Category: Blog

This very rare and beautiful Persian  all-wool  rug is attributed to the small off-shoot of the Afshar peoples (the Jabal Barezi) from the Zagroz Mountains in the Jebalbarez district of Kerman Province

The so-called Kouhi Afshar rugs are extremely rare. This small group of the Afhar tribe is known to have produced mainly animal trappings that used to occasionally appear on the bazaars in Shiraz and Kerman. 

Because of their unusual characteristics (untypicality), these works were often referred to as ‘rugs from beyond the mountain’  (posht-e kuhi = over the hill). Although, Reinhard G. Hubel suggests in his The Book of Carpets (Praeger Publishers, N.Y. 1970 p.224 ) that Kuhi is actually the name of a Turkoman tribe that migrated to the south of Iran from the Caucasus.

This rug shows a genuine nomadic work for tribal domestic use and likely not intended for sale at bazaars

The seemingly poorly executed lozenge pole medallion may suggest a deliberate concept when scrutinized. The bottom (deformed) lozenge inscribes a smaller diamond pole medallion while the top one constitutes the classic Afshar gûl.

What is intruguing about this unique ethnographic artifact, apart from its rather obscure provenance, is its asymmetry, the rich border and the use of anthropomorphic motifs .

The end of the 19^th century in late colonial India bears witness to a revival of textile industry and carpet weaving.

Interestingly enough, many products of this re-emerging economy, quality rugs in intricate designs, came from Indian prison factories.

The so-called Jeeli or jail carpets was not a new idea; earlier, in the 16^th century, Mughal Emperor Akbar is said to have brought skilled weavers from Persia to teach the art to inmates in Mughal jails across the Subcontinent.

The idea appealed later to British authorities who decided to continue the Mughal tradition in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Apart from the obvious economic reasons, weaving was viewed as part of prisoners’ ‘reform’ therapy.

Jeelis were produces in a variety of styles; opulent wool pile carpets emulating ancient Persian designs, or simple kilim-like Dhurries, an Indian tradition from the time immemorial.

It is however the humble cotton yarn dhurries that have of late become most coveted home décor floor coverings and a popular choice of many designers in the west.

A.G.

Heriz, Gorevan, Ahar, Kharajeh etc. are ‘Rugs of Sarab, which are [often
classified and known] as Heriz, (/)  The usual adjective for “of Sarab” would be “Sarab-i”, this changed to “Serapi”. ‘ (Wikipedia)

‘.. the designs of Serapis were heavily influenced by Tabriz rugs made during the late nineteenth century. ‘ (-) The Origin of Serapi Rugs by Majid Paydar, PhD

Most rugs coming of the county of Sarab would be referred to as Serapi. We shall however find out that in practice, this term applies only to finer quality rugs from the region.

In the later part of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 2oth, rugs from towns of Heriz, Ahar, Gorevan, Karajah, and possibly Bakshaish, were marked as Heriz on the market in Tabriz and on international shipping labels.

Many village rugs produced throughtout the region were labelled as Heriz as well.

It is only later in the 20^th century that merchants began to observe differences in design, weave and colour scheme.

Heriz rugs from Heriz town, rugs that Cecil Edwars refers to as ‘proper Heriz rugs’  showed a clear tendency toward geometric form drawn likely on the Caucasian designs. Ahar rugs seemed to continue the curvilinear traditions of the region.  

All these rugs however shared a technical structure of weave rarely exceeding 30 KPSI and were known and referred to on the western markets as Heriz rugs.

A significant number of finer rugs however left Serab province (via Tabriz) throughout the most part of the 19^th century.  They featured a range of designs typical to earlier Heriz and Ahar rugs but differentiated from them structurally; they were all made in no less than 100-110 KPSI.

Most likely, being destined for more demanding buyers, finer materials and better skilled weavers were selected to make these rugs.

The natural process of aging further enhanced the aesthetic differences between the lower and higher end rugs; the latter being known today as Serapi rugs.

Interestingly, as Tschebull argues, coarse village rugs from Heriz literally replaced  Kazaks on the western market, and the same ‘coarse Heriz rugs’ replaced finer Serapis from the market in Tabriz and consequently the world.

Economy and fashion have always shaped the rug insdustry around the world, and the rug industry in the Transcaucasus was no exception.

Toward the end of the 19th century, the westerners discovered Caucasian rugs. They appealed to consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Rugs from the Caucasus were prediminantly a product of the so-called ‘cottage industry.’

A loom was a permannt fixture in nearly all housholds across the region and women produced small and nedium rugs afforded by the size of the ‘domestic’ loom.

When the market demanded larger carpets with similar course feel and geometric designs, the production shifted to Heriz and the surrounding villages (Tschebull).

Possibly, the demand for simple Heriz rugs was such that the tradition of much finer ‘Serapis’ was abandoned.

As of the second quarted of the 20th century, Serapis were no longer made and the ‘cottage rug industry’ in the Caucasus was already in decline.

It can be said that the middle of the 19th century witnesses the develpment of some of the finest rug traditions both in the Caucasus and Transcaucasus.

Whimsical, undpredicatble in design, rich in colour but rather coarse rugs were produced in towns and villages across the Caucasus.

Rich in colour, complex in design ‘Serapis’ were made in Serab county (Transcaucasus) .

The first were in serious decline as of 1930s, the latter literarily ceased to exists.

Meanwhile, Heriz, Gorevan, Karajeh and Ahar carpets continue to be produced in large numbers and sold London, New Your, Paris, Miland and beyond.

According to Cecil Edwards, ‘upwards of half a million carpets of these types have been woven in the villages of the area.’ (1950s)

The process of mass production in the region brought about changes in production and materials.

Coarse Heriz rugs in 30 KPSI were simply faster to make than much finer ‘Serapis’ , and since they were designed to be substantially less expensive, lower quality wool and chemical dyes were used in their production.

‘Until recent years the weavers of the Heriz area produced their wools or spun yarn from the neighboring Shahsevan tribes. That admirable practice is unhappily fast disappearing. Today the villagers buy their yarn ready spun in the bazzars of Tabriz and Ardebil. (/) The system of dyeing, too, has sadly deteriorated. (/) The blue, red and green are now dyed in Tabriz by the twon dyers, with synthetic dyes.’ (C. Edwards)

A.G.

This article is a continuation of our previous blod Heriz Rugs and the Caucasian Influence

The origins of the Marsh Arabs, the swamp dwellers of southern Iraq are rather obscure; their customs are neither Arab nor Muslim and they speak a dialect that is largely foreign to other Iraqis.  

The Ma`dan people, it appears, ‘likely maintained a range of pre-Arab, pre-Muslim cultural practices going back to the Sumerians.’

It is believed that sometime in the late eighteenth century, they converted to Shiite Islam which had a tragic effect on their destiny later in history, namely, during the reign of Saddam Hussain at the end of the past millennium.

The Hussain regime viewed Ma`dan clans with suspicion; allegedly ‘the marshes were used by expatriate Iraqi Shiite guerrilla fighters based in Iran trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, to infiltrate into Iraq.’

To prevent that, in the aftermath of the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, on the orders of Saddam Hussain, the Ma`dan people were relocated to other parts of Iraq and the marshes drained out.

What is left of the Ma`dan People, the Marsh Arabs, however, is their artistic legacy.

The women of these Arab tribes were famous for their most exquisite wedding blankets with abstract, yet symbolic patterns embroidered on plain wool kilims bought on nearby markets from Kurdish weavers.

Typically, two naturally brown wool kilims would be sown together (a symbol of unity in marriage) and covered densely with intricate designs in a most unpredictable range of colours.

These beautiful object d’art are no longer produced, a result of Hussain’s genocide against the Marsh Arabs, the destruction of their way of life and diaspora.

Thanks for reading …

Quotations from Marsh Arab Rebellion: Grievance, Mafias and Militias in Iraq Juan Cole Fourth Wadie Jwaideh Memorial Lecture, (Bloomington, IN: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2008). Pp. 1-31.

Aditional readings: The Kilim Diaries

A new and exciting post by

Eccentric Wefts Musings of a rug and textile collector

“Heritage of the Middle East” is one of the largest and most comprehensive exhibitions of antique oriental rugs in the United States.  These rugs date from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries and reflect the traditions of four major weaving areas in the Middle East: Persia, Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Click here to read

Persian Rugs and the Iranian Everyday: Photographer Jalal Sepehr in Yazd

In this series, Sepehr strove to depict a space in between traditional and everyday life in his pictures. To do so, he made use of the rug and architecture as representative of tradition in opposition to the individuals pictured, dealing with the issues of everyday life.

Jalal Sepehr’s Knot series (2011) is comprised of 12 images all including a Persian rug (1m x 70cm) taken in the historic city of Yazd in central Iran. Contrary to initial intentions, some of the images in Knot make use of the historic scenes and examples of architecture found in Yazd.

In this series, Sepehr strove to depict a space in between traditional and everyday life in his pictures. To do so, he made use of the rug and architecture as representative of tradition in opposition to the individuals pictured, dealing with the issues of everyday life.

The colors’ silent whisper

The wool’s palpitation of blood through the knot’s vessels

And the fingers’ sweet souls which are trampled …

-from Ahmad Shamlu’s “To the Scarlet Blossom of a Dress”

See the photographi essay by Jalal Sepehr’s Knot