The art of carpet weaving
which has been going on for thousands of years is one of the
oldest professions in the world. Today we have evidence that in
6000 B.C., goats and sheep were being sheared for
wool and hair and then this material was spun and woven. However,
the first carpet ever discovered is the "Pazyryk" rug woven in
464 B.C., (Discovered in ice filled tomb Outer Mongolia 1960). It
had all the characteristics of a modern Turkish rug with a pile and
Ghordes knot.
Turkish
Rug Making traces its roots to Central Asia, where skills and patterns
have been passed down from generation to generation.
The international popularity
of Turkish rugs began in the 13th century, when Marco Polo recorded the
beauty and quality of the Seljuk rugs he saw in Anatolia. It
is believed that certain weaving techniques were brought to Anatolia via
the Seljuk Empire in the 12th century. By the times of Marco Polo's
visit, the Seljuk capital of Konya was a major rug producer.
Carpet Weaving is a
collective work. In earlier times, as well as today, families,
tribes, or even whole villages worked, pulling their resources,
expertise and experience.
Construction
Rows of
knots are tied on a foundation of warp and weft and become the pile,
which consists of upright yarn. The warp runs along the length of the
carpet and the fineness of the weave depends on its thickness and the
proximity of the warps to one another. When the rug is completed the
ends form the fringes, which may be weft-faced, braided or tasseled or
secured in some manner.
The
wefts pass under and over the warps from one side of the rug to
another. They are loosely plied or sometimes untied to allow them to
be tightly packed to secure each row of knots.
Weaving
normally begins by passing a number of wefts to form a base to work
on. The knots are tied around consecutive sets of adjacent warps. The
fineness of the weave depends on the density of the knots.
Designs &
Patterns
Village
or nomadic rugs generally use traditional inherited designs, which are
reproduced from memory.
These
often have totemic or symbolic associations, but in most instances
they are mutated forms whose original significance has long been
forgotten. Most sophisticated town rugs are curvilinear designs
reproduced from paintings and the designs are called by the head
weaver.
Some
sample patterns from Turkish rugs are...
Looms
Looms
don't vary greatly in essential details, although they vary greatly in
size and sophistication. The main technical requirement of a loom is
to provide the correct tension and means of dividing the warps into
alternate sets of leaves.
Looms
can be vertical or horizontal. Horizontal looms are generally fairly
small - they are often used by nomadic/tribal people and are easier to
transport, as they can be assembled and dismantled quite easily.
Vertical looms are undoubtedly more comfy to operate, although they
are not transportable and thus, only found amongst sedentary people.
Tools
A number of essential
tools are needed to operate the loom:
-
a knife for cutting the yarn as the
knots are tied
-
a comb-like instrument called the "kirkit"
for packing down the wefts
-
a pair of shears for trimming the yarn.
Knots
There are two
basic types of knots, upon which variations are based.
"Ghordes"
knot, which is typically double-wefted
Materials
The
warp and weft of a carpet can be various combinations of wool, cotton,
silk, and these materials themselves come in various qualities and
textures.
Dyes
Until
the introduction of chemical dyess in the second half of the 19th
century, only natural dyes were used, such as the madder and indigo
plant, insects (i.e. cochineal), bark, fruit, and other ingenious
methods, to produce shades of red and blue. These primary colors could
be mixed with other primary colors to produce a wide range of
secondary colors.
Although natural colors are vivid and long-lasting, they do too fade
in the course of time when exposed to light and alkalis, but this
produces a pleasing, harmonious effect which cannot be equaled with
chemical colors.
Chemical dyes fall into two main groups. One is the acid or analine
dye, and the second is the chrome dye. The majority of commercial
carpets produced today for the world market are made from chemical
dyes, although there has been a resurgence in the last few years in
the popularity of vegetable dyes.
