borders,
which carry some arrangement of the pear pattern resembling the
main borders of the Khorassans, or else a repetition of the floral forms
found in the body of the rug, with a connecting vine.
The wool for the present-day Mirzapur carpets comes chiefly
263

ORIENTAL RUGS
from the western part of Rajputana and is of an inferior sort. The
great endeavor on the part of both native and foreign firms engaged
in the manufacture has been to secure wool which would give better
results when wrought, and yet come within the "near" rates they
were willing to pay in their desire to keep the fabrics down to " com
petition prices," and at the same time widen the margin of profit.
One American agent tried bringing wool from Beluchistan, but the
local dyers could do nothing with it. They treat the wool with lime,
too, to give it brilliancy, which is only adding another ill.
Lahore. — The British capital of the Punjab is one of the places
where prison weaving has been done. The central jail there has held
as many as two thousand prisoners, and in addition there are district
and female jails, a thug jail and a "school of industry," in all of
which both woollen and cotton carpets have been made. The manu
facture of the old-fashioned fabrics held on there with much tenacity,
nevertheless, considering the proximity of so much that tended to
demoralize them.
The Lahore carpets were among the first of the Indian products
to attract commercial attention in England, and the East India Com
pany's vessels took a great number of the fabrics home to be sold.
Records of the company indicate that even in the seventeenth cen
tury, while the impulse starting from Akbar must still have been
strong, extremely good carpets were by no means so plenty as may
be supposed. One agent, writing in 1617, reports the purchase at
Agra of thirty fine Lahore carpets. In a letter written only a short
time afterward, he says: " It requires a long time to get well-chosen
carpets. True Lahore carpets are not so suddenly to be gotten."
This declaration seems to have been in answer to some complaint
that he had not sent larger consignments, and indicates how quickly
the carpets caught the British fancy.
Despite the debauchery of the product by the jail system, a cer-
264

INDIA
tain amount of weaving, following tolerably well the old models,
seems to have been done in Lahore down to a recent time. Even
within the past two or three years a few examples of considerable
age have been offered for sale in New York, and taken quickly even
at the high price demanded.
Weaving outside the jails has been quite extensively revived
here lately, and although the fabrics are in no wise equal to the old
ones, some of them, woven in the Persian fashion, are fairly good.
The prevailing design is a Persian pear pattern for the fields,
arranged like that of the Herat or Saraband, and a border in which
the Greek elements are predominant. There are seldom more than
forty knots to the square inch.
Agra. — Agra, whither travellers journey to gaze upon the beauty
of the Taj Mahal, has its carpet industry too — an industry the early his
tory of which Mr. Robinson recounts in this wise : " The Indus valley
had always obtained rugs from the neighboring Afghans on the north
and the Beluchee tribes on the south of the river ; but as the Moham
medan power became established in central India, the necessity was
found for local manufacture of carpets too large to be carried by
camels or even by elephants. Thus Agra, Jhansi and other places
east became seats of the manufacture."
In point of size and thickness the Agra carpets of to-day are fit
successors to those of the olden time. They are of enormous weight
and solidity. The designs are similar to those common in the time of
Mongol ascendancy, the cone forms playing an important part For
a long time after the establishment of the weaving in jails and the
industrial school, the carpets were nearly all in a monotone of two
colors, green or blue, with pale cream color. More recently the use
of browns and purples was begun. The central field in the later rugs
presents an angular form of some Mohammedan device, and the bor
der, very often, the transverse arrangement of the pear shape spoken
26$

ORIENTAL RUGS
of as being a feature of certain Khorassans. In the jails, where the
manufacture is still carried on, cotton carpets are made, thick and
heavy like the woollen ones.
Allahabad. — This beautiful and thriving city, at the junction of
the Ganges and Jumna, is a Hindu stronghold, but it is the centre as
well of the most thoroughly British influence in the realm. Although
not one of the most important weaving cities, there are exported from
it a great many carpets, similar in almost every respect to those of
Agra. They range in texture from forty-eight to possibly one hun
dred knots to the square inch.
Masulipatam. — It was here that the first British settlement was
established in 1620. Even then the city, though small, was renowned
for its fabrics. From fine, closely woven, beautifully designed rugs,
they have, under the sweat-shop system, taken on the cheap character
of much of the Indian output. These rugs were at one time widely
sold in the United States, but have lost caste since the large importa
tion of other and better fabrics began.
Jaipur or Jeypore. — This, the capital of the state of the same
name, is the principal commercial centre of Rajputana. It stands in
a plain, surrounded on all sides save one by hills which the ancient
rulers made sites of remarkable fortifications. Under British domin
ion the city has progressed greatly. It has fine paved streets, gas
lighting, hospitals, dispensaries, almshouses and schools, and a famous
observatory, built in 1728. The carpets woven here copy the designs
found chiefly in the rugs of eastern and middle Persia. They nearly
always present the cypress-tree, and also many animal forms, laid
upon ground of dark red, blue or ivory white. The borders have a
swaying-vine pattern, with the customary floral adjuncts.
Miscellaneous. — In Jabalpur, Ahmedabad, Ellore, Poonah,
Delhi, Bijapur, Madras and Jamu, all seats at one time of considera
ble carpet manufacture, fabrics are still turned out, but they are not
266

INDIA
imported in any great number into this country. Velvet carpets from
Benares, Patna and Murshidabad once had some fame. Tanjore,
Warangal, Mui tan and Hyderabad all produced remarkable rugs
under the old dispensation, but little or no trace of their industry
remains.

267

INDEX

Afghan-Bokhara rugs, description, 235-238
Afghanistan, native name for Khorassan,
225; nomad rugs of, 237 ; rugs, see Bo
khara rugs ; wool-growing in, 34
Agassiz, on Greek key pattern, quoted, 70
Agra rugs, 265
Ahmedabad rugs, 266
Aidin, " Smyrna" rugs made in, 132
Aiyin rugs, 225
Akbar, Emperor, 252
Ak-Hissar mohair rugs, 39; description,
157
Alizarin, decline in value of, 27
Allahabad rugs, 266
Amritsar, 257 ; rugs, description, 259
Anatolia, method of carding wool in, 38
Anatolian, rugs, 35 ; brown shades in, 54 ;
description, 142; mats (Yestiklik), de
scription, 95, 141-143
Angora goat's-hair, 34, 39
Anilines. See Dyes
Animal forms in Bokhara rugs, 228. 232;
in Genghis rugs, 130; in Meshhed rugs,
224
Apple design (Sihbih), 76
Arabic influence, in Djushaghan rugs,
205 ; in Kir-Shehr rugs, 139
Ardebil, mosque carpet of, 171
Arras, French factories at, 19

Arshin, Persian unit of measurement, 24
Asia Minor, antique rugs of, copied in
Tabriz, 172; mode of cleansing wool in,
36
Assyria, rug designs in, 1 5
Asur-Banipal, 15
Aubusson, factories at, 19
Azerbijan, 166; rugs, description, 167

B

Babylonian designs. See Assyria
Babylonica peristromata, 16
Baghdad, fabrics of, 15
Bakhshis rugs, description, 175
Baluk-Hissar, fair at, 22
Bandhor rugs, origin of name, 6
Barber-pole stripe, in Farsistan rugs, no;
in Kabistan rugs, no; in Konieh rugs,
137; in Laristan rugs, no; in Mosul
rugs, 128; in Yomud rugs, no, 234
Barter, system of, 23
Basra. See Bassorah
Bassorah, school of painting, 1 2
Beaumont, A. de, " Les Arts Decoratifs en
Orient et en France," quoted : on the su
periority of antique art products, 14
Beauvais, factories at, 19
Bellew, Dr., " From the Indus to the Ti
gris," quoted: on Khorassan rugs, 220;
on shrine at Meshhed, 223

269

INDEX

Beluchistan rugs, description, 238-241 ; re
ciprocal trefoil design in, 119
Benjamin, S. G. W., " Persia and the Per
sians," quoted : on lost art of making
Persian blue, 53
Berdelik (hangings), description, 96
Bergamo rugs, description, 154-157 ; mode
of selling, 133
Beshir rugs, 235
Bibikabad rugs, 201
Bible, allusion to carpets in, 1 7
Bijapur rugs, 266
Bijar rugs. See Sarakhs
" Bilooz" rugs, 231
Bird forms, in Bokhara rugs, 228; in Gen
ghis rugs, 130; in Ispahan rugs, 202;
in Kazak rugs, 124; in Tabriz rugs, 172 ;
in Teheran rugs, 202
Birdwood, Sir George, " Industrial Arts of
India," quoted : on decadence of India
rugs, 259; on irregularities of design,
cited, 76; on Kashmir rugs, quoted,
262; on rugs as works of art, cited, 14;
on origin of the pear design, quoted, 69 ;
on Swastika, quoted, 70; on symbolism,
in designs, quoted, 56; on tree forms
quoted, 66
Bishop, Mrs. I. B., "Journeys in Persia
and Kurdistan," quoted: on deteriora
tion of Persian rugs, 7 ; on Persian
rugs, quoted, 173 ; on silk rugs, quoted,
97
Bokhara khilims, 250
Bokhara prayer rugs, goat's-fleece used in,
40
Bokhara rugs, description, 22x8-233
Bokhara, trade name for Tekke rugs, 226
Brazil wood, 53
Broussa, " Smyrna " rugs made in, 132
Brugsch, " Mythology," quoted : symbolic
significance of color, 56
Buckthorn (rhamnus), 54
Burujird rugs, 201
Byzantine designs, 31

Byzantium, art unaffected by Roman con
quest, 18 C
Caesarea, rug manufactories in, 143
Caesarean rugs. See Anatolian
Caine, W. S., " Picturesque India," quoted :
on Amritsar rugs, 260
Cairo, "Mecca" rugs sold in, 217
Camel's-hair, 40; in Hamadan rugs, 199
Campeche wood, 53
Carian rugs. See Meles
Carpets. See Rugs
Caste system in India, 253
Caucasian, designs in Anatolian mats, 142 ;
influence in Persian Kurdistan rugs, 185 ;
in Shiraz rugs, 213; in Yomud rugs, 234 ;
rugs, description, 102 ; mode of selling,
!33
Chaldea, 15, 17
Chemical dyes. See Dyes, aniline
Chichi. See Tzitzi
China, commercial relations with western
Asia, 23
Chinese, art, Mohammedan in essence, 64;
designs, see Fretted designs ; religious em
blems, 1 2 ; influence in Yarkand rugs,
244; in Samarkand rugs, 241
Christian, emblems, absence of, 30 ; weavers,
3i» 15°
Churchill, S. A. T., on Persian weavers,
quoted, 163
Circassian rugs. See Tcherkess
Clarke, C. P., on carpet industry, quoted, 1
Coal-tar in dyes, 44
Cochineal. See Kermes
Colbert, looms established by, 19
Collins, E. T., " In the Kingdom of the
Shah," quoted: on aniline dyes, 49; on
tests for quality of a carpet, quoted, 89
Color, symbolic significance of, 56. See
also Dyes
Cone pattern. See Pear
Constantinople, rug names in, 5, 98

270

INDEX

Cordova, rug manufacture in, 18, 155
Cotton, foundation for rugs, 84
Crown-jewel pattern. See Pear
D
Daghestan, designs in Transcaucasian rugs,
116; proper, rugs, description, 104-107;
compared with Kabistan, 109, 1 1 1 ; com
pared with Karabagh, 117, 119; com
pared with Mosul, 128; compared with
Shirvan, 122; description, 103; Kaba-
Karaman sold as, 140 ; marketed in
Shemakha, 120
Delhi rugs, 266
Demirdji rugs, description, 151
Denotovich, A. C, on Ladik rugs, quoted,
156
Derbend rugs, compared with Kabistan,
109; description, 107; Kaba-Karaman
sold as, 140
Designs, absence of Christian emblems, 30;
antiquity of, 13 ; Apple (Sihbih), 76 ;
barber-pole, no, 128, 137, 234; cloud
band, 114; consistency in, 61 ; decadence
of, 58; derivation of, 62, 65; diaper, 15,
67, 166, 183, 200; floral, 96, 117, 122,
128, 129, 137, 145, 149, 169, 179, 180,
188, 202, 209, 219, 242; floral, deriva
tion of, 17; distribution and modification,
4, 63, 73; for weavers, 86; fretted, 64,
69, 241, 244; geometrical, 15, 17, 63,
104, 108, 120, 124, 128, 129, 240; Guli
Hinnai, 75, 195; Herati (fish), 67, 183,
191, 194, 203, 221, 224, 237 ; India, 258;
irregularities in, 56, 76; Italian influence
on, 19, 59; knop-and-flower, 66; latch-
hook, 104, 106, 108, 125, 128, 142, 158,
234 ; leopard and deer, 12 ; lotus, 15, 17,
62,64,65,67, 130, 169; made by women,
28; Mina Khani, 75, 166; Mir, 197;
nomad, consistency of, 60 ; not a means
of identification, 45 ; painted, 86 ; pal
mette, 65, 74, 130; pear, 63, 68, 109,

no, 112, 128, 130, 147, 158, 183, 188,
198, 203, 213, 221, 223, 225; period of
climax in, 58 ; reciprocal trefoil, 112, n8,
119, 125, 128; registration of, 78; re
ligious significance of, 13, 21,80; repro
duction of, 85 ; rosette, 65, 74 ; sacred
tree between two guardian beasts, 16;
Sardar, 75; Shah Abbas, 74, 166; star,
108, 109, 128; supplied Dy Western
firms, 78, 163; symbolism of, 56, 69;
tarantula, 125; tree, 66, 96, 112, 115,
147, 203 ; turunfi, 76; woven in sections,
86
Diaper design, fish pattern used as, 15;
in Hamadan rugs, 200 ; in Persian rugs,
166; in Sehna rugs, 183; in Djushaghan
rugs, 205; medallions in, 166
Djijims, 15. See also Bokhara khilims
Djushaghan rugs, 205
Dyeing, cost of, 46
Dyers, 43 ; hereditary calling of, 44
Dyes, aniline, 7, 27,44,48,49, 75, 152, 165;
destroyed in Persia, 162; in Anatolian
rugs, 143; in Ghiordes moderns, 148;
in Kazaks, 124; in Kurdistans, 181;
in Meles, 158; in Persians, 165; in
Saruks, 204 ; in Smyrnas, 144
Dyes, composition of, 47, 52, 53; deca
dence of Indian, 254 ; effect on yarn, 47 ;
mordants for, 48 ; in Tabriz ~ugs, 172;
Indian, 256; Novi Varos, 31; solvent
properties of water for mixing, 44, 45,
138

" Eastern Carpets," Robinson, Vincent, 34,
39> IJ9> 238. 243
" Eastern Persia," Goldsmid, Sir F. J.,
quoted, 208
Edict of Nantes, 20
Education, 27
Egypt, mysteries ol, 13; rug-making in, 13,
IS- '7
Eleanor of Castile, 20

INDEX

Elizabetpol, 130
Ellore rugs, 266
England, rug manufacture in, 20
Enile rugs, texture, 152
European machinery, 25, 38

Fairs, 22
Farsistan wool, 34
Feraghan rugs, 67, 68, 75 ; description, 194-
196; likeness to Sehna, 184; loose knot
ting in moderns, 89 ; restoration of, 8 ;
sold as Khorassans, 222
Figures. See Designs
Filik, 40, 127 ; in Hamadan rugs, 199
Fish pattern. See Herat
Flame pattern. See Pear
Floral designs, 17, 63; in Genghis rugs,
129 ; in Ghiordes antiques, 145 ; in Kara
baghs, 117 ; in Kara Dagh, 180; in Ker
manshahs, 188; in Khorassans, 219; in
Kirmans, 202, 209 ; in Koniehs, 127 ; in
Kulah prayer rugs, 149; in Mosuls, 128;
in Samarkands, 242; in Serapis, 179; in
Shirvan antiques, 122; in Tabriz, 169;
in turbehlik, 96
Flower of the henna. See Guli Hinnai.
Fretted designs, 64, 69, 70; in Samarkand
rugs, 241 ; in Yarkand rugs, 244
"From the Indus to the Tigris," Bellew,
220, 223 G
Gallnuts, 54
Genghis rugs, compared with Mosul Kur
dish, 131; description, 129
Geometrical designs, 15, 17, 63; in Da
ghestan rugs, 104; in Derbends, 108; in
Genghis, 129; in Kazaks, 124; in Mo
suls, 128; in Shirvans, 121 ; in Soumaks,
120; in Turkoman, 240
Ghiordes, Demirdji weavers in, 151; grade
names for modern Koniehs, 138
Ghiordes rugs, antique, border designs, 64 ;
compared with Konieh, 137 ; compared

with Ladik, 155; description, 144-148;
even trimming of, in; Kulah designs in,
150; used as picture-frames, 145
Ghiordes rugs, modern, 6, 8; description,
148 ; loose knotting, 89 ; substituted for
Demirdji, 151
Goat's-hair, 39; foundation for rugs, 83;
in Ak-Hissar rugs, 157; in Kulah rugs,
Gobelins, factories of the, 19
Goldsmid, Sir F. J., on Kirman rugs, quoted,
208
Goodyear, Professor, on lotus origin of or
nament forms, cited, 62, 64
Gorevan rugs, description, 176-179
Grade names in Asia Minor rugs, 148
Granada, rugs made in, 20
Grave carpets. See Turbehlik
Grazing districts, 43
Greek cross, 30
Greek designs, borrowed from Egypt and
Assyria, 17
Greek key. See Fretted designs
Guendje rugs. See Genghis
GuliHinnaidesign,75;in Feraghan rugs, 195
Gulistan rugs, texture, 153
Guyard, S., on Oriental painting, cited, 12
H
Hamadan rugs, 40, 78; Azerbijan sold as,
167 ; description, 199-201 , Herez known
as, 175 ; patterns for Genghis, 130
Hammamlik (bath rug), 94
" Handbook of Anilines," Reiman, 44
Hehbehlik (saddle-bags), description, 95;
Shiraz, 214
Hemp, foundation for rugs, 84
Herat, borders in Ispahan rugs, 203; in
Sarakhs, 191 ; designs in Afghanistan
rugs, 237; in Feraghans, 194; in Kho
rassans, 22; in Sehnas, 184
Herat rugs, 63, 67; description, 224, 225;
medallions in, 166

272

INDEX

Herek-keui rugs, 174
Herez rugs, Bakhshis sold as, 177 ; descrip
tion, 175 ; dyes in, 177 ; shipped as Gore
vans, 177
Herodotus, 17
Hindustanieh rugs, 151
Homer, 17 I
" In the Kingdom of the Shah," Collins,
E. T., 49, 89
India, caste system in, 253 ; jail system in,
254; village system in, 253
India rugs, 63; description, 252-255; un
classified, IOI
Indigo, 53
" Industrial Arts of India," Sir G. Bird-
wood, 69
Inely. See Enile
Inscriptions in Tabriz rugs, 172
Iran. See Persia
Iran rugs, mistaken for Kurdistans, 187
Iskender Khan Coroyantz, on the origin of
the pear design, cited, 69
Ispahan rugs, description, 201-205
J
Jabalpur, 266
Jaipur, 266
James I. of England, 20
Jamu, 266
Jeypore. See Jaipur
Jones, Owen, on Chinese art, cited, 64;
on the origin of designs, quoted, 65
Jooshaghan. See Djushaghan
"Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," Mrs.
Bishop, 7, 97, 173 K
Kaba-Karaman rugs, 121 ; description, 139
Kabistan rugs, 68; adherence to old
models, 88 ; close trimming, 87 ; close
knotting, 89; compared with Mosul,

127, 128; description, 108-m; mar
keted in Shemakha, 120
Karabagh rugs, called Shemakinski, 121;
compared with Shirvan, 121 ; degenera
tion of design, 122; description, 117-
119; Kaba-Karamans sold as, 140;
model for Kazaks, 124 ; sold as Genghis,
!3°
Kara Dagh rugs, description, 180
Kara-Geuz rugs, 200
Karamania tribes, 140
Karmanian, 206
Kashgar rugs, 64 ; description, 243-245
Kashmir (Indian) rugs, 262
" Kashmir '' rugs. See Soumak
Kayin rugs. See Aiyin rugs
Kazak, method of weaving, 9 1 ; odjaklik,
designs in, 114
Kazak rugs, compared with Tcherkess, 114;
description, 123-125; similarity to Der
bend, 107
Kermanshah, 187
Kermanshah rugs, description, 187-189;
Tabriz rugs known as, 168
Kermes, 52
Khilims, 20; description, 248-251
Khiva- Bokhara rugs, 230
Khiva rugs, Afghanistan-Bokhara sold as,
236
Khorassan rugs, description, 21x8-222;
likeness to Kirmans, 2 1 o
Kinari (runners), 6; in Kurdistan, 182
Kingscote, Georgiana, " Decline of Taste
in Indian Art," quoted : on Indian dyes,
254
Kirmanieh fabrics, 206
Kirman (Oushak), 152
Kirman rugs, description, 207-212; at
tributed to Kermanshah, 187 ; close trim
ming, 87 ; close knotting, 89 ; imitateil
in Turkey, 174; Italian influence in de
signs, 19; model for Tabriz, 168; sold
as Teheran and Ispahan, 202
Kirman weavers, in Tabriz, 170

m

INDEX

Kir-Shehr, 135
Kir-Shehr rugs, description, 138
Knop-and-flower design, 66
Knot, close, 89 ; Ghiordes, 87 ; loose, 88 ;
Sehna, 87
Knots, beating of, 91
Konieh rugs, compared with Kir-Shehr,
139; description, 135-139
Koran, 27, 30 ; quotations from, 204
Koultuk rugs, description, 192
Kozan rugs, 131
Kuba, rugs made in, 108
Kulah mohair rugs, 39, 150; likeness to
Ak-Hissar mohairs, 157
Kulah rugs, antique, border stripes, 147 ;
compared with Ghiordes, 148 ; compared
with Konieh, 135, 137 ; compared with
Ladik, 155; description, 149; even clip
ping, in
Kulah rugs, modern, description, 150;
loose knotting, 89
Kurdistan khilims, 248
Kurdistan rugs, Eastern, 165 ; description,
181-187; different from Mosul Kurds;
sold in Hamadan, 167
Kurdistan rugs (Mosul), clumsy weaving
of, 91; description, 130; latch- hook de
signs in, 142
Kutayah, rugs made in, 153

Ladik rugs, compared with Konieh, 135;
description, 154-157
Lahore rugs, 263
Laodicea. See Ladik
Laristan, English trade name, 2 14
Laristan rugs, barber-pole stripe in, no
"L'Art de l'Asie Centrale," N. Simakoff,
125, 228
Latch-hook design, in Anatolian mats, 142 ;
in Daghestans, 104, 106 ; in Derbends,
108; in Kazaks, 125; in Meles, 158; in
Turkomans, 104; in Yomuds, 234

Leopard and deer, 12
Leroy Beaulieu, on Turkish imitation of
Persian designs, 134
" Les Arts Decoratifs en Orient et en
France," Beaumont, A. de, 14
Life idea in design, 66
Linen, foundation for rugs, 84
Looms, 81, 83
Lotus, all ornament forms derived from,
62, 64 ; distribution of, 65 ; design bor
rowed from Egypt and Assyria, 17; in
Genghis rugs, 130; in Tabriz, 169
Louis XIV., 19
" Lule " rugs, 3, 189; quality, 182; Bijars
the true, 189 M
MacFarlane, C. C, " Turkey and its Des
tiny," quoted : on silk-manufacturing in
Broussa, 174; on Yuruk people, 140
Madder, 52, 54
Madras rugs, 266
Makatlik (runners), 6; description, 95
Makri. See Meles
Malakan. See Malgaran
Malgaran rugs, description, 115; trade
name for Samarkand, 243
Marriage customs, 25
Masulipatam, 266
Maya temples, stone carvings on, 13, 17
Mecca, 21 ; pilgrimage to, 216; rugs, de
scription, 215-218
Medallions, in Feraghan rugs, 195; in
Gorevans, 177; in Kirmans, 209; in
modem Persian, 166; in Sarakhs, 189;
in Serapis, 179; in Tabriz, 168
Meles rugs, description, 1 58
Melesso. See Milassa
Merv khilims, 20, 248, 249
Meshhed, 21 ; rugs, description, 223, 224;
shrine, 222
Middleton, Professor J. H.,on Assyrian wall
reliefs, 1 5 ; on Phoenician and archaic
Greek designs, 17

274

I N D E X

Milassa, market for Meles rugs, 1 58
Mills, steam, 38
Mina Khani designs, 75, 166
Mir design in Saraband rugs, 197
Mirzapur rugs, description, 262-264
Mohammedan restrictions on animate
forms in art, 11
Mongol influence in Niris rugs, 215
Mordants, 48
Morocco, 64
Mortlake, Surrey, looms at, 20
Mosul, 126
Mosul Kurdish rugs, 130
Mosul rugs, 3, 40, 63; description, 127-
129; why classed as Caucasian, 103
N
Namazlik. See Prayer rugs
Neolithic Age, pottery designs, 1 7
Newton, C. T., on Greek key pattern,
cited, 69
Niris rugs, description, 214
Nishapur, 219
Nomad tribes of the Caucasus, 112
Norseland. See Scandinavia
Novi Varos rugs, 30 O
Odjaklik (hearth rug), 29; description, 95 ;
Kazak, 114; Konieh, 136
Ornament forms, derivation of, 62
Oushak, dyers, 43 ; grade names used for
modern Koniehs, 138
Oushak rugs, 35 ; compared with big
Anatolians, 143; description, 152; loose
knotting, 89
Oustri-Nan, 201 P
Palermo, rug manufacture in twelfth cen
tury, 19
Palm. See Pear
Parsa, 212

Pashim, 36
Patterns. See Designs
Pear, 63; in Genghis rugs, 130; in Ghior
des, 147 ; in Herat, 225; in Kabistan,
109; in Kermanshah, 188; in Meles,
158; in Meshhed, 223; in Mosul, 128;
in Persian, 109; in Saraband, 109, 197;
in Sehna, 183; in Shiraz, 109, 213; in
Teheran, 203 ; origin, 68
Peloton rouge. See Filik
Pergamos. See Bergamo
Persia, animal figures in designs, 12, 15;
deterioration of rugs in, 7 ; bazaars, 7 ;
berries, 53 ; blue in Kurdistan rugs,
181; lost art of making blue, 53; in
fluence on other rug-making countries, 60
" Persia and the Persians," Benjamin, S. G.
W., S3
Persian khilims (doru), 250
Persian knot. See Knot, Sehna
Persian provinces, best rugs made in, 161,
163. l6S
Persian rugs, 160-166, 173; manner of sell
ing, 133 ; reciprocal trefoil design in, 1 19
" Pick," Turkish unit of measurement, 24,
/33
Pile, substitution for primitive web, 82 ;
trimming of, 89
Pliny, 16, 93
Polish carpets, 119
Poona, 266
Prayer rugs, 15, 36; Asia Minor, 145;
Bokhara, 40, 230; Daghestan, 106;
description, 94 ; Ghiordes, 88; compared
with Kulah, 149; description, 145-147;
Kaba-Karaman, 140; Kulah, 137, 155;
description, 149; Tcherkess, description,
114; tree forms in, 115, 147
Pushmina rugs, 261

Raphael, Persian students under, 19
Reclus, on Kirman rugs, quoted, 208

INDEX

Reiman, " Handbook of Anilines," quoted :
on aniline dyes, 44
" River loop." See Pear
Robinson, Vincent, " Eastern Carpets,"
quoted : on Afghan rugs, 238 ; on car
pet-weaving in India, 255; on Kashmir
rugs, 262; on Polish carpets, 119; on
quality of wool, 34, 39; on Yarkand
mgs, 243
Rochella, 53
Rock, Dr., on tree tradition of Middle
Asia, quoted, 66
Rosette, 65, 74
Roulez. See " Lute "
" Royal Bokhara," 233
Rugs, artificial antiques, 9; manner of
selling in Asia Minor, 133 ; bibliographi
cal material wanting, 1 ; classification, 63,
98; cost of, 10; deterioration of, 6, 9,
161; double-faced, 93; duties on, 10;
Egyptian origin, 14; finishing of sides
and ends, 92; foundation materials of,
84 ; identification, 4 ; importation, 2, 8 ;
increase in popularity, 2 ; nomad, 1 5, 60 ;
nomenclature, 5, 6, 98, 161 ; parts of, 73 ;
prices in Persia, 165; scarcity of an
tique, 8; specific uses of, 94; table of
classification, 100; tests of quality, 89;
textile tables, reference to, 101 ; use in
Orient, n, 13, 17, 78
Rug manufactories, 101; at Oushak, 152;
at Sultanabad, 163, 196; at Tabriz, 162,
170
Rug manufacture, in England, 20; in
France, 19 ; in India, 256, 261 ; in Italy,
19; in Persia, 160; in Spain, 18; how
controlled, 24; in United States, 2, 132
Russian influence, in designs of Kara
baghs, 118

Sacred tree, Assyrian, 16
Saffron, 54; use in Mosul rugs, 127

Saiga, fleece used in Tartar rugs, 39
Samarkand rugs, 64; description, 241-
243; known as "Malgaran," 115
Saraband rugs, 68 ; description, 197-199;
pear design in, 109
Saracenic influence in Bergamo rugs, 155
Saracens, 18
Sarakhs, rugs, description, 189-192; me
dallions in, 168
Sarandaz, 6
Sarawan. See Saraband
Sardar design, 75
Sarpuz, 6
Saruk rugs, close knotting of, 89; de
scription, 201—205
Savalans, name for Sultanabad rugs, 196
Saw-tooth, reciprocal design, in Beshir
rugs, 235; in Kazak rugs, 125
Scale-makers, 86
Scandinavia, dyeing and weaving in, 18
Sedjadeh (floor-coverings), 15, 88, 136;
Bergamo, 155; description's; Kaba-
Karaman, 140; Konieh, 136; Kerman
shah, 188
Sehna khilims, 248
Sehna rugs, 67; close clipping, 87, no;
close knotting, 89 ; description, 182-184;
manner of weaving, 91 ; medallion in,
166
Selvage, 92
Selvile rugs, 198
Serapi rugs, close knotting, 89; descrip
tion, 179
Shah Abbas, 19
Shah Abbas design, 74, 166
Shah of Persia, edict against anilines, 48-
51, 162
Shawls, 36, 39, 68, 208, 256
Sheep's-blood, 52
Shemakha, 120
Shemakinski rugs, 121
Shiite sect, 1 17 ; in Azerbijan, 166 ; in Kara
Dagh, 180; shrine of, at Meshhed, 223;
use of animal figures by, 12

276

INDEX

Shiraz khilims, 248
Shiraz rugs, 68, 122 ; description, 212-214;
Shirvan rugs sold as, 122; sold as
" Meccas," 217
Shirvan rugs, description, 121- 123; Kaba-
Karamans sold as, 140; latch-hook de
signs in, 105; likeness to Soumak rugs,
120; marketed in Shemakha, 120; sold
as Shiraz, 214
Silk, 40, 174; foundation for rugs, 83;
rugs, 96 ; weaving in, 86
Simakoff, N., " L'Art de I'Asie Centrale,"
quoted : on the tarantula design in Turk
oman rugs, 125; on Turkoman designs,
228
Smyrna, rug market, 132 ; rug names in,
5> 98» J32; rugs, description, 143; rugs
sent to Cairo from, 14
Souj-Bulak rugs, 192
Soumak rugs, description, 119-121; de
signs similar to Shirvan, 122 ; latch-hook
design in, 105
Spain, rug manufacture in, 18
Spinning, 35, 38
Springer, L. A., on rug-weaving in Novi
Varos, quoted, 30
Star, emblem, 128
St. John, O. B., on Kirman rugs, quoted,
209
Strabo, 17
Sulphide of mercury, used in dyeing, 53
Sultanabad, 8, 163; European designers
in, 163; rugs, description, 196
Sumak, root, 54
Sunnite doctrine, 1 2
Svastika. See Swastika
Swastika, 70-72; in Daghestan rugs, 106;
in antique Ghiordes prayer rugs, 147 ;
in Yarkand rugs, 244

Tabriz, manner of weaving, 91 ; rug manu
facture in, 162 ; rug market in, 167

Tabriz rugs, close knotting, 89; close
trimming, 87; description, 168-174;
Italian influence in, 19; made in imita
tion of Sehnas, 184
Tamur, 241
Tartar rugs, 40; how sold, 133
Tchechen rugs. See Tzitzi
Tcherkess rugs, description, 11 3-1 16
Teheran rugs, description, 201-205
Tekke influence in Yomud rugs, 233
Tekke khilims, 248
Tekke rugs, 40 ; even clipping, 1 10. See
also Bokhara
Tereh. See Designs
Textile tables, 15, 101
Tokmak rugs, description, 138
Transcaucasia, rugs of, 116; preparation
of wool in, 36
Tree forms, 66 ; in Ispahan rugs, 203 ; in
Kurdistans, 185; in Mosuls, 127; in
prayer rugs, 147; in Tcherkess, 115;
in turbehlik, 96 ; in Tzitzi, 112
Trefoil, reciprocal design, in Karabagh
rugs, 118; in Mosuls, 128; in Tzitzis, 1 1 2
Triclinaria, 78
Turbehlik (grave carpet), description, 96
Turkestan rugs, close trimming, 87
"Turkey and its Destiny," C. C. Mac
Farlane, 140, 174
Turkey, manner of entertaining guests in, 29
Turkish knot. See Knot, Ghiordes
Turkish language used in Persia, 165
Turkish rugs, antique, 134; description,
132-135; made upon orders, 133
Turkoman, designs in Persian rugs, 165;
tribes, 129; influence in Beluchistan
rugs, 240; rugs, 226, 227
Turkoman rugs, latch-hook in, 104; recip
rocal trefoil in, 1 19.
Turkman rugs. See Genghis rugs
Turk's distrust of European travelers, 2S
Turmeric, 54
Turunji design, 76
Tyrian purple, 42

INDEX

" Tzitzi " rugs, 30, 63 ; description of, 1 1 1-
113; marketed in Shemakha, 120
Tzoul, 251 U
United States, manufacture of rugs in, 2, 8 ;
as a market for rugs, 1

Vambery, cited, 25
Venice, rug manufacture in, 19
W
Warp, arrangement on looms, 82 ; dyed at
the ends, 84; -fringe, 92; in antique
rugs, 83 ; silk, 83
Water, solvent quality, essential in washing
wool, 37; in Angora, 138; in Demirdji,
151; in Oushak, 153; in mixing dyes,
44. 45 5 supply for dyes, 45
Weavers, Armenian, 143
Weavers, boy, in Azerbijan, 167; in India,
258; in Kirman, 170, 209; in Tabriz, 170;
profession hereditary in India, 253, 257;
Karabagh, 117; guild of, 25; nomad,
25,60; Persian, 163; superiority of East
ern, 30, 143; superstitions of, 92 ; Turkish,
133', wages of, 24, 134
Weaving, 80 ; ancient and modern methods
compared, 14; Assyrian, 16; in Kulah
done by men, 150 ; done by women, 25 ;
in Herez, 178; in Indian jails, 5, 254,
256; method of, 83; process of 82-87,
89, 93 5 tools for, 86

Wilson, Thomas, on the origin of the Swas
tika, quoted, 70-72
Women, as designers, 25; as weavers, 25,
163, 178; in Christian settlements, 31;
social conditions, 25
Wool, Afghan, exported to Europe, 34;
Anatolian, 35 ; combing of lambs for fine,
35 ; Farsistan, 34 ; foundation for rugs,
83 ; preparation, 36 ; quality required for
rugs, 35 ; scarcity in India, 254; Spanish,
34, 35 ; superiority of Eastern, 34; Trans
caucasian, 116; Uzbek Tartar, 39

Yaprak rug (Oushak), 152, 153
Yaprakli, fair held at, 22
Yarkand rugs, 64; description, 243-245;
tree forms in, 66
Yarn, purchase of, 39; spinning of, 38;
supply for weaving, 85; treated with
lime, 47
Yesteklik (Konieh), 136; description, 95.
See also Anatolian mats
Yomud rugs, 40; barber-pole stripe in,
no; description, 233-235; latch-hook
design in, 105
Yourdes. See Ghiordes
Yucatan, 13, 70
Yule, on Afghan wool, cited, 34
Yuruk people, 26, 140
Yuruk rugs, description, 140

Zenjan rugs, 192
Zoroastrians, pear pattern traced to, 68

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