The author of this subject index, Ernst A. Swietly, co-author with Fritz Langauer of the reference book "Der handgeknüpfte Teppich," is grateful for improvements and suggestions, at swietly.press@aon.at.

 

This directory lists about 2. 000 common carpet-related terms, important places of production and trade, carpet patterns and materials, and current industry terminology, and explains their origins and meanings. It aims to intensify the relationship between carpet enthusiasts and collectors to their textile companions.

It is difficult, however, to translate technical words from Farsi, Turkish, Armenian, Chinese or Turkmen perfectly. In many cases, these foreign languages have different sounds, spellings, and pronunciations than German or English.

For understanding some striking examples: In Turkish, "A" and "I" have different speech variants: for example, a closed and an open "A" and "I". "C" and "C'" are letters pronounced as "dj" or "tsch". A diphthong such as

"gh", for example, in Persian "Ghom" does not exist in German. In Farsi, "gh" is a guttural sound. In addition, in this language the "E" is often spoken, but not written. Therefore, in textbooks one finds different spellings for one and the same sound; the same is true for the transcription of Chinese, Indian or Tibetan names, places and terms. Furthermore, the spelling of many names and technical terms from the world of carpets is influenced by the phonetic language of English; because Englishmen were the former colonial masters and most important traders in most countries of origin of carpets, who helped to shape the tapitological technical language. Thus, for example, keywords beginning with "Sh" may be classified under "Sch" in the index or vice versa. In German, many English carpet terms have been adopted without hesitation in the past and are still used in English spelling by experts. To prevent the resulting confusion and misunderstanding, this directory adheres to the most common spelling or cites alternative, but meaning congruent spellings side by side.

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In case of any errors, the author hopes for the understanding of the readers; he will try to eliminate them in the next improved edition of this directory. He is, therefore, truly interested in error hints from readers. Keywords missing from this directory, as well as vivid illustrations of rug motifs, patterns, and geographic terms, can at best be found in the encyclopedia "Oriental Rugs" by Peter F. Stone, ISBN 978-0-8048- 4373-7, which the author recommends to readers and friends of rug science.

 

Aba = fine plaid woolen cloth used for making overalls for men.

Abadeh = small southern Iranian town in the northern Afshari region on the road from Isfahan to Shiraz at 2000 meters above sea level in a desert mountainous area. Carpets of the Shiraz and Qashqhai groups are produced there, but they are not nomadic carpets, but serviceable and good; warp and weft are cotton, the weft often blue-filled, the pile firm with 1,000 to 1,600 knots per square centimeter, the wool is durable. The pile of Abadeh carpets is not very high and tightly knotted with Persian or Turkish knots.

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Abbasi rugs = Products of Safavid court manufactories from the era of Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629), especially the so-called "pile carpets" (see these), besides good copies of these showpieces from later times.

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Abbasids = Islamic caliph dynasty between 750 and 1258 AD. Chr.

Abdal = Turkmen tribe.

Abd-el-Madjid = Sultan (1839-1861), after whom the Madjid carpets have been named. They are white-ground prayer rugs with ornaments that clearly show the influence of rococo in Europe.

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Abyssinia = In the former monarchy of Abyssinia today exist the states of Eritrea and Ethiopia; there only carpets have been made for their own use; it is not a classic producing country of oriental carpets.

Abhar = capital of the Iranian region of Abhar in Zanjan province.

Abrash or Abrasch = color variation in single-color horizontal carpet surfaces; "abr" means "cloud" in German and describes color changes on the surface of a carpet. Abrash occurs because among nomads and villagers the wool is dyed only in small quantities. Therefore, each fleet has slightly different shades. Abrash can be recognized by different colored horizontal stripes in the carpet, which are attractive if not too pronounced. In nomadic and village carpets, abrash stripes have an invigorating effect and testify to original craftsmanship; in fine, courtly products, however, abrash is a disadvantage.

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Abrisham = 1. : means "silk" in Persian; 2. : name of a city in the central district of Falavarjan in Isfahan province.

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final = is called the securing of the fabric finish of a carpet, which guarantees the durability of a knotted work. A perfect traditional finish is, for example, a triangular weave of the warp threads by interweaving them into braids. Traces of use usually show on the weft threads of the carpet ends and should be fixed as soon as possible in the interest of the carpet.

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Achal-Tekke = a part of the Tekke tribe, which inhabits the Achal oases around Ashkhabad and had a different way of knotting from the Merw Tekke. These carpets, always ancient, are fine, short-pile, knotted with silky wool and often thin; they have a kilim base at both ends of the fringe.

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Achaemenids = ancient Persian ruling dynastythat dates back to the legendary king Achaemenes (about 700 to 675 BC). He and his dynasty carved Iran out of the Assyrian and Median domains between the 7th and 4th centuries B.C. and established the first great Iranian empire. The Achaemenids have subsequently ruled the Near East, India and Egypt, and only succumbed to Alexander the Great around 330 B.C.

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Achty = alternative name for Daghestan resp. for carpets from the north of this region in the Caucasus. There is a neighboring village there called Mikrah. The carpets from there had Caucasian patterns and very good quality; but since 1990 they are no longer produced, because they had become sober and ugly.

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Acryl = substance chemically characterized by the acrylic group - CH2=CH-COR - as

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z. Acrylic paints, for example. These are dyes or varnishes that are based on plastic dispersions.

Acrylic is colored before it is extruded into filaments and spun. When this is done, acrylic is highly colorfast, electrostatic, and stain resistant. It is sometimes used as a substitute for wool, but it is not break-resistant.

Adana = the fifth largest city in Turkey located in south-central Anatolia; it is considered the place of origin of rimless kilims, as well as a trading place for Yürük knotted carpets.

Eagle Gül Group = Gul used by the Göklan Turkmen and probably also the Yomuden, no longer associated only with the Imreli, a Turkmen tribe; see this! The gul is complexly shaped: hexagonal with a border of points and goat horns. Experts believe that the eagle gul evolved from a stylized palmette. (See "Palmette"!)

Eagle Kazak = common trade name for Caucasian carpets from Chelyaberd in the Caucasus.

Afshan Mina Khani = one of many Afshan carpet patterns, which dates back to the Persian painter Mina Khan. It originated in Kurdistan; it is seen there in old Sawjabalaq and Bijar rugs. It is also found in old carpets from Tabriz, Heris, Hamadan and Chehar Mahal. Since it has only one or two simple floral motifs distributed along the entire length of the carpet, it is appreciated by weavers.

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Ajdahali = Azerbaijani dragon carpet; literally translated into German, the name means "with a dragon".

Ak-Hissar or Ak-Hisar = In German, the name of this carpet-making town northeast of Izmir in western Anatolia means "white castle". Handmade knotted works with geometric patterns are created there.

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Akstafa = 1. : The city and river of this name are located in the Transcaucasus. The carpets made there are among the Cuba, are densely knotted with Turkish knots; their formats are usually long and narrow. 2nd: the "Akstafa peacock" is a geometricized animal motif showing a large bird with a strongly ruffled tail. This eye-catching motif is found in Shirvan carpets from the Caucasus as well as in other Turkish knotted works.

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Alaun =potassium aluminum sulfate, a mineral or. Double salt used as a mordant in dyeing.

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Alizarin = Dye from the root of the madder plant or. Dyer red, from which numerous natural red tones are obtained; see "madder"!

 

Amoo-Oghli, Abdol Mohammad or Amuoghli, Abdul Mohammed = Well-known Persian carpet designer and producer, who started his carpet factory at the end of the 19th century. Century from the Persian part of Azerbaijan to the Persian pilgrimage city of Mashad to meet the growing carpet demand there for the tomb of Imam Reza. He was a member of one of those carpet dynasties that produced Safavid-style knotted works with new floral designs and utmost delicacy, including for palaces of the Persian ruling dynasty of Pahlevi between the two world wars. Amoo-Oghli products are similar to the famous Ardebil carpets, although smaller in size than the latter, they have more borders and twice their knotting density. Amoo-Oghli's manufactures reached the peak in the twenties and thirties of the 20th century. Mohammed Amoo-Oghli died in 1938; his manufactories were taken over by his brother Ali Khan Amoo-

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Oghli continued; his son Ali gave up the business in the 1950s; see

"Maschad"!

Anhalt carpet = A very early Persian medallion carpet made in the Safavid period (1501-1722), probably towards the end of the first quarter of the 16th century. Century. Its name comes from a distinguished family in whose collection it had once been; it is still in relatively good condition, except for the almost total disappearance of the original brown of the sheep's wool, which is now badly corroded. (See "corroded"!)

Amu-Daria region = see "Darya"!

Afghan = former and today still common trade name for carpets of the north of Afghanistan. Today, these carpets with the respective tribal names (eg

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"Ersari", "Uzbeks") or. the places of production, (e.g. "Aqceh", "Andkhoy" or "Shah") respectively; see these!

Afghanistan = Central Asian Islamic republic on the border between Central and South Asia. Three quarters of the population are Sunni. The country is one of the rising stars of the last thirty years among all carpet producing countries in the world. Many contemporary carpets from the country are genuine folk art. Carpet producers are diverse ethnic groups such as Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara, Beludjen and others, as well as Turkmen tribesmen. These include Ersari, Tekke, Yomud, and Saryk.

As a result of the wars of recent decades, millions of Afghans have fled to Iran and especially Pakistan. In order to provide them with work, new carpet qualities and patterns were created on the initiative of European and American wholesalers. The civil wars also led to the production of war carpets, the export of which is now banned.

Afshan Pattern = Its basic motifs are flowers, plants and leaves; branches and flowers, animals, birds and eslimis are arranged in such a way that they neither touch each other nor are connected. This pattern is used especially in Isfahan, Kashan, Kerman and Tabriz. There are ten different variants of this pattern.

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Afshars or Afshar = South Persian (nomadic) tribes of Turkic origin. They live in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Iran, mainly in the area around Kirman, and they produce village knotted rugs often with Turkmen pattern elements. The carpets are often still knotted by the women in nomadic tents or on farms in Kirman province and on the edge of the great sand desert of Dasht-e-Lut, while the men devote themselves to cattle raising. These are both nomadic and village carpets.

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afschun or afshan or avshan = Designation for a patterned-through center field of an oriental carpet; it applies to Caucasian, Indian, Persian and Turkish products. The term comes from the Farsi word "afshan", which means "scattered" in German. It refers to stylized, rectangular calyxes or goblets on a stem surrounded by florets.

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Afyon = this Turkish word means "opium". It is the name of a central-western Anatolian city in Turkey and the short form of Afyonkarahisar, now called Karahisar (Turkish = "black castle"). Carpets similar to those of Konya are produced there.

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Agdam = Place and region in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan with significant production of carpets similar to those of Cuba.

Agra = North Indian major city in the west of the state of Uttar Pradesh 200 kilometers south of Delhi, once the capital of the Mughal Empire, site of the mausoleum Taj Mahal. An Indian carpet manufactory existed here from the mid-16th to the early 18th century, attempting to transplant the Persian art of knotting to India. Today, different carpet qualities are produced in Agra. No original carpets have survived from the Mughal period. Experts believe that the typical pieces from the Mughal period showed a combination of Persian, Safavid and Timurid elements with a mixture of Near and Far Eastern models of motifs and patterns. Under British administration, carpet production in Agra was revived by foreign manufactures who exported only to the UK and USA. From Agra also come prison carpets; see these!

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Egypt = is not a classic country of oriental knotted works. In ancient Egypt, given the constant heat, there has been only linen stuff, hardly any textiles made of wool. Until

16th century, however, knotted carpets have been made, see

"Mamluk carpets". Later, this carpet production withered away and was revived in new times in Afghanistan. Namely, in the last decade of the last century, Armenian-American wholesalers established manufactories in Egypt that produced carpets with light and delicate shades, but they were soon displaced by new Afghan carpets such as "Choobi".

A. H. = Abbreviation of "Anno Hegirae"; that is the designation of the years according to the Islamic calendar. Its counting begins in the year 622 after Christ's birth; that was the year in which Prophet Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina; see "Hedschra"! A year occurring in old carpets is to be converted because of the Islamic lunar calendar to the Christian calendar as follows: Islamic year minus 3 percent plus 622.

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Ahar = City in the Heriz region of northwestern Iran. The term is a designation for fine weaving and knotting carpets or curvilinear ornaments of Heriz carpets. Modern carpets from Ahar have medallions and coves.

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Ahmenabad = once a carpet production center in west-central India, there is no manufacturing there today.

Aina-kap =knotted Turkmen case for a mirror.

Ainabad = Village in northwestern Persia that produces Kurdish carpets; these are often also referred to by the trade name Bibikabad (see this!)

Ainalu but  Ainullah = Name of one of the five tribes of the South Persian Khamseh Federation. The word means "eye" in Arabic; see "Eynullah"

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Ajatlyjk = Burial rug on which a body is carried to the grave, but which is not buried with it.

Ajdahali =a kind of dragon carpet.

Ak or Aq = Old Turkish word for "white".

Akanthus = prickly perennial, an ornamental motif of hogweed, a plant from the Mediterranean region with toothed leaves. This motif dates back to antiquity and is widely used in architecture, for example in the Corinthian capital, as well as in carpets and savonneries; see this!

Aksaray = Turkish province and city in Central Anatolia, in German "weißer Palast", which used to be famous for its carpets.

Akstafa = 1.: stylized peacock bird with ruffled feathers; 2.: designation of prayer rugs from the South Caucasus. The city of Akstafa and the river of the same name are located in the Transcaucasus; the products belong to the group of shirvan rugs. They are characterized by an eight-prong medallion, a motif that identifies birds that are supposed to protect the carpet owner from harm.

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Ak-su = Turkish name for "white water"; "ak" means white, "su" means water. It is a geometrized carpet motif consisting of interlocking squares with projections.

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Alachig =lower part of a Caucasian nomad tent (see "Cheten"!).

Alaun =a potassium aluminum sulfate, a salt used as a mordant in yarn dyeing.

Alcaraz = Site of what is believed to be the oldest and most important carpet manufacture in Spain, near Murcia. There from the 15th to the middle of the 17th century. Century Spanish wreath and heraldic motifs and copies of Holbein carpets were made.

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Aleppo = City in northern Syria, capital of Aleppo governorate, now Haleb; known for its extremely fine weavings.

Algeria = North African country; its rugs are very similar to those of Morocco or Tunisia; see "North Africa"!

Aliabad = 1. : common oriental city name occurring in Iran, Afghanistan and India. The name derives from Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the Shiva's son and fourth successor of Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Muslim community. "-abad" means "city" in Farsi. 2nd: It is known as the capital of Aliabad district near Keshan in Kunduz province in Iran; the decoration of the center field of the carpets made there is usually the Herati pattern. 3rd: Aliabad is the name of a village near Isfahan, where Yalameh- carpets are knotted.

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Ali-Eli = Turkmen tribe.

Alinik = Turkish term for that "place where the forehead of the praying touches the ground during prayer"; on prayer rugs, this is a field above the mihrab, which often contains an inscription from the Koran.

Alizarin = natural dye from the root of the madder plant (= dyer's red), from which various shades of red are obtained for dyeing yarns.

Allover Pattern = Trade term for a uniform fine patterning covering the entire carpet, regularly repeating motifs or pattern combinations; see

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"repeat pattern" and "afshun"!

Alloucha = Pile carpets from Tunisia, which are white, beige, brown and gray and used to be knotted from natural wool; see "Tunisia"!

Alma-Gül = Kyrgyz-Apple-Gül.

Alpaca = 1. : domesticated South American ruminant llama breed; it has long silky hair used to make South American weaves. 2nd : name for wool from the hair of alpacas.

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Alpan = Caucasian village where Cuban-style rugs were made. "Alpan Kubas" show a special octagonal stylized medallion, which is considered a simplified representation of the Seichour cross or Kasim Ushak motif. "Seichour" is the name of a village in the north of the Cuba region that decorated its carpets with cabbage roses in the 19th century.

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As-ed-din mosque = Mosque in Konya, site of the oldest preserved Seljuk carpets.

Altai or Altay = Inner Asian region named after the Altai Mountains there. There has been a highly developed culture of animal breeding farmers already 2000 years before Christ. In the excavation sites there after the Second World War, among many other art treasures in an ice grave, the oldest oriental knotted carpet so far, the "Pazyryk", was found; see this!

Age designation = Determining the approximate production time of a carpet is usually of great interest and high importance. In general, the older a carpet is, the more valuable it is. This is not generally true. Because at each time and with each kind of carpet there were and are more beautiful, but also worse. The trade likes to exaggerate. Expressions such as "antique" or "semiantic" are common there, regardless of the real time of origin. The most serious is the age designation with the indication of the approximate year of manufacture, such as "around 1920".

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Alti Bolaq = Carpet production company in Afghanistan's Andkhoy region near Turkmenistan; Turkmen Ersari carpets in red, indigo and white were produced there.

Alum = Color stain made from aluminum sulfate, occasionally also from potash sulfate, used in yarn dyeing.

Amadabad = Name for Indian gold and silver brocaded carpets.

Amalehbaft = this term for carpets is used by Zollanvari for one of its carpet qualities; "Amaleh" in this context means "family work".

American sarouk = At the end of the 19th century in the USA a buying boom began. Century, a buying boom began in the United States centered on rugs produced in and around the city of Sultanabad, now Arak. Supplied in rough quantities to the United States, the knotted works went out of fashion there again in the seventies of the twentieth century and were sold to Europe, where they fetched substantial prices in the last two decades of the twentieth century; see

"Sarouk"!

Traffic Light = a lamp often formed from delicate flowers, as often seen in Anatolian and Persian prayer rugs hanging down from the pediment of the prayer niche onto the mihrab field.

Amritsar = Translated from Sanskrit, the name means "lake of immortality". The city of a million people in the state of Punjab in northwestern India is the center of the Sikhs. Carpet manufacturing began there around 1860 to employ unemployed shawl weavers. As in Agra, rugs were made in prisons there. Earlier carpet production produced pieces with their own character. Today's carpet production is small.

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Amrullah = a village in northwestern Iran.

Amu Darja = river flowing into the Aral Sea in Turkmenistan; former name "Oxus".

Amulet = Item worn as a means of protection against evil spells.

ANCM = Abbreviation for "Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum" in Baku in the shape of a half-rolled carpet.

Anatol = general name for Turkish carpets; comes from the former name for the western half of Asia Minor.

Anatolia = Asian part of Turkey, which was founded in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk, the "Father of the Turks". "Anatolia" coincides with the geographical term "Asia Minor" or "Asia minor" and refers to the peninsula between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea with the continental connection to Asia proper. The population there is composed mainly of Turkoman, Yuruk and Kurds; Armenians and Greeks also make carpets there.

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Andkhoy = City in north-central Afghanistan, near the border with Russia. It is a gathering and trading point for rugs made in the region, especially those made by the Ersari. Most of these pieces are based on Turkmen designs in variations of red, indigo and white; they are made with asymmetrical knots. Today, the flavor of light-colored carpets also comes into play here.

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Andreas Cross = a cross with two diagonal bars crossing each other. It is also called a diagonal cross or a cross with a collar after the way it is held in place. Known is this cross as a warning of railroad crossings or Roman numeral 10.

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Angora = 1. : Name of the ancient city of Ankyra and so-called Sultan carpets. In the vicinity of the city were and are grown color plants such as yellowberry and madder.

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2. : spinnable hair of rabbits, especially of a Turkish breed of goats, whose wool is the origin of mohair, a long, coarse, and lustrous fiber; see "mohair"!

Anhalt carpet = An early Persian medallion carpet made in the Safavid period (1501-1722), probably at the end of the first quarter of the 16th century. Century, was manufactured. The name comes from a noble European family in whose collection this carpet has been for a long time. The carpet in the size 165 x 312 centimeters has been made with cotton, silk and sheep wool.

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Aniline or aniline = Component of coal tar; it accumulates during the extraction of coke and was the starting product for the production of chemical (= synthetic) colors, which are also used since 1823 as an alternative to natural dyes for dyeing carpet yarns. From 1860 onwards, synthetic carpet dyes became widespread throughout the Middle East. The founder of aniline dyes was A. W. Hoffmann. Aniline is derived from "anil", a term formerly used in Portugal for the natural blue dye indigo.

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Ankara = Turkish capital in central Anatolia. Long-haired animal species whose hair is ideal for carpets such as Angora goats were once bred there, but the carpets made there have not gained any importance on the market.

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Anno Hegirae = in German "Jahr der Hedschra"; see under "A. H."!

antique carpets = Age designation for knotted and woven works older than 100 years. Such carpets are duty-free within the EU. In trade, carpets from before 1900 are called "antique"; see "age designation"

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antique finish =there have been and still are attempts to change the appearance of knotted and woven carpets with

by chemical surface treatment or by exposing them to strong sunlight.

a more restrained color palette to make them appear older than they actually are. Such attempts are frowned upon.

antiki(si)eren = is called the effort to make new carpets appear artificially old and thus more valuable than they actually are. Means to this end are, for example, laying out new carpets in blazing sun or on busy streets, as well as washing them in wood suds. In this regard, there are numerous sophisticated methods, which are rarely recognizable to laymen.

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Apadana = large audience hall within the ancient palace of Persepolis in Iran.

Application =sewn-on or embossed pattern made of materials different from the base material.

Aqceh = City in northern Afghanistan, near the major city of Shibergan. The carpets commonly made there are often of a rough and loose quality, showing "filpa" or "Bukhara" patterns. They are offered in the bazaar two days a week. In Aqceh and the surrounding area, higher quality carpets are also produced today to suit contemporary Western tastes.

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Arabatschi = name coming from the Turkic "arabaci", in German "driver of a wheeled vehicle; a Turkmen tribe from the Amu Darya region in central Turkestan; they are credited with main carpets containing the Tauk Nuska oil; see this!

 

Arabbaft =carpet knotted by Arabs, composed of "arab" = Arabic and

"baft" = tied.

 

Arab = Designation for the members of Arabic-speaking peoples who live in Saudi- Arabia, the Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and largely also in North Africa. They are all not major carpet producers.

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arabic = stylized, abstracted leaf or flower vine ornament, in Islamic art a decoration; it was developed from the Greco-Roman vine ornament by intertwining with forked leaves; mostly arabesques are used in carpet borders as an endless round or spiral pattern with split leaf ends.

Arak = former name of the central Iranian industrial city of Sultanabad, capital of the province of Markazi. The carpets traded here are called saruk or Sultanabad.

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archaic luxury carpets =knotted works made in the era from 1250 to 1400 AD, which originated in the Mongolian Chane and Timurid eras; their narrow borders are typical.

Ardabil or Ardebil = City in the northwest of Iran with its own carpet production, which enjoyed high reputation, but in recent decades has undergone significant qualitative changes. Today, the city in the Iranian part of Azerbaijan is only a carpet trading center for knotted works with 120,000 to 180,000 knots per square meter.

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Ardebil Carpets = two large Persian carpets: one measuring 10.34 x 5.20 meters, kept in London's Victoria & Albert Museum; the other in the Los Angeles County Museum; the latter is missing the main border and consists of several pieces, thus is a fragment. Both carpets were made for the great mosque in Ardebil, probably by Maksud Kashani in Tabriz, and bear an extensive dedicatory inscription and signature. According to this, these carpets were made at the beginning of

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Safavid era from 1539 to 1540 and are the oldest Persian knotted works whose age and place of origin are precisely known.

Ardekan = Iranian city in Yazd province, located 60 km from the city of Yazd between Kashan and Isfahan, where classic Persian carpets have been made with high knot density, which is why they have been considered the cradle of the noble, restrained Persian.

Today, inexpensive carpets with Keshan patterning come from there, which are often considered

"Keschan". "Ardakan" is translated as "holy place" or clean place."

Ardjumand = carpet manufacturer in Kirman; it was particularly active in the first decades of the 20th century. Century active.

Arcades = This motif of a series of arches standing side by side comes from masonry architecture and is a symbol usually seen on carpets made for mosques; it is one of the earliest distinctly Islamic motifs that led to the single-arch prayer rug in later times. A lamp, symbolizing the light of God, is usually suspended in the arcade arches.

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Armenibaft =carpet knotted by Armenians; "armeni" means Armenian, "baft" is Persian and means knotted.

Armenia = Country in the Russian-Iranian-Turkish border area. Armenian carpets are known for their numerous inscriptions, mostly in Armenian unique script. In the Armenian capital Yerevan exists a school for carpet weavers, designers and repairers, as well as for the creation of modern carpet designs.

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Arraiolos = City in Portugal, place of origin of carpets made there since the 16th century. Century in needlework are produced. Their original patterns, relatively roughly drawn floral and animal models, are based on models from Persia and Anatolia; later motifs have more European character.

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Arschyn or Cheirak = Persian measure of length, also called zer, has about 104 centimeters. "Cheirak" means "a quarter"; Zar-o-Cheirak is thus 1.25 square meters in Iran. Today, this name is used to describe carpets in the format 122 x 80 centimeters; see also "units of measurement"

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Art Deco = French-international style form from 1925 to 1940, which has shown in architecture, furnishings, clothing, jewelry, paintings, carpets and various utensils. In 1925, avant-garde artists introduced this style in Paris. Prominent representatives included Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger or Ivan de Silva Bruhns. The style extended to hand-knotted and machine-made carpets and particularly captured the luxury sector in the European West and the USA. Important Art Deco producers were positioned in England, the Netherlands and Germany.

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Art Moderne or Art Décoratif or Modern Movement = see "Art Deco"!

Art Nouveau = Interior design style that developed in the last decade of the 19th century. Century and influenced the architecture, graphics and home furnishings. The aim was to return to the high quality and manufacturing standards of down-to-earth craftsmanship. Characteristic of the style was the exuberant use of plant forms - branches, vines, leaves and flowers - in the exterior design of all objects. Excellent examples of Art Nouveau carpets were products of Sir

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Frank Brangwyn of Great Britain, Gallén-Kallela of Finland, and Victor Horta of Belgium.

Arts-and-Crafts = British design period that led to reforms in art, especially in product design from the mid-19th. Century until about 1920. For Britain, this was the "golden age of carpet culture". The aim of the movement was to create a link between solid craftsmanship and advanced industry. In the case of carpets knotted in England and Ireland, a stylistic combination of Persian hand-knotted art with modernity was sought. The motifs focus on serpentine and curvilinear designs with simplified floral patterns as from English gardens.

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Ashik = see "Dagdan"!

Ashkabad = the main and largest city of Turkmenistan, located on the Silk Road between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet-Dag mountain range. The name means "city of love" or "city of worship"; it houses the first Baha'i temple on earth; the Altyn Asyr bazaar in Ashkabad trades mainly Turkmen carpets.

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Azerbaijan or Azerbeijan = one of the oldest settlement areas of mankind at the crossroads of ancient caravan routes. The country is located in the southeast of the Caucasus Mountains, west of the Caspian Sea, divided by the Araxes River into the Republic of Azerbaijan in the north and the Iranian province of Azerbaijan in the south. Centers of Azerbaijani carpet production are Cuba, Karabagh, Shirvan, Shusha and Baku. Significant cultural and artistic influences in Azerbaijan come from the distinctive rock carvings in Gobustan (Qobustan), from the monuments and murals of the fortress city of Shusha, and from the jeweler's art native to the region. Azerbaijan has huge deposits of oil and natural gas, which contribute to the economic rise of the country.

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Azerbaijani carpets = they are distinguished according to the Azerbaijani state artist Latif Karimov according to four types of manufacture (see "Ganja Group" and "Latif Karimov"! ).

Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum = see ANCM!

Ashik or Aschik = the name comes from the Turkish word "asik", in German

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"knuckle"; it is a jagged diamond, an ornament found in Turkmen carpets, often endlessly repeated by the Yomoud in Nastalik carpets as a filling of hexagonal patterns; they are smallest carpets made in pairs to decorate the knuckles of a camel in the wedding caravan

Ashik Göl =Ashik Göl, formed of toothed or stepped diamonds; these can also be concentrically shaped.

Ashkhaneh = capital of Maneh and Samalqan countryside in North Khorasan province near the northeast corner of Iran.

Asmalik or Asmalyk = pentagonal or heptagonal hangings to decorate the flanks of wedding camels or horses, which were always made in pairs, formerly also incorrectly called Osmolduk.

Asylum rugs =knotted works with two pointed pediments (mihrabs), one(s) in each longitudinal direction, which are not considered prayer rugs. They are made in Asia Minor mainly by girls as a gift for their future groom. They take their name from the

meaning that anyone standing on such a carpet enjoys the right of asylum and is under the personal protection of the master of the house. By Turks, such knotted works are called odzhalik.

asymmetric knot = see "Persian knot" or "Senneh knot"!

At-djoli or Tainaktscha or Tainaktscha = large polygonal knotted or woven horse blanket.

At-torba =feed bag for horses.

At-chetschi = long knotted or woven horse belt.

Aubusson = knitted French carpets from the Baroque period, a flat weave for luxurious demands. The name comes from a central French town with intensive tapestry production. This reached its peak under the French king Louis XV (1715-1774). The artistic templates came largely from famous painters or Chinese and Turkish models.

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Raise = so is called the winding of the warp over the goods beam (= the already finished carpet part carrying) and warp beam of a knotting chair, before with the carpet knotting can be started; this strenuous preparatory work for knotting usually perform men.

Auctions = public life auctions of products as a way of buying, transferring ownership through personal participation, via telephone or Internet. In the course of an exchange game between several prospective buyers (bidders), the price of the item for sale is outbid mutually. The last remaining highest bidder is awarded the contract by the auctioneer. Carpet auctions have become a sought-after type of carpet sale in the recent past. Bidding begins at the call price; the result of the bidding process is the final hammer price. To this are added fees and taxes.

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Finish = Activity at the end of the manufacture of a carpet; by burning off the back, dusting, washing, shearing the pile and stretching it is made ready for sale.

Austro-Oriental Trading Co = Austrian carpet production and trading company, which maintained branches in Vienna, Berlin and Constantinople, as well as purchasing agencies in Iran and the Caucasus. It was intensively active in Albania and was established in the beginning of

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20. Century bought out by OCM, London.

Avanos = Small town in Cappadocia, Turkey, the capital of Nevsehir County in Central Anatolia.

Avyon = Turkish place with carpet production.

Awar or Avar = Name of an ethnic group from Daghestan in the Caucasus. Their religion is Sunni Islam. In the 19. Century this group made knotted carpets and flatweaves so-called davaghins, with a special design. They have a distinctive pattern of angular branching structures or hooked diamonds in light red on an indigo blue field. Some of these pieces are dated in the second half of the 19th. Century, including prayer rugs.

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axial design =a carpet drawing that is symmetrical from one side to the other, but not from the top of the piece to the bottom.

Axminster = Small town in the southwestern English county of Devon above the river Ax. There, around 1755, was invented a loom for high-quality carpets, which caused high interest among the English nobility. Axminster rugs are high quality flatweaves made of 80 to 100 percent wool. They are knotted with asymmetrical knots; the warp is wool, the wefts are usually flax or hemp. Identifying feature of original Axminster rugs is red cotton woven into the edges on their underside. The carpet patterns are very floral, similar to savonneries. (See these!)

Aydin = County seat in the western Turkish county of Aydin on the Aegean coast.

Ayvacik = City and county in the northwestern Turkish province of Canakkale on the Aegean Sea.

Azeri = Proper name of Azerbaijanis, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, some of whom also live in Persia, and for a young (made from 1990 onwards) high-quality type of carpet from Turkey, made with hand-carded virgin sheep's wool and pure vegetable dyes.

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Azeri Shaddah =typically Azerbaijani flat weaves, e.g. saddle cloths.

Azilal = Berber tribe in the Moroccan Atlas, at the same time name of a mostly high-pile, shaggy carpet type with diamond or line patterns, which originally served as sleeping rugs for nomads and shepherds.

 

Babaheydar or Baba Haidar = village west of Isfahan in Persia; in this place, medallion carpets are made with both one and two wefts.

Babaseghal or Babasequal = an Ersari tribe in Afghanistan between Andkhoy and Aq Chah.

Bachiaren or bactiars = Name of the most important nomadic or semi-nomadic tribe of Iran or. Name of their carpets. The tribe lives south of the Zagros Mountains or west and south of Isfahan. It is now largely sedentary, belongs to the larger group of the Luri or Lori, and speaks Persian; it produces mostly large-format carpets, which also contain urban motifs and have two wefts. The rugs are mainly made by the sedentary population. Soraya Esfandiari, first wife of Shah Reza Pahlevi from 1951 to 1958, was a Bakhtiari.

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Backhausen = Austrian textile company that has written carpet history since 1880. With productions in Hoheneich and Schrems in the Waldviertel region and headquarters in Vienna, it produced valuable fabrics and hand-knotted carpets. It came in 2012 in the wake of the global financial crisis in financial difficulties and was sold along with all the old patterns to the BHN- SILEO GmbH.

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Badghiz = Province in western Afghanistan with carpet production.

Baghshayesh or Baghshayesh = carpet-producing city in northwestern Iran in Azerbaijan province, about 30 kilometers north of the city of Heris; Bakhshayesh carpets belong to the Heris type group, have high pile, good wool, and the patterns show fresh colors. Antique carpets of this kind are very popular especially in the USA because of their originality.

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Baghshi or Bachschi = Turkmen tribe.

Baharlu = 1. Small town in the agricultural district of Chaharduli in the Kurdish area of Iran. 2. a Turkic tribe within the Chamseh Conveyance in southwestern Iran. Their carpets usually have symmetrical knots; see "Chamseh"

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Bahluli = Group of symmetrically knotted Baluch carpets from eastern Persia and western Afghanistan, marketed under this name. Experts assume that they are village carpets of the Bahluli tribe. The color of their field goes from eggplant to deep purple to reddish brown; furthermore, there are rich orange to pink tones, which is unusual for Baluch. Older specimens are natural dyes, younger ones are synthetics with occasional failed results; small fields may be undyed camel hair.

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Bahluri = Iranian place in South Khorasan.

Baku = in German "Stadt des Windes", capital of Azerbaijan. Its carpet production today is small, in the recent past and present it has been or is being promoted by the state. The boteh is a frequent motif of Baku carpets. See also "Saliani" or "Sal'yany"

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Baku Kilim = kilims woven in the Azerbaijani capital.

Balikhesir = University city, capital of Balikhesir province in the Marmara region, located in southern Turkey.

Balkan rugs = oriental knotted works made in southeastern Europe -- Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary -- crossed by the Balkan Mountains and occupied by the Turks after 711, following oriental models for their own use. They are mostly substandard commercial carpets whose designation "Oriental" was long disputed. Most Balkan rugs were influenced in design by the former Ottoman occupation of this region. Common terms for Balkan rugs include Albanian, Bessarabian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Yugoslavian. Such carpets have existed until 1990 from Bulgaria and Romania, as well as kilims from Serbo-Croatia, even artificial silk carpets from Hungary.

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Baluchen or Beludjen or Beluchi = see "Beludj"!

Bamboo silk = see "Artificial silk"!

Bamboo = Plant often depicted in Chinese carpets, a Taoist symbol; in general, it means great perseverance, the ability to yield without breaking.

Banat = a Romanian province and a place of origin of kilims, mostly in slit technique; the kilims have stripes or geometric medallions and signal Turkish models.

Band, ribbons = Nomadic tribes need a variety of ribbons to tie up their animal loads, lead the animals, fasten their yurts or tents, carry babies on the backs of their mothers and as jewelry at festivals. These ribbons are woven by girls and women using various techniques; the best known and most commonly used is board weaving.

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Bandirma or Panderma = 1. : Turkish port city in the sea bay of the same name in the southern part of the Sea of Marmara in Balikeshir province on the route from Izmir to

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Istanbul. Until World War II, Gördes prayer rugs and Ottoman court carpets were made there, mostly with wool on a cotton ground. Many of them have been artificially aged and falsely sold as genuine Gördes prayer rugs or Ottoman court rugs. 2.: Designation of Turkish carpets from the city of the same name; they show diverse patterns, strongly influenced by Persian models.

Banyaite rugs = Designation of a type of mechanically knotted carpets. Its rather complicated manufacturing method was developed by Dr. Maurus Banyai in Vienna around 1910, achieved finenesses of 50,000 knots per square meter and seven times the performance of hand knotting. The special feature of this type of carpet or the machine developed by Banyai is: it provided real knots Smyrna style. In addition, there were

"Banyaizangen", which supplied different colored pile threads to the knotting. In the Technical Museum in Vienna there is a model of the Banyai carpet weaving machine, which was used by Knüpfteppich Industrie GesmbH in Vienna-Alsergrund for the production of Banyai carpets; it had been manufactured by the Webstuhl- und Webereimaschinen Fabriks AG in Jägerndorf, today Krnow, in the Czech Republic. Despite mechanization and low labor wages, the carpets were relatively expensive and therefore uncompetitive.

Baotao = see "Paotou"!

Barber pole braid = denotes a common border pattern; a rotating bar with oblique strokes is guild sign of barbers in England.

Bar Mazid or Barmazid = Mountain town in the Ghazni region of Afghanistan, southwest of Kabul inhabited by Tekke Turkoman people; they make full wool carpets with double wefts and Tekke patterns.

Bazaar or Bazaar = oriental market where all goods of human need from basic food to luxury products, from handicraft products to medicines are offered for sale, called "soukh" in North Africa, "carsi" in Turkey.

Basar carpets = pejorative term for carpets, as they are offered on an oriental market as cheap mass-produced goods for uninformed tourists.

Baseri or Basiri or Basseri =A Persian-speaking tribe in southern Iran belonging to the Chamseh Confederation; it produces carpets usually with asymmetrical knots.

Basmakci = carpet-producing city and county in the western Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar. From there come large contemporary solid wool carpets in Caucasian patterns with finenesses of about 120 knots per square inch, equivalent to 744,000 knots per square meter.

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Basra = City in southern Iraq; was commonly used as the place of origin of white-ground Anatolian carpets.

Basselisse = tapestries knitted on horizontal flat looms; see these.

Tree tapestries = a carpet genre whose patterns are decisively characterized by the tree motif. The trees are either naturally drawn cedars, which are considered a symbol of long life, or lushly flowering naturalistic trees; or they are stylized trees, shown only by an emaciated trunk as well as scrawny branches with flowers. Tree and shrub carpets are closely related to medallion and animal carpets in terms of design and originated in Persia since the16th century.

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Tree-and-shrub rugs =This is the name given to carpets closely related to medallion and animal carpets, which originated from the 16th century. Century. Some of them are also related to vase carpets. The one-sided tree-and-shrub carpets were particularly popular with the weavers of the Mughal period. Persian examples are close to the Kurdish carpets of the 18th century with their angular rows of trees.

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Cotton = Arabic kuton, Turkish pamuk, Persian pambe, Russian pachta. Natural or plant fiber of a mallow species found around the world between 41 degrees north and

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36. degrees south latitude; the prerequisite is good soil moisture and tropical sunlight; its flowers are yellow, the seed bundles snow-white and look like cotton balls; the fibers are 10 to 50 millimeters long and are spun into a uniform, firm yarn with little stretch. In India and China cotton has been used for millennia; later it was brought to Spain by the Arabs; for carpet warp it is recommended by its strength, for carpet weft it is often mixed with sheep's wool; in carpet pile it rarely occurs. In Turkey, especially in Kayseri, mercerized cotton (see "Mercer"), called "Flosh", came on the market until around 1970. Cotton is harvested close to production in carpet producing regions.

Bedouins or Bedouin = nomadic Arabs who inhabit the deserts of North Africa and Arabia. They raise flocks of sheep and camels, and their weavings are often made of goat hair, especially for their tents and space-dividing curtains, upholstery, bags, animal jewelry, and small objects; bright colors are common.

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Backing Stripes = narrow stripes within carpet borders that separate individual border bands from each other; see "Borders"!

Borders = Blanket or hanging for carrying and riding animals, often called "trapping".

Behsud = City in the west of Kabul in Afghanistan; there live the Hazara, who make rather coarse kilims, usually with stripes; today also the so-called "Kazaks".

Beize = Means of pretreating raw animal wool for carpet production with caustic chemical substances such as sludge, urine, yogurt or metal salts to prepare it for dyeing and permanently bond it to the fibers; different mordants produce different colors.

Stain dyeing = In this dyeing method, the textile fibers are treated with a mordant before the actual dyeing, so that the color connects permanently with the fiber. Different from this is the "direct dyeing", see this!

 

Beludj = means "cock" or "cock's comb" or tuft of hair". The Beluchen are a people inhabiting the border area between Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, collectively called "Baluchistan". In summary, the handgeknotted carpets of the settled Beludj nomads "Beludsh"; they come in Iran (Khorasan), Turkmenistan and Afghanistan (Herat) in different quality in the trade, mostly in smaller formats with 100,000 to 200,000 knots per square meter = 155 to 310 knots per square inch. Beludj rugs usually have double wefts and predominantly symmetrical knots. Their traditional colors are dark brown, dark blue, orange red, dark red and black.

Belujistan = Mountainous Asian country that today lies largely in Pakistans between India, Afghanistan and Persia to the Gulf of Saudi Arabia. It is the most

least developed carpet area within a wildly rugged and desert-ridden region where nomadism has not yet been overcome.

Berber = former Moroccan nomadic tribes, originating from three main tribes; they are now part of that population of Morocco, which mainly lives in the Atlas and Rif mountains and produces traditional, thick, shaggy sleeping rugs rather long than wide with diamond and dash patterns, so-called Berber rugs.

Berber knot = a carpet knot used by the North African Berber tribes in the Middle Atlas Mountains in Morocco. The Berber knot wraps two warp threads twice. At the front of the rug, the pile threads peek out from the loop of the knot in two different directions; it can also be used in combination with the symmetrical knot (see this!). The amount of material used for the Berber knot is greater than for the symmetrical or asymmetrical knot, but it is more durable than these.

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Bergama = County seat in western Turkey in Asia Minor, about 100 kilometers from Izmir, which was founded in 280 BC as "Pergamon". Pergamon is now an ancient ruined city, where the Pergamon Altar had stood, which is now exhibited in the Berlin Pergamon Museum. In this Turkish county, various carpets are produced, such as Yagcibedir, Yuntdagh, Yüncü, Karakecili, Kozak, which used to be marketed under the collective name Bergama. Many patterns are common for Bergama carpets; often the name "Bergama" is used for carpets of various origins.

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Berlin Carpet = early, antique dragon & phoenix animal carpet, possibly a fragment, of a larger Anatolian carpet discovered in 1886 in a central Italian church, but already in the 15th century. Century may have been made. It is on display in the Islamic Museum in Berlin, and is similar to the Marby carpet (see this one!).

 

Beschir = the name means "bringer of good news". It denotes a place in western Turkmenistan on the Darya River in western Turkestan, where a sub-tribe of the Ersari live; their designs are dominated by Herati rosettes, Mina-Chani flower meadows, and medallions in the main colors of red, blue, and beige, intermixed with yellow; warp and weft are made of wool. Geometric Beschir prayer rugs are particularly well known; antique pieces are sought after by collectors. Overall, they are elegant knotted works, the field of which often shines in wonderful yellow.

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Bessarabia =a region in western Russia often omitted or disregarded by experts and in literature. The region of western Russia, Moldavia, Ukraine, and the Caucasus, where both flatweaves and knotted carpets are produced, but are rarely the focus of attention. The weavings mostly come from Russian state workshops; earlier they came from workshops of aristocratic landowners, where work was mostly for their own use, hardly ever for the open market. Started in the late 18th or early 19th century; most of the preserved Bessarabian textile products date from the period between 1850 and the end of Soviet Russian hegemony. The patterns are mostly coarse, with powerful colors and large floral motifs; such as cabbage blossoms and other colorful flowers in exact rows or cartouches, inside and outside central medallions. Occasionally they resemble those of French aubussons and savonneries; often there is a mix with down-to-earth folk patterns.

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Inscriptions on Bessarabian kilims are mostly in Cyrillic.

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Evaluation Criteria = When assessing the market value of carpets, experts examine various valuation criteria in order to provide owners, buyers and sellers with the most objective and up-to-date information possible. These include the condition and quality of the pile material, the handle, the warp and weft materials, the drawing and patterning of the piece in question, its color type and quality, shape and dimensions, the condition of the edging and finishes of the upper and lower fringes, the type of knot, any patina, the knot pattern on the back, any damage and inscriptions. (See "carpet experts"!)

 

Beyshehir = Turkish place where early Seljuk carpets have been found.

 

Bezalel = Name of carpets made in the Bezalel School of Arts in Jerusalem between 1906 and 1931. They were produced by Jewish weavers and feature traditional ritual motifs from the Old Testament and conventional Persian patterns; see "Jewish-Israeli rugs"

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Bhadohi = City in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh near Mirzapur and Benares in

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"Indian carpet belt," one of the centers of the Indian carpet industry; Bhadohi is the only Indian city from which there is an actual comparison of modest household living costs with the wages of carpet workers.

 

Bhawalpur =in the Punjab region of India, this name used to be used to describe small (nomadic) carpets from southern Afghanistan and Balujistan, patterned with stripes.

 

Bhutan = Country between Tibet in the north and India in the south; there carpets are knotted by Tibetan refugees who fled to Bhutan after the Chinese conquest of Tibet in 1959.

 

Bibikibad or Ainabad = this place is located in Hamadan region of Iran. There, independent durable Kurdish-type carpets similar to Malayer carpets have been hand-knotted for centuries. They are thick, usually patterned throughout and covered with Herati and Boteh motifs; they are characterized by small, scaly, hooked drawings as well as bold coloring in red, blue and green. In Bibikibad, Turks and Persians live side by side; their carpets have partly Turkish (Ghiordes), partly Persian knots, a typical mixture of two cultures (see also "Ainabad"!)

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Bidganeh = 1. : a high-quality Bidjar species. 2nd : village in northwestern Iran.

 

Bidjar = well-known northwestern Iranian carpet city located in the province of Kordestan on the trade route from Hamadan to Tabriz; its main population is Kurds. The carpets produced in and around Bidjar mostly in home work are extremely tight and robust knotted, warp and weft of cotton, the pile is made of wool; predominant is the Herati pattern with small rosettes standing in rhombuses often as a central medallion, red and blue tones predominate.

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Bidjov = ancient carpet city in the Caucasus, near Lake Caspian, west of Baku. Here nomads knotted abstract patterns in Shirvan design, especially with animals, which gave them

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gives them an archaic look; naturally dyed wool on wool with main and many secondary colors, giving the carpets a muted, harmonious play of colors.

 

Image Carpet =knotted work with figurative representations of historical or allegorical scenes, called "knotted myths". In contrast to the prohibition of human depictions by the Sunni religion, this is permitted among the Shiites in Persia. They fulfill the human desire to depict beloved persons, ephemeral values, or historical scenes.Tapestries exist in Persia, India, and China; they correspond to Safavid grandeur in the mid-16th century, were mostly designed by court painters or book illustrators, and are considered extravagant, even decadent.

Imagery = in the Middle Ages, it was understood, on the one hand, a manual textile technique of working images and motifs into a two-dimensional material base, on the other hand, a product of this technique. Today such products are called tapestry. As a rule, these are tapestries of artistic make; see "tapestry"

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Bilverdi = Place in East Azerbaijan in the Heris region, east of Tabriz, as well as origin of one of the types of Heriz carpets with symmetrical knots and simple wefts.

 

tie = Thread or yarn intersection within a fabric. Yarn crossing within a fabric; in the knotted carpet it comes to the binding of the horizontally running weft threads with the vertically running warp threads; this is what specialists call "plain weave".

 

Bir(d)jand = rapidly growing East Iranian provincial capital of South Khorasan on the ancient Silk Road, near the border with Afghanistan; it is known for its abundant deposits of natural dyes such as saffron or barberry, for its carpets mostly in light blue, and for opium smuggling. From the beginning of the 20th century, carpets were produced in Birjand on an industrial basis. Before World War II, carpets were made there with jufti knots, which affected the quality of the pieces.

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Flowers of the Seven Hills = an Istanbul carpet pattern containing those flowers that grow on the seven hills on which Istanbul is located. They are mainly tulips, the symbol of love; there are 48 different types of tulips depicted in Istanbul and Hereke carpets.

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flower carpet = classical Persian carpet decoration; its home is considered to be the city of Herat, the carpet type as "Herati", once the center of court art of the Mongol ruler Lenkhans Timur, now in Afghanistan. These are carpets covered all over with floral patterns. Typical of these knotted works is the Herati or fish pattern; it consists of paired toothed leaves and flowers. The angularity of the rigidly drawn leaves usually contrasts with the elegantly flowing arabesques of the main design. Most rugs of this type once came from Isfahan, main hub of these rugs. See also "Millefleur"

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Bochara or Buchara = ancient, glorious Turkmen city located in Central Asia at the intersection of several caravan routes to India, Persia and China. It has belonged to Uzbekistan since 1920 and is a collecting point of knotted works of Tekke Turkmen from the surrounding steppes, which are put on the market under the general term Bokhara or Bukhara. Therefore, it is a collective name for a

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wide range of nomadic carpets (Tekke, Saloren, Saryken, Yomoud, and Ersari) traded in Bukhara.

Bochtsche or Bokche: = rarelyoccurring envelope-like folded square Koran or mirror bag of the Turkmen nomads, usually made by the Jomoud tribe.

Bodjnurd = Eastern Iranian place and area with carpet production by Kurds.

Boehmer, Dr. Harald = Initiator of a return to natural colors and traditional carpet patterns that led to a new generation of carpets.

Bordjalu or Bordjalu or Borchalu = Village south of Tbilisi near Lambola in the Caucasus; carpets with often strictly geometric, open patterns and coffered center fields in the colors of the mountain landscape of the Caucasus are produced there; kochanak patterns with fringed diamonds are common there.

Border = pattern emphasizing the edge or hem of fabrics, made at the same time as the fabric, resp. ornament framing the central part of a carpet or textile. There are single and multiple borders. They separate the inner field of a carpet by perfect borders -- between which usually runs a strip -

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- from the carpet border. Tibetan rugs usually lack a border. Persian carpets usually have one main border and two secondary borders, thus three parts. It is important that the border is finely coordinated with the interior field of the carpet; in more recent times, the proportions between borders and background are shifting. Border shapes are often a zigzag pattern symbolizing flowing water and thus eternity, the meander (derived from the western Anatolian river Meandros) thus serpentine winding; derived from this are the key border as well as the "running dog" (see this!).

border = Designation of the frame-like finish, concerning the lower and upper base and finish of a knotting or weaving; this is a delicate place, which shows as the first damage in the course of a carpet's life, also called weaving border or edge. In nomadic works, these beginnings are often decorated with ornate and elaborate interlacing, from which one can see the love of folk art. This additional decoration is not included in the measurement of the size. Braids are made in the Orient in special braid weaving, for example, by "Brettchenweben".

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Borudjerd or Borujird = Place with market center in northwestern Iran for the carpets of the surrounding area. Production of knotted carpets in Yalameh style with simple wefts and symmetrical knots. They usually have dark red drawing on a dark blue field.

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Boteh or Mir-i-Botah or Botaly or Bothe-e-Mir = the Persian word means "flower" in German. It is a floral almond-shaped motif in a curved teardrop shape similar to a six with the tip protruding or bent to the right or left; one of the most common oriental carpet patterns, especially in Persia with names as varied as palm-tip, pear, flame, almond, cone, seal, crown jewel, or flea pattern; it symbolizes, among other things, long life or the power of princes who sealed documents or judgments with this sign. The boteh is interpreted as a cypress, palm tree, foliage, crown jewel or sacred flame of Zoroaster.

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Bou = Turkmen tent ornament.

Boucherouite =a Moroccan spotted rug that evolved by recycling old fabric and wool scraps due to occasional wool shortages in the country and became

lately evolved into one of the most fashionable, sought-after rug styles in the North African country.

board weaving = ancient weaving technique by means of which narrow, longer textile bands with patterns are made; technical requirement is a narrow square (wooden-

)board with holes through which the threads are pulled, as well as a pattern idea.

Brokat = fabric reinforced with metal threads, often made of silk; see "brocade".

brochure = a weave or. Use of an additional pattern-forming weft thread in knotted carpets or as an insertion in flatweaves. It refers to an ornamental weft technique originating in France, in which the ornamental insertions are made only over a part of the width parallel to the ground weft or even deviating from it; metal covered yarns are used for this purpose in carpets; the brocaded areas are slightly lower than the dominant pile; the ornamental threads have only decorative purpose. Most brocaded carpets today come from Isfahan, Keshan and Hereke; pile carpets (see these) are early examples of the brocaded technique.

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Brussa or Brusa = see "Bursa"!

Buddha Knot = a pattern element, also called "fate knot"; a self-contained ornament without beginning and end.

Buddhism = Religion and philosophy of life, preached by the Indian prince Siddhartha, who received the honorary title Buddha (the enlightened), in the 6th. Century A.D. in Benares with the main goal of overcoming the suffering of the world; Buddhism is most widespread in East Asia and India.

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Buddhist symbols = eight motifs derived from early royal Indian symbols and used in solemn ceremonies, such as royal coronations. In Buddhism, they represent the auspicious offerings made by the gods to Shakyamuni Buddha after his enlightenment. They are the precious parasol, the golden wheel, the victory banner, two gold fish, the treasure vessel, the lotus flower, the conch shell and the endless knot. They serve as motifs in Chinese carpets.

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See also "Taoist Symbols"

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Bünyan = Suburb of Kayseri, where carpets with floral oriental patterns are made; many of them are Turkish prayer rugs like Gördes or. Copies of Persian prayer rugs, including Saphs with the pile of mercerized cotton.

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Burdur = City in Western Anatolia, where carpets are produced according to Persian models, but with modern colors; their fineness is 140 knots per square inch, which corresponds to 903. 000 knots per square meter; the asymmetrical knot is used, the warp is made of cotton.

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Bursa =this is the name of the fourth largest city in Turkey, ancient Prusia, center of Turkish silk production and trade; the city is located in western Turkey, near the Sea of Marmara. Here, around 500 BC, two priests from China are said to have secretly brought the first silkworms in walking sticks. As a result, the production of silk began in Istanbul and Bursa. Bursa or Brussa carpets are no longer made there today; they are considered inferior because of their short-shorn pile and stiff ground weave, which only feigns strength. Currently, silk heerkes are made there in small quantities.

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Buta = Carpet motif or ornament from the Caucasus. It is used in Azerbaijani art very often and in different forms. It represents a kind of fire tongue. In ancient times the buta sign was associated with religious ideas; later it gradually lost them and now serves only as a pure decoration. (See also "Bothe-e-Mir or "Miribotha"!)

 

Caesarea = see "Kayseri"!

Cairene = floral or Mamluk carpets attributed to the city of Cairo in Egypt ("Cairo carpet") and made between the 15th and 17th centuries. Century. They were made with asymmetrical knots in S-spun (clockwise) and Z-spun (= counterclockwise) yarn.

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Cal =In the surroundings of this city in southwestern Anatolia, nomadic carpets z.

are made.

B. Kilims and brightly colored, coarsely knotted carpets produced.

Camardi = City in Central Anatolia, where carpets are knotted under the name "maggots"; they are prayer rugs with a red center field.

Canakkale = Turkish city on the Dardanelles with carpet production.

Care & Fair = well-known organization of German importers, which aims to prevent child labor and set initiatives to improve the education of children in the countries of the Orient.

Carpet Export Promotion Council = Indian Carpet and Flatweaving Manufacturers Association, which occasionally presents statistics on overall Indian carpet production and also comments on the regular allegations against child labor, too low weaver wages and antisocial living conditions of carpet workers.

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Cartwright, Edmond = He filed the first patent for a mechanical loom in 1785; it was further developed into an operational loom and put to practical use by Richard Roberts in Manchester in 1826.

C. E. =these initials in the signum of carpets are the abbreviation of "Cezaevi", which means prison; it shows that the carpet in question was made in a prison or penitentiary.

Ceyrek = Turkish word; it means "quarter" in German; designation for carpets with dimensions of about one square meter.

Cezaevi =translated from Turkish, means "prison"; a suffix for carpets made in a prison.

Chaili = Village near the Moghan Steppe, where carpets are made that have a relatively high pile of 4 mm compared to the neighboring Shirvan carpets; they are considered exemplary of Caucasian traditional pieces and great pattern purity.

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Chali = see "Ghali"!

Chalyk = small curtain, similar to the kapunuk of the Tekke Turkmen; small Turkmen carpet intended for the chest of a camel, used as an animal decoration for a wedding.

Chamseh = a Persian tribal confederation formed in 1860 from five (chamseh = Arabic the number five) original tribes (Arab, Basiri, Bahalu, Ainalu, Nafar), which has not been recognized by the Shah but as a unit. With their confederation, the Chamseh wanted to distinguish themselves from the Qashqai tribe, but their carpet patterns are very similar to those of the Qashqai. Their carpets are marketed under the name Chamseh or Khamseh. From these tribes are also made for decades coarse and cheap carpets, which are traded under the name "Shiraz".

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Ch'ang = Chinese endless knot, also called Buddha knot. As an inextricable entanglement of human destiny, it is one of the eight Buddhist symbols.

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Chaudor = see "Chaudor"!

Chekiri = Border motif found in Mir and Serabend rugs; it consists of botehs, foliage and small flowers.

 

Chemical colors = see "Synthetic Colors".

chemical wash = under it is to understand a process of cleaning new carpets with alternating baths of slightly alkaline hydrosulfite and strongly alkaline hypochlorite leaches; see "eskitme" and "saratma". This is to soften the carpet colors and intensify the shine of the pile.

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Cheten =means one or more mat(s) made of plant fibers (e.g.. e.g., of reed, flax, hemp, or nettle) interwoven with colored threads for protection against soil moisture. Large chetas were used as curtains and decorated(s) the lower part of an alakhig (= nomad tent) in the summer residences of Caucasian nomads. Small chetas were used as bases for drying wool, fruits and vegetables.

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Chichi = see "Tschi-Tschi"!

Chichi border = see " Chichi-Chichi"!

Chila = City west of Baku, where in the 19th. Century carpets were made with a long field filled with boteh motifs; the central medallion is stepped, usually measuring around 350 x 170 cm; the pile is wool, the weft is wool or cotton. They are Caucasian carpets from the area of Shirvan.

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China = The most populous country on Earth, which calls itself the "Middle Kingdom", has only from the 12th. Century the oriental knotting art as a profitable handicraft developed. In the west of the country, sheep's wool was abundant, and there were also strong cultural and artistic contacts with Muslims and nomads. Patterns and colors of old Chinese carpets were based on Caucasian models. The western world discovered Chinese carpets as a trade good on the occasion of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, when troops of European powers plundered the royal palace in Beijing and brought back carpets to Europe as booty. Chinese carpets are a phenomenon because they are immediately recognizable as such even to laymen; nevertheless, they show a variety of different faces. In China, six carpet regions can be distinguished. One of them, Beijing carpets, are mostly finely knotted, have favorable formats, with midnight blue dominating within light-colored borders. China carpets are counted in

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strictly speaking, they do not belong to oriental carpets. Throughout the country, a down-to-earth domestic carpet culture never developed as it did in the rest of the Orient.

Chinese green = natural green dye from the bark of the buckthorn. Green is also produced by mixing yellow and blue.

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China Tibetans = Imitations of the new Nepal Tibetan style made in large knotting factories in Tientsin and other places in western China by Chinese with Chinese wool.

Chinese symbols = classical Chinese carpets feature ornaments, symbols and patterns that have evolved over a centuries-long process due to various religious and cultural influences, as well as the Chinese people's adherence to everything traditional. See "Buddhist Symbols", "Taoist Symbols" and "Fine Arts Symbols"

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Chinese carpets = Many expert authors understand this to mean knotted works that originated in China proper of the 18 provinces south of the Great Wall or in the border provinces north of the Great Wall, which belong to Inner Mongolia. Other experts also include carpets made in Outer Mongolia as well as in Manchuria and Tibet. There is evidence of weaving in China since about 4000 years before Christ; fragments of a coarsely woven textile piece had been found in central China in Shaanxi province. It was not until the Ottomans conquered East Turkestan in the 12th century that carpet weaving became widely practiced in China. For Europe and America, Chinese carpets became respectable only at the beginning of the 20th century. While Persian carpets are knotted according to an ancient hidden mathematical calculation, Chinese carpet design tended to free arrangement of patterns and motifs. There is in China the division of the carpet area into fund and border, but both parts often merge into each other, and there is also a lack of symmetry.

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Chinese carpets often play with the contrast between blue and yellow; meanwhile, China also skillfully imitates Turkish and Persian knotted carpets as well as French aubussons and savonneries. Rising wages are bringing much of China's carpet production to a halt in the 21st century.

Chinese Knot =an easier to tie variation of the Persian knot, resulting in a fluffier carpet pile.

Chinese grid = a pattern formed by interlocking swastikas, also known as

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"Wan pattern". "Wan" means swastika and is a character for the number 10,000 in Chinese.

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Chinoise = Designation for carpet copies of Chinese models produced outside China.

Chintamani = See "Chintamani"!

Chondzoresk or Chondsoresk = Caucasian carpet type especially from Karabagh area (= "black garden") with large geometric motifs such as swastikas surrounded by cloud bands within triple frames; Khondzoresk carpets also bear octagonal medallions with cloud bands; mistakenly these pieces are called cloud band kasak. "Khondzor" in Armenian means "apple."

Choobi = see "Ziegler"!

Chorassan or Khorasan = northeastern province of Persia, the most important wool region of the country; its wool is finer than that from western Persia, but it is less resistant. The capital of this province is Meshed with the tomb of Imam Reza, a disciple of Mohammed.

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Chordjin or Chordjin or Churjin = Persian double bags, in Turkey

"Heybe" called, for transporting household goods; their parts are connected with a knotted or embroidered bar and they were mainly transported by animals.

chrome colors = in the 20. Chemically produced in the 20th century, improved chromium inorganic industrial mineral paints. They are opaque, lightfast and wash-resistant, but with a somewhat harder and more metallic sheen than natural dyes. They are often mixed with natural dyes in yarn dyeing to achieve a better color effect. (See also "Synthetic colors").

Chul = Azerbaijani horse blanket, usually decorated with symbols of wealth such as animals, birds and flowers, as well as bothes and symbols of fire.

Cicim or Jijim or in Iran Djadjim = literally translated from Turkish into German "mein Herzchen", "my little heart"; a light flat weave made of wool in stripes of different colors; they are made on narrow looms and then sewn together into wider pieces. The pieces consist of six to eight pieces in often identical designs, unlike classic woven kilims, where two strips are usually created and sewn together to form the final product. The result is blanket-like textiles measuring 2 to 2.5 by 1.3 to 1.8 meters; they are made by Shah Savan nomads, but there are also Turkish or Caucasian djadjims made by Gashgai, Afshar or Beludj nomads. A flatweave technique used less and less often. (See also "winding wefts"!)

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Cintamani or Chintamani = Three-ball motif with two wavy lines in carpet designs, originally arrived from China via India, later also used in Western Anatolian knotted carpets; it is considered a lucky charm; see "Transylvanian carpets".

Chul = Azerbaijani saddle cloth, mostly decorated with symbols of wealth, such as. Such as animals, birds and floral elements, as well as with the buta motif, the symbol of fire (see "Buta"!).

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Cochenille = crimson dye, similar to "Lac" but more luminous. It is obtained from the ground bodies of the Mexican or West Indian scarlet scale insect. The dye has been imported into Europe since the 16th century; it did not reach the Middle East until the late 18th century.

Csangos = 1. Roman Catholic tribe in the Moldavia or southeastern Transylvania region of Romania. It speaks Romanian and Hungarian and is pejoratively referred to as such by the neighboring Szeklers. "Cango" means to separate or migrate. The Csangos have developed textiles with characteristic patterns for women's and men's clothing or accessories and belts in homework. 2nd: Csangos is also an old Hungarian dialect.

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Cuenca = ancient city of Conca, capital of the Spanish province of the same name and site of one of the first carpet factories in Spain.

Cumra = a double place, whose excavations of ancient settlements led to many carpet patterns, eg. E.g. ram horns, antlers, bulls and other animal representations led

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have. From Cumra come mainly small-format runners with red-green contrasts and Caucasian borders.

Czartoryski carpet =Cotton silk carpet = Made in the Persian city of Isfahan during the Savavid period in the 17th century. Cotton-silk rug of 486 x 217 centimeters made in the 17th century, counted among the so-called pile carpets, but this is due to an error in its location. (See "Pole rugs"!)

 

Dabir Sanayeh = Name of a manufactory in Keshan, which since the end of the 19th. Century produces carpets with velvety pile in elegant color combinations. Women tie them in Persian knots in home diligence; ateliers as well as manufactories produce fine pieces in high quality, which are durable and highly sought after, therefore often achieve high prices.

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Dag(h)dan = an ornament woven by several Turkmen tribes; it has amulet function, it should bring the wearer luck or prevent damage. The same function has the "ashik", a step ornament of many Turkmen tribes; see this!

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Daghestan = in German "Bergland"; a vast mountainous region, starting from the crest of the Great Caucasus over the northern slope to the shore of the Caspian Sea, inhabited by many small peoples and tribes who produce animal wool thanks to their large flocks of sheep and tie heavy carpets with densities between 1000 and 2500 knots per square decimeter. These tend to be hard, the pile is brittle, but the wool is shiny. Daghestan prayer rugs, e.g. Marasali prayer rugs, captivate with an angular area under the mihrab bulging with small flame-shaped boteh motifs on different colored backgrounds; see "Marasali"! Old Daghestan carpets have shirvan structure, new ones were more solid and are no longer produced today.

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Daghestan prayer rugs with a light background are highly sought after today. (See also "Kaitag"!)

Dali = Subtribe of the Ersari Turkmen in Afghanistan, native to Balkh province in northern Afghanistan near the border with Uzbekistan; their gül usually features a trefoil or cloverleaf design based on the Ersari model.

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Damascus rugs =a rarity, see "Mamluk carpets".

Damaszener = old name for Mamluk, sometimes also Anatolian carpets or patterns; in the 16th and 17th. Century one assumed that these carpets would have originated in Damascus.

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Daragh or Darak =wooden or iron comb with a handle, with which the weaver(s) at the end of each row of knots taps the inserted weft thread(s) firmly on it, thereby consolidating the knotwork in itself.

Daragh Basch or Doghme-Torba = small pentagonal bag that served as a comb container.

Daregaz = City in northeastern Iran; trading center for carpets made by the Kurds living there.

Dargazine or Dergazine or Darjezin = Area and village in the region of Hamedan; by volume, this is the most productive carpet-producing district of the entire area, especially of runners.

Darya or Amu-Daria region = Turkmen region, named after the border river Amudarya, the ancient Oxus River, which once flowed into the Aral Sea; today the river runs dry in the desert.

 

Dashgha = see "Tying Chair".

Dastur = Persian term for a carpet that serves as a template for creating a carpet of the same type.

Daulatabad = literally "gods' castle", a city with fortress in northern Afghanistan, collection point for the carpets of the entire region. There, Uzbeks and Turkmen produce knotted works, which are characterized by octagonal "Filpa" motifs (= see "elephant foot") and so-called "Bochara Göls"; the main color is brown-red with dark blue motifs.

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Dauletabad = in Iran there are several places of this name; if the word is related to carpets, Dauletabad southeast of Hamadan is meant. Carpets from there resemble the Hamadan, occasionally the Saruk.

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Davaghins = see "Awar"!

Dazgiri or Dazkiri = this name means "bare field" in German and refers to a place in central western Anatolia where carpet patterns are knotted with large central square rhombs with coves, the medallion-like rhombs being filled with geometric florets in the manner of Bergama.

Delhi = Indian capital in the district of the same name; trading center for carpets, but only an insignificant own production.

Delija = see "Lilian".

Demirci or Demirji = City in the Turkish province of Aidin. The Turkish word means in German "blacksmith" or "ironmonger"; it is a place in northwestern Anatolia, where carpets with one or even two red wefts are produced and called by the trade "Kömürcü Küla" (= charcoal burner hat); they have rather dark colors.

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Denizli = Turkish provincial capital, second largest city in the Aegean region with an important textile industry and one of the oldest bazaars in Turkey.

Deram = Iranian traditional weight measure for weighing silk. One deram is equal to 100 mesqal; one mesqal is about five grams.

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Deram or Darband or Derbent = Capital of Daghestan located on the coast between Caspian Sea and Kaitag Mountains; the name is Persian and means in German

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"closed gate" or "hollow way". Carpets produced in this vicinity in the 19th century were of coarse, loose quality and have a latticework or continuous patterns of geometric flowers.

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detach = outdated term for removing dirt or stains from textiles, including carpets, especially if they are used nomadic rugs.

German carpets = the earliest surviving German knotted carpets are the only fragmentary wall hangings on the theme of the "Marriage of Mercury and Philology", made in simple knots under Abbess Agnes (1186-1203) in the castle church of Quedlinburg in the Harz Mountains. These fragments are among the largest

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costly pieces of medieval monumental textile art, executed to a high level of artistic perfection and secured and interpreted in a process lasting many years. Their dimensions are enormous, measuring 6.6 x 7.4 meters.

Dhurrie or Durrie or Darris = Indian flat weaves made of cotton, which are used as pillowcases, bedspreads or floor coverings and are a cheaper alternative to knotted carpets. They are rather stiff weaves of cotton, sheep's wool, jute or silk, sometimes combined in materials, mainly made in Rajastahn, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab or Himachal Pradesh, occasionally also in prisons, since Indian independence also in Pakistan. Some of these dhurries meet high standards of design and make.

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Direct coloring =the original method of using natural dyes; in it, the direct connection between (textile) fibers and a plant dye occurs.

Dish Disluk =small pentagonal jewelry tied only by the Jomud for the front knees of the bride's camel.

Dis-torba = small salt bag of the nomadic Turkmen for storage in the tent.

Diwan = in Goethe expression for a collection of poems or a storybook; in the furniture sector expression for a sofa or a room equipped with sofas; transferred to the use an expression for a council meeting or a room suitable for this. The Turkish court of the Ottomans was also called "divan".

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Diwari = rarely used term for tapestry after Persian "diwar" = wall.

Diyarbakir = Turkish city in the Kurdish region of Eastern Anatolia.

Dizlik =Knee jewelry for camels.

Dja Dizluk = pentagonal knotted doilies that decorate the knees of camels at festivals.

Djah-e-toghme-morgh = small round containers with removable lids to keep eggs warm, usually originating in southern Persia. Literally translated, the name

means.

"Room for chicken eggs."

Djafarbey = Turkmen tribe in Iran, named after their leader Djafar Bey.

Djaff or Jaff = Kurdish tribe in Iran north and west of Senneh. Members of this tribe made various bags in the twenties and thirties of the 20th century. Many of them have survived until today, at least as fronts. Their pattern consists of diagonal rows of hooked rhombuses in green, blue, red and brown; the tribe is known for its chordjin rugs.

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Djah Namaz = Name for a small prayer rug, composed of the Persian words "djah" = place and "namaz" = prayer.

Djamschidi = Afghan tribe making carpets.

Djanbegi = Eastern Iranian tribe that makes carpets of the same name.

Djoft = in Persian "Djoft" means a pair, thus the name for two equal pieces; they are small carpets in the size 200 x 135 cm; they are made in Iranian manufactories (eg. B. in Keshan) knotted; as a pair they are more expensive than a single.

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Djol-e-asb =horse-blanket; "djol" means "blanket", "asb" means horse.

Djole Chers = Bearskin. The often alternate term "djulchir" is incorrect; see

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"Djulchir"!

Djollar = Turkmen term for a narrow, usually finely knotted decorative ribbon with dense fringes worn by the bride's camel in the wedding procession, with 20 to 50 Persian knots per square centimeter, resp. for a small narrow Turkmen bag.

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Djollar-Pardeh = a curtain or. a textile door. The name translates into German as "winged djollar" and refers to a decorative wedding ribbon extended by two side panels and decorated with wool tassels; after the wedding, it is used to frame the entrance to the tent.

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Djoshegan or Joshegan = City in north central Iran, 30 miles southwest of Kashan. Carpets have been knotted there since the 18th century, with a pattern famous for its continuous lozenges, each one consisting of a geometricized plant motif. This pattern may also include a small medallion and coving; this is widely imitated elsewhere. Carpets with gul henna patterns are also made in Joshegan and surrounding towns; they have cotton bases.

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Djozan or Djosan = City in western Persia southeast of Hamedan and east of Malayer. Carpets similar to Saruk with floral motifs are made here; bright red and gold dominate as colors; the wool is shiny and the weave dense. The rugs are usually dominated in the center by a slender diamond accompanied by floral motifs. This type of carpets belongs to the high quality Persians.

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Djubi = the Farsi word "djubi" means "wood" in German; the term "Djub-Rang" ("Rang" means "color") refers to Afghan carpets that have a light wood color. The best-known new developments of this type of carpet came about as a result of initiatives by European and American carpet wholesalers in Afghan refugee camps between Peshawar and Islamabad. This type of carpet is also often traded as "Ziegler"; see this!

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Djufti Knot = false carpet knot (djuft = "pair" in Farsi), which is knotted over two or more pairs of warp threads; this is an occasionally practiced, inferior, also called fraudulent knot. This saves labor time and wool, so the result is usually unsatisfactory; it is also called a jufti or jofti knot. This knotting technique was officially banned in the 19th century.

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Djulchir = Short for "djul-e-chers", which means "fur of a bear"; meant is a carpet with long pile hair, as they often still make Uzbeks. These are the most archaic carpets of Central Asia and they were made by women in homework. They are rough, irregular pieces made of sheep's wool, occasionally goat or yak hair. They usually feature geometric abstract motifs such as the moon, eagle feathers, squares and ram's horns.

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DOBAG = Short name of the project "Dogal Boya Arashima ve Gelistirme" to research and develop natural dyes and revive the traditional Turkish craft of carpet weaving in rural areas to revive a former source of income. It was initiated in 1981 by the German Harald Böhmer, who taught the peasant population the then already forgotten dyeing with natural dyes.

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Böhmer was the initiator of the revival of vegetable dyes. The carpet industry is indebted to him, because Böhmer was the initiator of the reuse of natural dyes; before him, they had been eliminated and forgotten in the carpet production of almost the entire Orient. A further development was carpet production with hand-spun, naturally dyed wool; see "Woven Legends."

Dokhtar-e-Ghazi = literally means "daughter of the judge", a sub-tribe of the Timuri around Herati in northwestern Afghanistan who have been living in the region since the last quarter of the 19th century.

centenary rug-making, belonging to the Beludj group.

Dolabe = woven border in red or pink, about 3 centimeters wide, which surrounds the entire carpet; in Persian the expression means "two borders".

Donegal = Name of a hand-knotted carpet factory founded in 1858 in the northwestern Irish village of Killebegs near Donegal; it is located at the mouth of the Eske River near the coast. Large and small pieces have been made there consistently ever since, in densities ranging from 16 to 36 knots per square inch. The patterns are neoclassical or reproductions for museums or manor houses.

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Double-hook = a border motif commonly used in carpets of Yüruk, Kurd and in other Caucasian carpet types; the hooks are considered a defense against the evil eye.

Double niche rug = Anatolian carpet with large medallion-shaped inner field and double niche, which is not a pure medallion carpet. Such carpet patterns are often represented in Transylvanian carpets of the late 16th to 18th centuries. The reason for their emergence is said to be a fatwa (an edict), which in 1610 under Sultan Ahmed I forbade the sale of prayer rugs with a single niche to infidels; the double niche was used to circumvent this prohibition.

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Double niche prayer rug = Mainly produced in Anatolia, this type of medium-sized prayer rug shows three mihrabs side by side, with the thin double columns in the middle of the fund. This designation was first used by May Beatty in 1968 in the book "Oriental Art"

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double-pinned =It is very rare to find Persian knotted carpets with pile on both surfaces, each side showing a different design. They are considered more of a craftsmanship feat than an attractive product. Old examples of this type were used as a kind of door or "pardeh" in mosques, mostly in Meshed.

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Village Carpets = Typical for them is that they often have smaller formats than manufactory carpets, are usually knotted without a pattern, the corners are rarely harmoniously resolved in terms of pattern, but rather improvised and multiple irregularities in the pattern structure or in the representation of individual ornaments can be seen. They are made by a sedentary rural population. Both vertical and horizontal knotting looms are used for their production. Vertical knotting implies more uniform knotting and larger sizes as a result than is the case with the horizontal knotting looms of nomads. Once they become sedentary, they gradually transition to vertical knotting looms. Village carpets therefore no longer show the originality of the products of nomads, but in most cases have retained their original folk art. In village carpets, the intuition of the weaver is valued above all; they are usually not knotted according to patterns. The patterns

are passed down from generation to generation. Irregularities in pattern and measurement are not a disadvantage, although Europeans trimmed for precision often see it differently.

Sloping rugs are not inherently a disadvantage. Often it testifies to the simple way of life and the natural intention of the weavers. It is only important that a carpet lies flat and does not wrinkle. Usually this can be remedied by professional tensioning.

 

Doroksh = Northeast Iranian carpet from the area around Khorasan, which is in fierce competition with the knotted works from Senneh; it is characterized by a very fine knotting, with the region-typical orange predominating as well as floral motifs at about 750. 000 knots per m2; often there are vase motifs and bulky botehs.

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Dorusch or Dorosh = Carpet name of an area in the East Persian Qainat in the Birdshend region in the province of Korasan. From there come very beautiful knotted pieces from the early 19th century. Century; more recent pieces are of lower quality.

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Dösemealti = Turkish area north of Antalya, where carpets of the same name were made; until 2000, large quantities of them came on the market, today hardly any.

Dozar =one measure: two tsars are the equivalent of about 2.15 square meters of surface area; designation for carpets in the format of 190 x 130 centimeters.

Dragon =imaginatively designed geometric or naturalistic Chinese mythical creature, a motif often found in Caucasian and Chinese carpets, symbolizing happiness.

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Dragon Phoenix Motif = special, highly stylized old carpet motif, which was found earliest in the Marby carpet, later in the Berlin carpet and goes back to Chinese influence. The pattern consists of two squares showing the fight between animals: One is easily recognizable as a dragon, the other animal is a kind of bird with three tail feathers and other ornithological details attributed to the phoenix, the mythological bird that dies but resurrects from its ashes. This motif is considered a symbol of good luck.

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Dragon Cloud icon = S-shaped bands between the motifs of a carpet symbolize dragons, which are considered to be an auspicious miraculous and symbolic animal in the Orient.

Dragon Carpets = Particularly in Caucasian knotted works, animals and animal combat representations are brought in after the Persian model, which become so unrecognizable through stylization and distortion that they are called dragons. Of the early Caucasian dragon carpets, about 100 have survived to the present day. Dragon carpets are divided into four chronologically distinct groups, beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Century to about 1850. Dragon carpets include Chinese Ningxia palace carpets made of silk with gold metal brocading, such as those made in the Qing Dynasty in the

19th century. Century.

drapp = sand.

 

Jajjim or Jijim or Cacim =one of the flat weaving techniques that uses winding wefts. This allows vertical and oblique color stripes to be formed

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become; the individual pieces are finally sewn together. In Iran, the name of this weaving technique is written "Djadjim", in Turkey "Djidjim".

Jangali = multicolored flower motif on jushegan carpets; the term comes from Persian and means "jungle" in German.

Jouschegan = small mountain town northwest of Isfahan; see "Joushaqan"!

Chowal = see "Chowal"!

Judur =border of Ersari, which contains numerous small botehs on a mostly dark background as a leaf tendril.

Chufti Knot or Djufti node ="dschufti" means "a pair" in Farsi; what is meant is a type of knot in carpet knotting, where the pile thread is knotted over two pairs of warp thread(s) instead of just one as usual; an inferior work that is supposed to pretend better.

Dschool- or Teschool-Fabric = Simple, rare type of kilim from Daghestan, consisting of stripes in copper-brown color embroidered with chain-stitch patterns.

Dudeschgh = Village near Nain. It was there that Fatollah Habibian created the new style of Nain tea in the early thirties of the 20th century. It was there that Fatollah Habibian created the new type of Nain carpet in the early thirties of the twentieth century, which was a success from the very beginning. It is easily recognizable by its mostly pale purple color scheme. From it the today's Nain- carpets developed, see these!

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Dumbaschaf = Fat-tailed sheep (Ovis platura), a breed of domestic sheep that is about 6000 years old and bred throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.

patterned =means that the entire surface of a rug is filled with motifs, leaving no empty spaces; these are richly patterned pieces.

 

Echmiadzin = ancient city in southwestern Armenia, seat of the Armenian Catholicos, a religious complex with houses of worship and a museum with religious art treasures, carpets and paraments. The carpets produced there since the 19th Century manufactured carpets are among the Kazaks.

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corner solutions or corner gusset = Arrange carpet patterns in such a way that their borders are not cut at the corners. This is a difficult challenge for pattern drafters; in nomadic carpets this is often not taken into account; Persian pattern drafters in urban manufactories invented so-called 45-degree corner solutions for this purpose, which avoid cutting up the patterns. Old Tabriz carpets do not have perfect corner solutions.

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Rolling Leaf Motif =a border motif popular among Turkmen weavers.

Unicorn =fabulous animal of Chinese origin, often used as a carpet motif.

Setting = see "Tie Setting"!

entry =this is the name given to weft threads that are pulled in between the finished horizontal rows of knots after they have been tapped tight when tying a rug.

Ekbatan = former name of today's city of Hamedan; this name is also understood to mean new, good Hamedan qualities of a carpet.

Elephant Foot or Elephant Step = name used by the trade for the Turkmen Göl motif; common in Afghanistan under the name "Fil pa" (fil = elephant, pa = foot). See

"Göl"!

Elem = Designation of additional borders resp. of a knotted area on the front or narrow sides of Turkmen carpets or on the underside of large bags outside the outer borders in patterned and unpatterned design; it is preferred by Turkmen knotters as an "entrance to the knotting work".

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Elibelinde = this name comes from the Turkish term for "hands on hips". This is an Anatolian carpet motif that stylistically-geometrically shows a woman with her arms on her hips, which is to be understood as a woman giving birth; it is often used in kilims and knotted carpets from Western Turkey.

end or carpet-ends = Designation for the fringes on the narrow sides of carpets, which are usually in kilim technique, in Turkmen carpets can also be knotted. Fringes on narrow sides are usually the protruding ends of the warp threads.

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Endjelas = Persian knotted carpets made of wool with a cotton warp with geometric medallions from the Hamadan area; the knot density is only between 250. 000 and 300,000 knots per square meter.

Ener-Dychi = Sawtooth motif used by Turkmen Yomud weavers.

Enessy or Enssi = see "Engsi"!

Endless Motifs = self-contained carpet motifs consisting of repeating striped or rope-knot figures found in Persian, Turkish and Chinese carpets; see, for example. "Ch'ang" for example!

English rugs = carpet production in England was built by craftsmen who fled France for religious reasons. In 1751 the first English carpet factory was opened in Paddington, which was soon followed by others. England also later produced the first machine-made carpets

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Engsi = Turkmen curtain carpet, which replaces a (tent/yurt) door resp. marks an entrance; in the pattern is provided for this purpose a richly ornamented beam cross, also called Hatschlu.

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Erebuni = simple cross-shaped Caucasian carpet motif, derived from the steppe candle - scientific name "Eremurus", belonging to the grass family -- , which blooms yellow and green in Western Anatolia and large parts of the Near East and grows higher than one meter. This motif also appears in Melas or Milas prayer rugs. Milas is the name of a town in the province of Mugla in southwestern Turkey.

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Erivan or Yerevan = City and province in the south-central Caucasus, capital of Armenia. Carpets produced here in the 19th century are usually called kazak; since about 1930 there has been little carpet production here, but eager trade.

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Ersari = One of the five main Turkmen tribes, which in turn have four sub-tribes, the Gara, Bekeul, Gunnesh and Uludepe. They are direct successors of the Oghuz. A considerable part of them lives in the north of Afghanistan in Andkhoy and surroundings. Until around 1980, all so-called "Afghan carpets" were produced by the Ersari.

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Ersari color = new Afghan carpets as a prime example of the current return to the ancient knotting tradition and aesthetics mostly forgotten today. The name was invented freely for this new production.

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Ertmen = tribal sign (göl) of the Turkmen Chuduor.

Erzurum = City in eastern Anatolia, southwest of Kars, which acts as a collection point for nomadic carpets produced in eastern Anatolia; Erzurum itself produces mainly small prayer kilims with pointed or stepped prayer niches (mihrabs) and multiple borders.

eskitme = Turkish expression for the chemical washing of carpets; it means "to trim to old"; see also "chemical washing"!

Eslimi = series of plant-natural shapes and patterns with curvilinear stems, buds and flowers springing from the ground and spreading all around. These are important carpet motifs that have their origins in ancient Persian architecture, the shapes of which can still be found in the form of bent wooden parts on old house facades. According to experts, the historical background is the art of the ancient Parthians. The depiction of flowers on Persian carpets are occasionally naturalistic images, more often graphic compositions, freely invented fantasy, dissolved in richly decorated details that have lost the relationship with nature. Similar forms shows the pattern called "Gere", often confused with Eslimi, but unlike him shows geometric shapes and straight lines; see "afschun"

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Exner, Herbert = Ill-known German carpet dealer offering for sale a densely knotted Turkish silk heereke with 50 x 50 knots per square centimeter, thus a total of 25 million knots on 1000 square centimeters of surface, which is, however, torn at the left edge.

Exotic = are called oriental carpets, which can not be classified in any of the known groups.

Expertise = In the field of carpets, this is understood as a kind of "passport" of the producer or. In the field of carpets, this is a kind of "passport" of the producer or dealer of a carpet about its origin, material, size, quality, age, value and any markings. They are issued by certified experts for a fee, or by the manufacturer or dealer upon request. Sometimes you have to pay for the latter. Basically, each expertise is only worth as much as the issuer. In Austria and Germany there are separate associations for the issuance of expertises for hand-knotted carpets and kilims.

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Eynullah = see "Ainalu"!

Ezine = Anatolian city south of Canakkale, which acts as a collection point for carpets produced in the region; the majority of the rather small pieces are red, blue and yellow and designed in complex geometric motifs with star-shaped medallions.

 

Fachralo or Fachraly = a city 25 kilometers southwest of Tbilisi in the Caucasus; there originated a type of carpet of the same name that belongs to the Kazak family. Many such pieces from the 19th century have a medallion consisting of horizontal rectangular rhombuses superimposed to form a 16-sided figure; usually

are prayer rugs with a fineness of 100,000 symmetrical knots per square meter; see also "Gendje"!

Family prayer rugs =Family prayer rugs, which have several mihrabs/prayer niches next to each other; up to eleven such niches are known to exist in one sapp; see "Saph" or "Saf"!

Farahdombeh = Persian city with carpet production, 84 kilometers from Isfahan.

Dyeing broom = natural dye. It is a small semi-shrub that grows on sandy places or in sparse groves; its young shoots are collected just before and during flowering, dried, pulverized, and used to yellow wool.

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Colors = For traditional oriental carpets and fabrics, the colors are obtained from natural raw materials; since the middle of the 19th century, there have been additional synthetic (chemical) materials. Since the middle of the 19th century there have been additional synthetic (chemical) dyes, which compete fiercely with natural dyes; however, the quality of chemical dyes has improved greatly in recent decades. Today, natural dyes are once again gaining acceptance, or they are sensibly combined with synthetic dyes. Natural animal wool is naturally white, rarely pure white; at higher ages it becomes ivory or cream colored, at higher ages also ash gray. Since ancient times, wool has been dyed for carpets to achieve imaginative color combinations with decorative effects. The dyeing of carpet yarns is performed only by men.

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Dyeing = Decomposition of the wool fibers of an older carpet due to chemical effects of etching, mordanting and bleaching agents that have been used in the dyeing process. These include gallic acid, iron oxide dyes, iron vitriol, copper vitriol, metal salts or sulfates. Due to the addition of such substances, after prolonged use the wool fibers become brittle and wear more easily than if the wool had remained elastic, causing relief-like effects to form in the carpet. Especially black, brown, moss green, brown-red and beige-brown suffer from color wear. That is, correspondingly colored parts of the pile fall out or become shorter. In very old carpets, such color corrosion is tolerated, even appreciated, because it unequivocally confirms their age. See "corroded"

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coloring = dyeing wool was an important prerequisite and challenge for making carpets; it gradually established itself as a handicraft art that strictly guarded its secrets; it was passed down from gender to gender by its practitioners. Armenians and Jews were once considered the best dyers. With the advent of chemical dyes, many dyeing secrets have been lost in natural dyes and had to be rediscovered in painstaking research. See "Bohemians"

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Dyeing auxiliaries = chemical substances used in the dyeing process of carpet materials as auxiliary agents to make the dyeing more durable, more intense, more successful. These include alum, ammonia, ferrous sulfate, hydrosulfite (sodium dithionite), potassium bichromate, copper sulfate, sodium hydroxide, phenolphthalein, tartrate (potassium bitartaricum) and stannous chloride.

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Color-Wau = see "Wau"!

Color Check = To test the color fastness of a carpet, rub a wet white handkerchief over its pile; if the cloth remains white, he is color fast.

Color Symbols =with different carpet colors different associations are created in the viewer. This is most intense in China or with Chinese carpets of

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Fall: the earth is yellow, the wood is green, the fire is red and the water is black. Green is the sacred color of the Prophet and the Mohammedans; yellow is a symbol of piety, white (in the Orient) the color of mourning. The meaning of colors in a carpet used to be more symptomatic than in modern pieces.

Farhan = see "Ferahan".

Fars = ancient Persia, heartland of Iran, today southern Iranian province on the southern Zagros Mountains with the capital Shiraz, a region that includes the early residences of Achaemenid rulers such as Persepolis or Pasargadae.

Farsh or Farsch = this Persian expression generally means "carpet" or.

"Flooring".

Farsi = Persian expression for the original Persian language.

Fars(i)baft = Persian or Senneh carpet knot or. "carpet made in the Persian way"; "baft" means "made" in German.

Fatima = Name of the Prophet Muhammad's daughter; her five-fingered hand acts as a symbol of good luck on carpets or in jewelry; see "Hand".

Fine =It is defined by the number of nodes per square centimeter, resp. per square inch, square decimeter or square meter of a carpet. Pieces with more than 1 million knots per square meter are considered extremely fine, those with 500,000 to 1 million are considered exceptionally fine, those with 350,000 to 500,000 are considered fine; further descending fineness is given the terms semi-fine, normal, semi-coarse to coarse, the last applying to rugs with 36,000 to 50,000 knots per square meter. The fineness depends on the number, narrowness and thickness of the warp and weft threads; by using silk in knotting, the highest fineness is achieved in carpets. See also "conversion"

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Field =that part of a carpet which is inside the border(s).

Field carpet = also called compartment carpet. This is a term for knotted works whose background consists of clear angular honeycomb or checkerboard patterns (rhombuses, rectangles, octagons), very common in Bakhtiar carpets.

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Ferahan or Fereghan or Farahan = Plain north of the city of Arak in western Iran. The Kurdish-type carpets produced there have asymmetrical knots and densities ranging from 60 to 160 knots per square inch and the main color is green; the carpets are usually entirely covered with motifs, such as Herati, Mina Khani or Gol Hennah. The carpets produced there are both homemade and manufactured, so there are different sizes and qualities.

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Ferdows or Ferdos = capital of the Iranian district of Ferdows in South Khorasan; a high plateau over which the road leads to the pilgrimage city of Mashad; it is famous for its saffron and pomegranates; hence the Persian name for the city "Paradise"; small carpets of rather loose and coarse quality are made here by Arab weavers on horizontal knotting looms in the Beludj style.

Fertek = Village in Central Anatolia, where prayer rugs are knotted throughout with wool, as well as carpets with geometric medallions; in the 19th century. Century originated there carpets in the Madjid style.

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Fethiye = historical county seat in the province of Mugla in southwestern Turkey; the carpets there bear göls of the southern Aegean region.

Fire = is considered for confessors of the religion of Zarathustra as a symbol of purity and symbolizes God Ahuramazda (= "wise Lord who dwells in the light"). Therefore, a fire is always burning in relevant temples. The Parsi god is personified by a bird of prey with broad projecting wings. The Persian city of Jazd or Yazd is the center of the Zoroastrian religion.

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Felt = textile sheet material made of textile fibers that are disordered, pressed together, and therefore difficult to separate. Felted fabrics are also called whale fabrics. Felt is several layers of rolled wool from sheep, yaks, camels or goats, made with the addition of water; the choice of colors is small: mostly white, blue and silver-brocaded. Ornaments or patterns are attached to the felt by sewing or embroidery. An oriental preform of knotted carpets.

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Felt rugs = are the oldest examples of oriental floor textiles or curtains nomadic people living in zones with large climate fluctuations. Experts consider them a precursor of oriental knotted carpets.

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Firozkohi or Firuzkuhl = tribe from northern Afghanistan ("Firouz" = turquoise, "Kuhi" = mountain), which produces copies of marketable carpets and variations of flatweaves.

Firuzabad = City in southwestern Iran, place of origin of millefleur carpets produced by the Kashkuli. See "Millefleur"

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flat-tie- or Flat lounger = horizontally set up weaving or knotting loom; it is common among nomads and semi-nomads. The weaver squats on her heels while working. In contrast, there are vertical weaving or knotting looms used in village and urban carpet production.

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flat-float = Collective term for pile-free carpets and textile fabrics, a mixture of different production techniques of artistic textile works such as broidering, embroidery, appliqué; the flatweaves include kilims, sumakhs (see this), jijims, palas, but also aubussons, or tapestries.

Flavone or Flavoids =yellow plant pigments. As derivatives of flavone, they belong to the class of flavonoids; about 300 naturally occurring flavones are known.

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Tile Pattern = square delimited carpet pattern that looks like the tiling of a mosque.

Floor pattern = Designation for a small, often repeated boteh pattern.

Flor = velvety surface or. front surface of a knotted carpet or the "third layer" of knotted carpets or the upright wool or silk fibers that have been woven into the base fabric of a carpet. The pile is formed by the ends of the knotting yarn that protrude from the carpet's base fabric and are sheared after knotting, and reflects the pattern of the piece. Its method of execution provides clues for exploring the place of origin and manufacturing technique of a carpet. The pile knots are knotted in rows into a base weave of warp and weft. The color effect of the resulting pile can change dramatically when viewed from different directions. Therefore, before buying carpet lovers should carefully examine this effect by viewing a carpet from all directions. See also "Knots"

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Floral rugs = They first appeared in the 16th. In the 17th century they partially replaced hunting and medallion carpets and an Indian influence is felt. Among the pile carpets are counted: Carpets with arabesques and

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lotus flowers, tree and shrub carpets, pile carpets, vase carpets, braided ribbon carpets.

Flosh = Turkish term for artificial silk. In fact, it is merzirized cotton treated with chemical agents, which shines so that it looks like silk.

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Occasionally, flosh is referred to as "Turkish silk"; this is also a name for carpets made with flosh; until 1990, it was especially common for carpets from Kayseri.

Fond = single-color base or background, in the case of carpets the central field, which serves as the basis of the ornamentation and forms the background of the motifs. It is formed by the warp (longitudinal) and the weft (transverse), which give the net of a knotted carpet. The pile is inserted into this by knotting. In flat weaves, the warp holds the base, and the weft gives the ornament.

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Fondonk = in German "Magazin", a large store of oriental carpet or fabric dealers, which were established in former caravanserais.

Foo Dog = see "Guardian Lion"!

Fragment = Fragment or remnant of a formerly complete piece. In the carpet trade, fragments of antique or rare pieces occasionally command top prices.

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Fringes = protruding from the narrow sides of carpets, visible ends of warp threads; they are loose, sometimes braided or coiled, long or short. They are not an independent part of a traditional knotted or woven piece; sewn-on fringes are considered a depreciation; see also "ends".

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French carpets = In the 17th. Century carpet weaving began in France by making savonneries. The 31-year-old painter Pierre Dupont produced woven carpets under royal patronage in a workshop of the Louvre and published a treatise "on stromatics" (= carpet weaving) in 1623. From this developed the production of savonneries or tapestries, aubussons and tapestries. Under King Louis

XIV they reached their peak. See "aubussons", "tapestry", "savonnerie"

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"Tapestry".

Cemetery Carpet =Prayer rug used in cemeteries or. It usually shows a tomb and trees, often cypresses, in the mihrab; in the center field one often sees an oriental cemetery with cypresses and prayer houses. Such carpets are produced in Kula and other places of Asia Minor; the Turkish name is "Mazarlik"; see this!

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Fill motifs = small decorative elements such as. For example, tiny flowers, blossoms, stars, household items, geometric figures, jugs, combs, and animals scattered around medallions woven into rugs or placed under niches in prayer rugs to fill overly large empty spaces in the back of village rugs woven to order. See

"Horror vacui"!

 

Gabbeh or Gaba or Gabeh = is a Persian term for "rough" or. "natural." The origin of the word is unknown. The coarsely knotted, little appreciated carpets of this name were hand-knotted from wool and have a sparsely simple pattern. They were used by nomads of the southwestern Persian Zagros Mountains as

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sleeping rugs. Until the mid-20th century, they were knotted only for home use and were rarely exported because of their often disheveled pile. The knotting density is low at 40,000 to 100,000 knots per square meter. Thanks to initiatives by the Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli and the trader Zollanvari in Shiraz, there was a revitalization of this folk art around 1990; it experienced a surprisingly high demand, although its patterning remains modest to simple. Over time, finer qualities such as loribaft also emerged. Multicolored small-patterned, durable and inexpensive gabbehs are also currently coming from India.

Gabbeh tendrils = characteristic rectangular motif often found in Cuba carpets, close to a palmette or acanthus. Biologically, it is related to a cucurbit stem and is found in the East Indies, Sicily, Astrakhan and Calabria.

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Gabès = Tunisian city where small, thick carpets with high pile are made.

Gaghdan = contemporary Armenian flatweave.

 

Gallery = especially in Germany used trade name for long narrow carpets; see also "Kenareh".

Ganja = second largest city of Azerbaijan, located on the northern slopes of the Lesser Caucasus on the river Ganja about 375 kilometers from the capital Baku halfway to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia bgelegen; skie has about 330. 000 inhabitants. It was founded in 494 B.C. and is considered both a monument of ancient culture of Azerbaijan and an industrial center of Western Azerbaijan. Ganja was once located at the crossroads of important caravan routes that connected the space between the Middle East and the Black Sea. A secondary meaning of "Ganja" is in English for disreputable products such as cannabis, hemp and as a synonym for marijuana.

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Ganja Group = Name for a geometrically patterned type of carpet with octagonal medallions and star-shaped or diamond-shaped patterns. According to a system established by the Azerbaijani state artist, the carpets of his country are distinguished according to four types of manufacture: Guba-Shirvan, Ganja-Kazagh, Karabakh and Tabriz.

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Gansu or Kansu = Province in western China including the city of Ningxia, a major carpet-making center, with many smaller towns around it knotting rather coarse carpets; the patterns are usually formed in fields of blue on yellow or light red to brownish.

Whole silk carpets =knotted works from Asia Minor, Persia and China, using pure silk for both warp and weft and pile.

Garaghan = Iranian village in the west of Iran with village carpet production.

Gardanband = Persian animal necklace.

Garmsar = City near Varamin in north-central Iran. The kilims of this area have an area-filling pattern of different colored hexagons. The weft threads are outside the hexagons; the warp threads are of brown wool.

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Yarn = Carpet yarns are spun from long-fiber sheep's wool, cotton or silk; rarely from camel or goat wool, even more rarely from hemp or jute.

garden-carpet = Knotted carpet depicting a quadrangular garden designed with stylized watercourses, ponds, flowers, trees and walkways, which appears as if seen from a bird's eye view; the peak of development of this type of carpet was reached in the Safavid period. The oldest known garden carpet dates back to the beginning of the 16th century and was made in northwest Persia.

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Gashqai or Quashgai or Quashgai = South Persian, Turkic-speaking tribal federation, descendants of Turkmen nomads who once moved from Central Asia to Persia. Today this federation is nomadic only to a small extent; it lives in Fars province and has absorbed elements of the Luri (Lori) tribe. The tribe was later joined by Kurds, Persians, and Iranians of Arab descent; large parts of the tribe profess Shiite Islam. Carpet weaving is mainly done by young women as housework. Qashqai carpets often show Luri characteristics. Their high quality leads to the fact that also less qualitative products are offered under this name. Epigones with hand-spun wool and dyed with natural fabrics are the products of the Miri and Bayat families in Tehran since 1995, followed by other producers.

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Gashkuli or Kashkuli = Subtribe of the Persian Qashqai, which with its carpet creations at the beginning of the 21st. Century the field began to contest the Gabbeh carpets, from which he developed new products. Kashkulibaft (in German

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"carpets made by the Kashkuli") are finer, more graceful because more tightly knotted, and with much less rustic character than Gabbehs. Their patterns and motifs are derived from the broad range of forms used by nomadic weavers.

 

Gashqai or Gaschqai or Kashkai or Kashqai = Nomadic tribe living in the mountainous regions of southwestern Persia in the provinces of Fars and Kuhsistan south of Isfahan and Shiraz. Their rugs have high knot density and show a wide variety of patterns; dark red and blue are prominent. The tribe makes knotted carpets, flatweaves (striped kilims), ribbons, and bags; in addition to various motifs, they also reproduce historical monuments, such as those from Persepolis. Oriental carpet expert James Opie believes it is possible that Qashqai troops, who were in the 18th

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century with Nadir Shah conquered Afghanistan and India, bringing with them not only the peacock throne, but also carpets with millefleur patterns, later adopted by the Kashkuli weavers.

 

Gashoghdan = spoon bag of nomads; in Farsi "gashog" means spoon. See also

"Chechen"!

Gaziantep = City in southeastern Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name; marketplace for cicims produced in the region.

Bed rug = Mostly small-format carpets with regionally different patterning of a mihrab (= see this), which serve mainly in the Sunni, less in the Shiite world as a base of pious believers at the daily five times ritual prayer in the direction of Mecca as protection against contamination by the natural soil (see "Saph").

used carpets = Using a carpet by walking on it usually makes its pile wool softer, shinier, and its light effect becomes stronger. The designation

"old" or "used" in a solidly made oriental rug is not a devaluation for experts, but usually the opposite.

prison-carpets or prison-house-carpets = knotted or woven rugs made by prison inmates, mostly in India from 1880 onward. (See

"Jaipur", "Agra"!)

coupled column carpets = rare silk Turkish prayer rugs, which show in their main field the architectural motif of three arches supported and connected by two slender columns. Such carpets were knotted in court manufactories and trace their origin to a designer who worked in Istanbul in the16th century for Turkish Sultan Murad III (1574-1595).The most striking features are the detailed Corinthian column capitals, the colorful bouquets of tulips, carnations and other flowers popular at court at the base of the columns, and the delicate lamp in the central field hanging from three gold chains. This decoration replaces the sacred and divine in Islam, which fundamentally rejects images of holy persons. In the Koran, Sura 24:35-37 says: "Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. He guides all whom He loves into the light."

Gelveri = Turkish town with carpet production.

painted oriental carpets = see "Lotto, Bellini, Vermeer Carpets"!

Rugs =Both sexes or all ages have been involved: Men raised and sheared the animals whose wool/hair provided the knotting yarn; men gathered and processed the natural dyes and dyed the yarns; they built the knotting looms, reared the warp beams, washed and sheared the carpet pile, and marketed the finished carpets. Women washed and combed the wool, chose the motifs and patterns, and knotted them in free imagination or according to given designs; in the process, they school(ed) their children in rug making. Although carpet knotting is mostly done by women, men occasionally knot village carpets; in Tabriz, it is almost exclusively men.

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Gendje or Genje or Gendsche = carpets from the Caucasian city of Genje; it is located in the middle of the carpet-producing region of Karabagh, Kazakh and Shirvan and it acts(s) as a marketplace for the carpets of this region; among them is the Fakhraly prayer rug with high quality patterns and borrowings from other types of carpets. Gendje rugs tend to have longer formats; rugs of this type, like most rugs of the Caucasus, are no longer on sale.

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geometric carpet motifs = they are also called rectilinear carpet motifs and patterns, as they are primarily used by nomadic and village weavers. (See also

"curvilinear carpet motifs"!) Geometric carpet motifs include. the cross, the triangle, which is considered a lucky motif, the checkerboard pattern, which is often used in Tibet, the swastika, which is supposed to bring luck and fertility, the circle, which is considered a symbol of Buddha, the rhombus, which is a religious symbol in Persia, the star, which is an old Jewish symbol ("Star of David") or the octagon as a frequent Turkmen (tribal) symbol. The patterns of village or tribal rugs are often geometric/rectilinear renditions of densely woven curvilinear urban rugs.

Tanner wool = Unlike virgin wool, these are the animal hairs extracted from animal carcasses during tanning, an inferior material for carpet production.

Gereh or Ghere = Persian term for "knot" or "noose.

Gereh zadan = Persian expression for tying fringes.

Germesh or Germetch = small weave or rug for the house or yurt entrance of Turkmens, which is in front of the engsi so as not to carry the dust from outside inside; it is about the same width as the engsi and has a pattern to match it.

Gerous or Garrus = 1. : special, original type ornament of Bijar carpets from northwestern Persia; 2nd: name of a Kurdish tributary in this region.

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Barley = type of grain used as a natural beige dye for dyeing.

stepped =roof shape sloped by stringing together steps, especially in gables of prayer rugs.

Ghable or Kibla or Quibla = the sacred direction to Mecca, in which Mohammedans turn at the five times ritual prayer each day. In the Hadith, a tradition parallel to the Koran, it is forbidden to spit or defecate in the direction to Mecca.

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Ghadimi = meaning "old" or "the old".

Ghali = Designation of the main carpet in the nomadic tent, which is not longer than three meters. The term comes from Turkmen and has become "hali" (=

in modern Turkish.

"carpet") converted.

Ghaliceh = see "Seccade"!

 

Ghalin = Indian expression for "carpet".

Gharabaghi = Name of a rare type of carpet from Karabagh. Gharabaghi (in German

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"the one from Karabakh") is the name of a carpet producer who from 1995 onwards made particularly fine and beautiful carpets in Tabriz; by 2020, production has shrunk to a tenth of what it was before; only pieces in smaller sizes are currently knotted under this name.

 

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Gharadje = Iranian carpet type from the group of Heriz, which has strongly branched geometric patterns, mostly in the colors ocher in many shades.

Ghasemabad =ostiran place with carpet production.

Ghaveroch = the word "ghave" means "coffee", "roch" means "face"; a place with production of thinner carpets belonging to Bakhtiari species.

Ghazan = American carpet company that had the "American" Keshan and Saruk carpets made between 1900 and 1930.

Ghazni = Capital of the province of the same name in central Afghanistan, former center of the Ghazanid Empire. This area is known for the best quality wool.

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Ghendje = well-known Caucasian carpet type with different design made of natural wool, which is classified between Kazak and Karabagh. Typical ghendje patterns are longitudinal, mainly diagonal stripes in various colors filled with small-scale bothes or flowers. Old Ghendjes often have pastel-like beautiful color compositions with soft color transitions.

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ghermez or germez = Persian the color red.

Ghiassabad = City in western Persia near Arak; it belongs to the knotting area of Saruk- carpets, which are equipped with low pile and by naturalistic clear floral drawings. The Ghiassabad carpet is considered to be a high quality development of

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Saruk considered. Its wool is top-notch, and the relevant pieces are hard-wearing and considered "noble Persians."

Ghileems = see "Kilim"!

Ghiordes = see "Gördes"!

Gholtuk or Goltag or Goltog = Name Persian carpets from the area between Hamadan and Arak, similar in pattern to the Khamseh carpets. They are very durable Persian pieces made by Turkish nomads in the Sandjan area. They are tightly knotted, high quality, similar to the classic Bijar carpets. Their stiffness comes from firmly tapped weft threads. The pile is made from the wool of young sheep, the warp is made of cotton, the central medallion is designed in a staircase shape; the pile comes from the wool of young sheep; characteristic of the species is the staircase-shaped central medallion.

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Ghom, Qum or Kum = Middle Persian city between Isfahan and Tehran, where excellent, dense, fine silk carpets were created. The name means "sand" or "desert" and characterizes the location of the city. Ghom is also the name of a cooperation of 20 workshops in this city, which knot high-quality silk carpets and have developed them to a peak in recent years. Today, "Ghoms" are also produced in Zandjan and Maragheh, but not in the same high quality.

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Ghorband =in Afghanistan, this is a fastening tape for animal loads made by Beludjen- weavers.

Ghuchan = Iranian place in the east, where Kurdish carpets are made.

Gilim Baf =means "made like a kilim" in German; refers to the selvedge of a carpet (kilim) as a finish.

Gillim = see "Kilim"!

Garland = Carpet motif depicting leaf and flower tendrils intertwined by ribbons.

Gis = Persian term for folds or grooves that occur in an unbalanced professional knotted carpet.

Gjordes or Ghiordes or Gördes = Turkish city in the area of the same name in western Asia Minor northeast of Smyrna. The Gördes knot was developed there. The size of these carpets rarely exceeds 110 x 160 to 130 x 220 centimeters. From 1500 to 1700, the best carpets of Asia Minor were knotted there.

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glossy = Washing method for cleaning imported carpets, where so the color shine of the pile wool is enhanced. A mild gloss wash does not improve the quality of the wool, but the carpet colors.

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Glaoua rugs = Dealer name for flat-woven carpets from the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco. These have wide stripes and zigzag patterns of weft threads, with some patterns worked in pile knots.

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Gobelin = Knitted carpet, see also "Tapestries". The term goes back to the French dyer Jean Gilles Gobelin, who founded a relevant manufactory in Paris in 1607. Their works were among the best of their time; as a result, it became common to name all tapestries "Gobelin". The former Gobelin manufactory still exists today in Paris.

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Gohar- or Guhar-carpet = It is the oldest Armenian inscription carpet and bears the name of its weaver. It is an oriental carpet in combination of a kasim ushak with a dragon carpet, made in 1699. The weaver has woven into it a dedication to the unknown owner with a request to him to thank God for her artistry. Made with symmetrical knots, this 5 feet, 11 inches x 11 feet, 6 inches piece is specifically identified in terms of age and origin thanks to inscription in Armenian unique script; its fineness is 49 to 64 knots per square inch, or 316,000 to 412,000 knots per square meter.

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Gojo or Goyo or Goyül = Tibetan wall hanging or door curtain.

Goklan or Göklan = Iranian Turkmen tribe that inhabited parts of the Khiva oasis. He produced Turkmen carpets, which belong to the type of Yomoud or Tekke. They are common in the area between Lake Caspian and Xivain in Uzbekistan, as well as in Persia near Atrak in the south of Kopet-Dag. The carpets tend to be bridge-shaped, bearing octagonal pink güls or hooked diamonds in light red through shades of brown to dark red and purple. The carpets are smooth with medium pile and have between

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280,000 to 400,000 Persian knots per square meter, the latter for silk pieces.

Göl or Gol = Turkmen tribal mark; in carpets, the respective Göl identifies the weaver's affiliation to a particular tribe. It consists of a flower shape of the distinctive main motif of Turkmen nomads, in the West relevant carpets are usually called "Bochara". The Göl is modified in color and shape depending on the tribe to which it belongs. The number of horizontally or vertically in the field arranged Göls are given by experts, for example, "4 x 4" or "3 x 3"; see also "Gül".

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Gold-Afghan = formerly used in European laundries - eg. E.g. in Hamburg, London and Switzerland -- chemically bleached and dyed into an old gold tone Afghan carpet with Ersari oil; see "gold wash"!

Gold wash or Gold washed = Washing treatment of Afghan carpets, a method discovered in 1926 by an employee of OCM. It can be used to turn reds into bright gold; but this procedure does not always work without problems.

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Gol e Bobol = Persian name for "rose and nightingale", an often modified and varied classic carpet motif.

Gombad-i Qabus = a Turkmen market town in northeastern Iran. It is the place of origin of carpets with a pattern showing Turkmen göls.

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Gomden = Tibetan meditation cushion.

Gonabad = City in Khorasan in northeastern Iran, an insignificant source of coarsely woven carpets.

Gonbad = Technical term for mosque dome rugs. The term comes from Farsi, where

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"Gonbad" means "dome".

Goradis = City in the Karabagh region in the southern Caucasus with a special, angular, comet-shaped carpet motif, possibly derived from a boteh.

Gorban = Afghan name for an animal necklace.

Gördes- or Ghiordes node = Name of the Turkish symmetrical knot most commonly used for carpet weaving. The name comes from the ancient

Turkish city of Gördes, formerly "Gordium", known for the "Gordian Knot", which according to legend Alexander the Great cut. Commentators say that it seems like a joke of history that the legendary "Ghiordes knot" should have found its successor in carpet lore. Carpets have been made in and around the town of Gördes since the 18th century; early prayer rugs from Gördes show a curvilinear mihrab. Copies of Gördes carpets were later produced in Kayseri, Hereke, and Bandirma, among other places.

Gorevan = City in the vicinity of Heriz in Iran at the foot of the Urts mountain range. Rough carpets are knotted there, similar to the Heriz of Tabriz, but with mostly massive central motifs supplemented with small, occasionally violent motifs; these are knotted with symmetrical Turkish knots of hand-spun sheep's wool, occasionally goat's wool, and are naturally dyed. They enjoy little prestige. "Gorevan" are often called carpets with Heriz patterns of other origins when they are coarsely knotted.

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Gorgan = in ancient Persian this name means "land of wolves"; it is the capital of the Iranian province of Golestan, 30 kilometers from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea.

Gochak = Ram's Star, an ornament of many Turkmen tribes consisting of four double horns.

Gochanak border = a border very common in Turkmen carpets, which bears on the narrow sides of each lined up individual ram's horns.

Turkish rug = see "Cemetery Carpet"!

Pomegranate = frequently used red motif in oriental carpets since the end of the Middle Ages, which symbolizes wealth and fertility as a pattern trained. A striking brick red of pomegranates in the field is characteristic of East Turkestan carpets, less vivid red of Chinese carpets and a more somber red in Turkmen carpets. Pomegranates appear as round flowers, often in a trellis of green leafy branches. The peels of the pomegranate serve as a brown-orange-yellow natural dye.

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Pomegranate Tree Bark = makes a dark dye for coloring carpet yarns.

Green hairs = These hairs in the fur serve animals as protection against moisture and mechanical influences; between them are short, crimped soft wool hairs, these protect against cold. In the thinner summer coat, the awn hairs predominate.

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Graph or Naghshe =a special checkered paper on which pattern drafters draw or paint their carpet designs for manufactories.

handle =this refers to the haptic impression that a carpet makes when touching, feeling, palpating and bending with the fingers. It is an important factor in evaluating the quality of a knotted or woven piece. Experts can sometimes even "grasp" the age of a carpet. The handle reveals density, hardness, pile quality and softness of the piece at hand.

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Size conversion = see "Conversion"!

Pit loom = see "Pit-Loom"!

Basic fabric =knotting base of a carpet, according to the warp with weft.

gul =Azerbaijani property name (possessive name).

Gul = Azerbaijani "rose" or "flower" (see "Gül"!); term for carpet motifs; "Kilimgulu" names floral compositions on kilims; also named as Nalbaki Gul or Tesht Gulu.

designated

Gül = this Persian word means "rose" or "flower". It is an octagonal pattern in Turkmen carpets, but not a tribal mark. A distinction is made between Bukhara güls, Turkmen güls and Afghan güls.

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Gül Henai = a carpet pattern, translated into German it means "flower of the prophet". It refers to a floral pattern that is thought to be based on the henna shrub (Lawsonia); others think it is based on the garden balsamina or jumping weed. The pattern is mainly applied in Hamadan and its surroundings, in schematized form also among the Gashgai.

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Gül-Jomud or Gül-Jomut = diamond-shaped motif on rugs made by Jomud weavers; it is the tribal mark of the Jomud.

Gülli-Göl = tribal ornament of the Ersari, Salor, and Saryq Turkmen; each quarter of the göl contains a different shamrock motif.

 

Güney = Western Anatolian city, which is the place of origin of symmetrically knotted carpets with cotton pile on a cotton background.

Gyantse or Gyangze = fourth largest city in Tibet located in the south on the ancient trade route to India in the Nyang Chu Valley. Carpets from this city, which have been produced since the 19th. Century are produced, are famous and appreciated.

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Gyol = hexagonal carpet medallion in Caucasian-Azerbaijani Shirvan rugs, where it is often seen three times vertically in the center.

 

Haar = Microscopically, hair differs from wool because hair has a medulla, or. core with a cellular structure that contains air pockets. In oriental carpets, the addition of hair brings in extra shine; however, too much addition of hair reduces the quality of a carpet.

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Habibian =particularly finely woven, older and expensive type of Nain carpet; the name goes back to Fatollah Habibi(j)an, who in the village of Dudeshgh near Nain in the 1930s. Century the new Nain style from the baptism has lifted.

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carpets of this type are currently produced throughout Iran in a wide variety of quality. In many Nains from the city of the same name on the edge of the great desert or from other places, one can find a signature, which is often also woven in afterwards to increase the price.

Hadith = oral tradition of alleged sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the so-called "traditions of the Prophet". Along with the Quran, it is a major source of the Islamic religion and prescribes customs and traditions to devout Muslims. See

"Sunnis"!

Hadji Ateshoglu = Persian carpet designer and trader who came to Keshan from Tabriz and is one of the prominent carpet dynasties of the country. The name comes from Turkish and means "son of fire" in German.

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Hadji Djalili = name of one of the most famous carpet manufactures of Persia in Tabriz, but it supposedly originated from Marand on the Turkish border. Hadji Djalili made at the end of the 19th

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century, Hadji Djalili initiated an artistic renaissance of carpet culture with the creation of magnificent and fine knotted works mostly with silk. He signed his works, giving them exclusivity and uniqueness; his carpets have muted colors; brown and yellow tones are typical of them and they were mostly exported to the USA.

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Hadosan = young up-and-coming Turkish carpet manufacturer in Ürgüp/Nevsehir.

Haftbala =translated from Persian into German, the name means "seven plagues"; this refers to a tribe of Pashtuns originating in Afghanistan, whose members have become known as carpet weavers.

Haft rang = Translated from Persian into German, this name means "seven colors". This is the name of dyed warp threads used in Senneh carpets. Seven colors are also used for dyeing warp bands; an Uzbek ikat made of seven colors is highly valued because of the very complex dyeing process. Old Senneh rugs often have warps of different colors, alternating every six centimeters or so.

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Haji Hanum = Pattern for a prayer rug in which a vase of flowers fills the space below the prayer niche.

Hook = Turkmen carpet motif derived from the Buddhist swastika. Hooked borders, hooked bands or hooked strips, single and double hooks are folk ornaments in Caucasian, Anatolian, Turkmen, Afghan, and Shiraz carpets, as well as in those of the Baluch.

Swastika = see "Swastika", one of the oldest symbols or. Motifs of mankind.

 

Hakkari = Provincial capital in southeastern Anatolia and Iraq, where members of the Hartushi and Herki tribes produce Kurdish carpets and kilims.

Hali or Quali = 1: This Turkish word means "carpet" in German. 2nd: This name also carries the quarterly carpet trade magazine from the London publisher Hali Publications Ltd, info@hali.com

Halvai = Name of especially fine Bijar carpets with large center medallions.

 

Hamadan or Hamedan = Capital of the province of the same name in northwestern Iran, one of the oldest Persian cities (formerly Ecbatana) known for its mostly simple carpets with yet wear-resistant surfaces. Although few rugs are produced in Hamadan, the name is a collective name for rugs from the surrounding area, such as those from Nahawand, Tuiserkan, Malayer, Hosseinabad. The patterns vary greatly, their wool is of high quality. High quality carpets knotted directly in Hamadan bear the name Shahr baft (in German "knotted in the city"), which resemble the Sarouk. Hamadan carpets are knotted with symmetrical Turkish knots.

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Hamadan-Sharbaft = Carpets produced from patterns in Hamadan and qualitatively similar to Saruk.

Hammamlik =small square rug for the bathroom; this one is called in Turkish

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"hammam".

Hammerpreis = see "Auction"!

Hamp foundation = Designation for a hemp base for knotted carpets.

Hanbel = Moroccan name for "kilim". Hanbels are floor coverings in great variety with usually extensive, strongly drawn patterns.

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Hand = five-fingered Islamic symbol that usually stands for Fatima, the favorite daughter of Muhammad. It is often found in the upper corners of prayer rugs where believers place their hands while kneeling forward in prayer. According to another interpretation, the hand is the symbol for the five most revered persons of Shiite Islam: Muhammad, Ali, Fatima, Hassan and Hossein, or for the five principles of Islam: Faith, Prayer, Pilgrimage, Fasting and Almsgiving.

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Hand Loom = see "Handloom"!

hand-tufting = modern semi-machine way of making carpets. The given pattern is transferred to a plastic grid, and the pile threads are shot into the grid from behind by means of a compressed air gun, individually or in groups, so that they protrude on the front side and form a pile. This must then be consolidated by applying adhesive and a net to reduce the risk of the structure coming loose when the carpet is cleaned. This technique is widely used in India.

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Handloom or Treadloom or Pit Loom = hand- or. Foot-operated, largely wooden looms that stand on flat ground, especially in Indian or Pakistani farmhouses or backyards, and do not use electric power. They are operated by the respective weaver using physical strength; the weaving process is kept going by pedaling, and the shuttle with the weft yarn is shot through the shed by hand through cords on the sides of the loom. This is how carpet production flourishes in many developing countries in remote areas that lack modern infrastructure. In 2010, there were reportedly 2.4 million handlooms in India, many more than looms.

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Hemp = Plant fiber, which is coarser than flax and is suitable only as a raw material for rope and cordage; recently used in Nepal and India for carpets.

Harrania or Harania = Village near Cairo in Egypt, where children and young adults make wall hangings in handicraft schools. These show naive drawings of people, animals, buildings and street scenes.

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Harshang = the name derives from the Turkish "kharchang", which means in German

"Cancer" means. This refers to a shield-like leaf-embellished crab design used primarily in Indo-Herat carpets; it is largely found in Persian and Caucasian carpets of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Harsin = City south of Kangvar in Kermanshah province in northwestern Iran. The name is considered to denote an extensive production of narrow Kurdish kilims from the area with eccentric wefts.

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Hartushi = Kurdish tribe from the vicinity of Hakkari in northeastern Anatolia; it makes pile carpets and kilims in clear blues and reds with two or three wefts between each row of knots.

Harun = Iranian place with formerly largely Jewish population and production of coarser Keshan rugs.

Haschtrud or Hashtrud = Persian for "eight rivers", a mountainous area in northwestern Iran southeast of Tabriz; it is home to Kurds and Shahsavan who knot carpets with highly geometricized shapes.

Hasir(s) = One or. Majority of probably the earliest specimens of Azerbaijani carpets. They are plant mats, which are considered to be the precursors of carpets; they were brown-gray in color and were intended to provide protection from soil moisture. Hasirs include palas, kilim shaddah, jajim, zili, sumakh and varni, for example, according to Azerbaijani carpet expert Latif Karimov. The earliest Hasirs were found in the Hasirli region and date back to around 400 B.C.

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Hasirli or Hatschly = this Turkish name means "cross" in German; carpets of this name are intended as a curtain in front of the door of nomad tents and have a cross-shaped pattern in their center, which has nothing to do with the Christian cross. Their size ranges from 100 x 125 to 140 x 160 centimeters. Very often, the "Y" motif or tulip pattern is found in Hatshlu carpets; the main color is a friendly red to brown-red; see "Insikush"

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Hautelisse = tapestries knitted on vertical handlooms; see these.

Hazara or Hazareh = tribe of the Aimaq group in northwestern Afghanistan, known for its flat-woven salt bags, saddlebags and kilims, and among the Shiite Muslims, therefore often persecuted.

Hebathi = Persian carpet pattern, see "Qashqai".

He-bei or Hopeh or Hopei = Province in northern China with the capital Tientsin. Contemporary silk carpets come from there; their warp is either cotton or silk, but the wefts are always cotton; besides, there are also wool carpets in this province.

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Hedra or Hijrah = it took place in 622 AD; meant is the flight resp. the exodus of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. The Hejira marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, which is based on the lunar year. This is significant for the conversion of Hedschra dates in carpets to Christian years. To convert the Hedschra year (A. H.) to A. D., which is the Christian year, one must subtract three percent from the respective A. H. year number and add 622 to the result.

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Heibe or Heybe = Turkish expression for a knotted double bag.

Herat = this city in northwestern Afghanistan, founded by Alexander the Great, once part of the Persian province of Khorasan and now located in Afghanistan, is considered the home of carpets with floral patterns. Herat was the center of courtly art of Mongol Khan Timur in the 14th century. It is probably the oldest carpet origin in Persia as well as a trading center for Beludj carpets from the surrounding area. Herat is among those carpet-making places of Persia, where mainly Beluch- carpets are produced and traded; they "flower carpets"

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Herati = decorative carpet motif named after the Afghan city of Herat, formed by a rose around which are sickle-shaped leaves; this pattern is one of the most common in nomadic as well as village and manufactory carpets.

Hereke = small town in the northwest corner of the Sea of Marmara, known for high quality Turkish carpets and named for a special kind of Turkish knotted works. "Harakeh" means "luxury" in German. Ottoman caliphs had founded a carpet manufactory there in 1843, which was transformed into a state-owned manufactory with an affiliated knotting academy in 1923 under the Turkish reformer Kemal Atatürk. The heyday of the art of knotting there is due to Sultan Abdul Medjid. In 1844, he had the court weaving workshop moved back from Cairo to Hereke. Hereke carpets were the first to achieve a minimum knotting density of 1 million knots per square meter; today, 20 million knots per square meter are the peak. Officially, only the pieces produced in the state manufactory may be called "Hereke". In the course of time the knotting sign of Herekes has changed a lot. In Hereke the technique of knotting looms was perfected. The manufactory was privatized after the Second World War. Hereke produces carpets in manufactories and in the home crafts; many patterns and motifs go back to the Ottomans (1226-1909). Hereke-style silk carpets became popular in the late 20th

century.

hundreds of years ago also knotted in the eastern Chinese province of Henan, as well as in Zhenping, Zhejiang and Shanghai, delivered to Turkey and sold there mostly as Turkish goods to tourists. One of the most densely woven herekes known is one with a density of 50 by 50 knots per square centimeter, or 25 million knots on the area of 1000 square centimeters; this hereke, however, is torn at the left edge, but is nevertheless for sale. (See "Exner, Herbert"!)

Heriz or Heris = Important carpet-making center in northwestern Iran in Persian Azerbaijan southeast of Tabriz. The city gives the collective name "Heriz" or "Heris" to the products of the entire knotting area of its surroundings. All carpets from the area have the same characteristics in drawing and knotting: warp and weft of thick cotton, the pile thread of thick, two-threaded, robust sheep's wool. Few knotted works of this region are patterned throughout, the majority have a medallion. Villages in the vicinity of Heris with independent knotting styles include Bakshayesh, Mehraban, Ahar, Bilverdi, Gharadje, Sharabian, Gorevan. Heriz motifs are often considered geometric renditions of Tabriz motifs; see also "Joraghan".

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Herki =This is the name given to members of the Kurdish tribe, which is the second largest after the Jaff; they now live mostly in Iraq, other parts in Iranian Kurdistan and Turkey; many are still nomads; they produce numerous carpets and flat weaves with sumakh structures, often in elongated formats.

Countries of Origin = A distinction is made between classical and non-classical countries of origin of carpets. Classical ones are Turkey, Iran, Caucasus, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tibet and China. Non-classical are Pakistan, India, Nepal, Vietnam, North Africa e.g. Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, the Balkan countries e.g. Romania, Albania, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia.

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Hexagon = hexagonal (carpet) pattern.

Deer = is often depicted on Chinese carpets. The deer, "lu" in Chinese, is considered a symbol of abundant income and prosperity in China. In its mouth, it often has a mushroom-like herb that expresses immortality ("Ling dschi tsau"); the deer also acts as a symbol of long life in China.

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Deer Kilim = Persian knotted carpet with deer or. Stag cow, which was also imitated in China in the middle of the 19th century; see also "Stag"! In the professional world there

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now the English term "Crane and deer rug", in German "Kranich-und-Hirsch- Teppich"; this used to exist in Armenian carpets (Karabagh), never in Iranian ones.

Hispano or Hispano-manresh = Designation for older carpets and rug work from Moorish Spain, especially if their drawing preserves traits of Islamic-Moorish ornamentation.

Hochknüpf- or Highloom = vertical tying or weaving loom; the warp beam is located above the cloth beam. It is mainly used in knotting carpets made from a pattern. Another type is the horizontal flat weaving or flat loom.

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Highland wool =in the highlands, the hair of sheep is denser, fatter and longer than in valley areas because of the more severe and harsher weather. Mountain sheep therefore provide better wool, which is less quickly brittle and longer retains its luster, consequently causes a higher quality of a knotting or weaving.

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Court rugs or yard rugs = Knotting works designed and woven mainly in Persian court manufactories. The heyday of courtly carpet art was between 1524 and 1629, when numerous courtly manufactories were established and new patterns and a new style were elaborated; figurative motifs were also adopted from bookbinding, calligraphy and miniature painters into carpet art.

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High Atlas = Mountain range in central Morocco, where Berber tribes make small rugs. Their dominant colors are red, gold and orange. Usually a large inner field with geometric motifs is surrounded by narrow borders. Symmetrical knots are used, which are knotted over two warp threads. Southwest of the High Atlas lies after a rocky plateau the Antiatlas.

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Holbein rugs = antique carpets from Anatolia around Konya, which are depicted in paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) to emphasize the person (s) depicted and later eagerly reknotted. As a result, carpets that are no longer physically extant have been preserved for posterity. (See also "Lotto carpets"!)

Honar = Seal of approval created in 2001 for carpets that have been awarded by a jury of experts carpet collections made of hand-spun mountain wool, predominantly natural colors, unusual patterns, in limited editions and STEP certification. The word is derived from Farsi = art.

Horror vacui = Latin expression for an artist's fear of leaving a large monochrome area undecorated.

Hosseinabad = Iranian village, about 40 kilometers from Hamadan; the peasant carpets produced there are known for their small formats, mostly in runner and bridge shapes.

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They are often called Ferahan, show the Herati pattern and have a fineness of about

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140,000 nodes per square meter.

Hotz rugs = In 1890, two English companies established carpet manufactories: Ziegler & Co in Karalkapak and Hotz & Son in London. Their products came as "Ziegler-" and

respectively.

"Hotz carpets" on sale. They partly imitate the Sultanabad pattern, partly Persian luxury carpet patterns. See also "Ziegler"!

h. s. = Abbreviation for the Islamic year count; see "Conversion"!

Dog, running = on many nomadic carpets especially in borders frequently occurring motif. The dog is considered a defense against thieves, disease and evil spirits.

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Hyacinth =one of the three typical "Ottoman decorative flowers", dkie appear as a carpet motif in oriental carpets (see "Carnation"!).

 

Hyderabad = Name of two major cities in southern India and southern Pakistan. Contemporary carpets are made in the latter.

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Ibrik = means "water jug" in German. This is also the name given to the knotted pattern in prayer rugs that hangs from the mihrab (gable) top of prayer rugs, recalling the prescribed ablution of the believer before ritual prayer (see "Salat").

Igdir = 1.: once the ancient city of Tsolakert, now the capital of the eastern Turkish province of Igdir on the border with Armenia, northwest of Mount Ararat; 2.: home to a Turkmen tribe.

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Igsalik = Turkmen spindle bag.

IHIB = Abbreviation for "Istanbul Carpet Exporters Association", the most important lobby group of the Turkish carpet and kilim industry and supporter of the carpet brand "Turkish Patterns".

Ikat = Weaving technique in which the yarn is dyed in sections before being processed; parts of it may remain undyed. The term comes from the Malay language and means "to tie off" or "to wrap around" in German. This technique is used to create stripes; this creates geometric patterns, but also more complex structures; not only the warp threads but also the weft threads can be dyed, which is called "doubleikat". Ikat fabrics are available, for example, from Uzbeks and in Indonesia.

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Illyat = general term for Persian nomadic rugs.

Ilkanids = Name of a khanate that existed in the 13th century. Century in the southwest of the Mongol Empire by the Hulagu dynasty was founded; it included Iran, Azerbaijan and central and eastern territories of modern Turkey.

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Imrali =carpet made in the penitentiary of the Turkish island of Imrali.

Imreli = Turkestan tribe whose name comes from Eimur, a sub-tribe of the Salores. The Imreli have been credited with independent rugs since 1980; however, this is disputed; there is no longer any rug production there.

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Inalu = Village in northwestern Iran; name of a sub-tribe of the Shahsavan.

Incescu or Incesu = City and county in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri; also trade name for Central Anatolian carpets in long formats from the area around Kayseri; they have multiple geometric medallions with yellow borders, red fields and aprons or flags at all ends. Flags, which are flat woven or knotted.

India = The South Asian subcontinent of India is the second most populous country in the world after China and has about 7.5 percent of the world's economic product in 2021, just under half as much as the United States. It is currently the world's largest producer of handmade carpets and flatweaves by volume. The great age of

antique qualitative Indian carpet production, however, was in the Mughal period, between 1526 and 1740.

Indigo = deep blue vegetable natural dye especially from India, which is also called Anil or Nile there. The plant secretes blue flakes only by fermentation. The natural and chemically produced indigo have the same composition.

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Indian rugs = The carpet-making art of northern India came there through the Mughals of Persia. Around 1880, American and European wholesalers, led by OCM in London, established carpet manufactories in Amritsar and Agra. With increasing prosperity in the West, carpet manufactories mushroomed in India in the 1970s. The quality of the wide range of products was initially partly inferior; all styles of Persia and Turkey were adopted. Today, Indian carpet production is turning to the "new moderns". Especially in Bhadohi and the surroundings of Varanasi, the former Benares, many carpet producers exist at present. The triangle of Agra, Jaipur and Bhadohi is considered

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"Bermuda Triangle of Carpet". India is currently the largest carpet producer in the world.

Indian Tibetans = rugs knotted in Tibetan refugee camps in India, modeled on Tibetan originals. (See also "Tibetan carpets", "Nepal Tibetans"!)

Indjelas = see "Endjelas"!

inscription rugs =Inscribed inscriptions can be found in many oriental carpets. They contain, usually in cartouches, suras from the Koran or the Hadith, saints' names, names or/and a signum of the weaver, the name of the person who ordered the carpet, blessings for the owner or quotations from famous poets or writers, sometimes only the place of origin. Many inscriptions are large and clear, some hidden, some almost illegible, because merely a reweaving of patterns that the weaver has aped without knowledge of the original script. Some carpets contain religious inscriptions and at the same time a sign of the weaver. Sometimes carpet inscriptions are repeated in a mirrored fashion, giving the carpet a visual balance. Particularly many inscriptions are found in Armenian carpets and those from the city of Hereke.

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carpet inscriptions are in Arabic, Turkish, Kufi, Armenian unique language or Nastaligh style; some calligraphy is difficult to read; see also "Gohar carpet"!

Insikush = delicate carpet ornament on fields of Tekke-Ensis. It has the shape of a Y and bears at its upper ends two lugs resembling horns or birds' heads; see "Hatschlu"

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Ipek = Turkish word for "silk".

Ipekli = Expression for carpets with silky pile, but made with mercerized cotton.

Iraq = Near Eastern republic between Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait with largely Islamic population and very few Christians. The country's knotted-carpet-savvy areas are in the north; kilims are made around the city of Hai in the south of the country.

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Iran, until 1936 Persia = the country is the 25th largest economy in the world; by population - currently about 83 million -- the 19th largest country in the world. It has the world's largest stockpiles of crude oil and natural gas, and possesses high economic

future potential. The state controls more than half of the national economy; this and social capital have been shrinking for years, and the currency is steadily losing purchasing power internationally. Since the 1979 revolution, it has called itself the Islamic Republic of Iran. Next to or after the Caucasus, it is the oldest country in the world that has consistently cultivated carpet culture to this day. Persia is a world leader in the development of innovative naturalistic carpet designs, the combination of motifs into imaginative patterns, and in the development of sensational colors in the visual impact of carpets, but since the Iranian Revolution it has been in fashionable retreat on the carpet markets. For a more manageable structuring of Persian carpet making, the following division is usually made: the northwest with the center of Tabriz, central Persia with the centers of Kashan, Isfahan and Dschuschegan, southern Persia with the center of Kirman, eastern Persia with the centers of Herat and Maschad.

 

Isfahan = Persian major city at the crossroads of the ancient Iranian trade routes from east to west and from south to north. It is the capital of the Iranian province of the same name, which has long played a leading role in the trade of Persian knotting and weaving. It has been the namesake of very fine hand-knotted Persian carpets with motifs from the Safavid era since the 17th century. The density of the carpets, dominated by floral madaillons and/or animal images and made partly or entirely of silk, increased in recent decades to more than a million knots per square meter. Carpets from Isfahan have up to five borders, as well as secondary borders. These are often in a color opposite to the background. Until 1800, Isfahan was the capital of Persia.

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Islam = religious movement from the Arabia of the 7th. Century after Christ. This is the name given to the teachings of Allah, transmitted to mankind by the Prophet Muhammad; the Arabic word means "devotion" or "submission" in German, and refers to the strict rules of the Koran, which is considered the foundation of Islamic culture.

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Islamic calendar = see "A. H."!

 

Isparta = Turkish city in southwestern Anatolia; there is a large commercial finishing center and market for carpets from the Denizli region, Afyon and far beyond; the patterns are copies of various Turkish and Persian carpets.

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Istanbul =formerly Constantinople or Byzantium; a major Turkish city on the Bosphorus, an arm of the sea that separates Europe and Asia; important place of origin and trade of carpets; the only city on earth that lies on or connects two continents.

Izmir = Turkish trading city, formerly called Smyrna. It is located on the west coast of Anatolia on the Aegean Sea; earlier carpets of the city, made with wool, and later carpets with cotton, show large floral patterns; currently, no carpets are produced there; the city functions only as a collection and trading center for carpets.

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Izmit =the former Nicomedia, a Turkish city in the province of Kocaeli on the Sea of Marmara amidst high mountains and center of the province of Kocaeli.

Jabuye =Tibetan seat mat or pillow.

Jacquard, Joseph Marie =Inventor of the Jacquard automatic loom, a mechanical pattern control system for patterned woven carpets; Joseph-Marie Jacquard was the son of a weaver who significantly advanced loom technology with the system he invented in 1825.

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Jaff = see "Djaff"!

Jahaz =Azerbaijani headdress for camels made of sheep, cotton or goat hair, decorated with shells, mirrors or tiny bells on top, hung with brightly colored tassels on the bottom; this was supposed to serve as a defense against the "evil eye"

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Jaipur = City located in north central India in the wool-producing province of Rajastahn; here began in the mid-19th century. They were mostly copies of Mughal patterns that dated back to the Mughal dynasty in India; this dynasty had moved to India from Mongolia in the 15th century. Century from Mongolia to India (see "Mughal carpets"). Today, Jaipur produces a wide variety of carpets, from the traditional to the most hyper-modern, and in large quantities.

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Hunting Carpet = rare, exquisite knotted products of Persian workshops of the 16th century. They were made around Safavid court households and were products of luxurious court tastes. The carpet patterns are similar to those of book illumination and show hunters galloping in fields and forests, hunted game, dancing angels, huris serving drinks in luxurious cups, musicians playing on lutes and tambourines. The most beautiful, best and largest preserved hunting carpet is exhibited in the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna.

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Jajim = see "Jajim"!

Jaipur = Capital of the Indian state of the same name, today the Indian center of many carpet manufactures, along with Bhadohi and Agra.

Jalameh = see "Yalameh"!

Japan = In Japan, although since the 16th. Century carpets were woven and knotted, but they came only rarely into the trade and are not counted among the Oriental carpets. The work materials are hardly sheep or cotton, rather hemp and jute; they are mostly poor imitations of European or Asian models.

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Jarkent or Yarkent = Province and city in East Turkestan, formerly a main collection point for East Turkestan carpets, some in wool and some in silk.

Jawalakhel = City in Nepal, where Tibetan refugees produce contemporary cotton-based carpets. In Nepal, refugee camps for Tibetan carpet weavers have been specifically established on the initiative of European countries to provide them with work.

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Jijim = see "Djijim"!

Jofti- or Djofti- or Jufti knot = see "Djufti Knot" Jolam or Jollami or Jolami or Yolami = see "Yolami"! Jollar = see "Djollar"!

Jomoud or Jomud or Jomut = Turkmen tribal associations between the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea and the lower reaches of the Amurdarja River; also name for Turkmen carpets from this area with the main colors reddish-purple to maroon, sometimes with light-ground background, 2000 to 3000 Persian knots per square decimeter. The Jomoud are one of the five main Turkmen tribes.

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Jomudic Göklen or Goklan = Turkmen tribe that lives mainly in the Iranian border area and markets its carpets through Iranian places, for example, through Gorgan or Gonbad- i-Kabus.

Joraghan = Northwest Persian term for inferior quality of Heris carpets; see

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"Heris"!

Josan or Jozan = see "Djozan"!

Joshaghan or Joshegan or Joshegan = ancient town and province with carpet production, which produced from the 18th. Until the 20th century made beautiful carpets. The town was destroyed several times by earthquakes. Today the name is used to characterize carpet patterns related to the old pieces of the city. In the patterns of the pieces predominate jouschegan palmettes; the carpets are tight and tightly knotted.

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Joval = see "Choval"!

Jozan = see "Djozan"!

Jewish-Israeli carpets = A good part of Jewish-Israeli carpets originated outside the geographically so defined area, although there have been several attempts to build an independent carpet culture. In the twenties of the 20th century, the Bezalel School of Art was established in Jerusalem for this purpose. Its name is derived from the name of the biblical creator of Noah's Ark and the holy ark for the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The Marvadiah carpet workshop in Jerusalem produced carpets with Jewish and Art Nouveau motifs from 1906 to 1931. There has been no Jewish-Hebrew carpet production since 1997. Old classic Israeli carpets are expensive and hard to find.

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Jufti node = see "Jufti"!

Jurte or Yurte = round tent of the Turkmen; in Turkish the word "Yurte" means something like "home", in Turkmen "house" (= öy), in Russian "Kibitka".

Yute = Natural fiber obtained from the stem of raffia and sisal plants that grow in South Asian wetlands such as the Ganges Delta or Bangladesh and used locally. Jute is biodegradable, has a golden silky sheen, dyes well but is susceptible to rot; it is added to wool as a filler and is also used in carpet making; in 17th-century French savonneries, the warp and weft were often made of jute.

Juval = see "Chowal".

Jewel of Mohammed = eight-pointed star of Jewish origin, which is considered a symbol of divinity; occasionally this motif is also called the "Star of Solomon".

Kaaba = Cube-shaped stone building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which functions as the spiritual center of Islam. A revered meteorite stone is inserted into the wall of the Kaaba. Its upper half is shrouded with a black cloth; a gold-embroidered band with calligraphic writing runs around it. The Kaaba is occasionally woven into prayer rugs as a decorative motif.

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Kabistan or Cabistan = since the end of the 19th. Controversial trade name for fine Caucasian carpets used since the end of the 19th century, which fell out of use; however, there is no geographical location of this name. They were carpets close to the pattern of Cuba, Shirvan or Genche carpets, densely knotted and shiny pile.

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Kabul = Capital of Afghanistan. Before the Russians occupied Afghanistan, the bazaar of this city was the main point of origin for new Afghan carpets as well as for artificially aged Turkmen pieces. Today Kabul, along with northern Afghanistan, is a major production center for Afghan carpets. Tajiks and Hazara are the main weavers. Afghan carpets have been among favorites of the contemporary carpet trade since the late 20th century.

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Kabutrahang or Kabutarhan = Place north of Hamadan in northwestern Iran, where large carpets are made; these have a weft thread on a cotton ground and are roughly knotted with symmetrical knots; the designs are usually on a red ground with a medallion and scattered floral branches or diamond-shaped motifs on a camel-colored ground.

Kadife = Name after the Arabic term "qatifa" for velvet, name for early Ottoman silk velvet fabrics.

Kajars = Persian dynasty 1786-1919.

Kafsade = Carpet with medallion and mirror pattern.

Kagizman = Kurdish village and county in Karsim province in northeastern Turkey near Kars in eastern Anatolia; an earthquake-stricken area with carpet production. Carpets with modified Caucasian patterns and bright colors on wool background are produced there, which have elongated formats.

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Kaimuri = a floral pattern made by weavers in the Indian Kaimur hills south of Benares. This is descended from Ferahan in Persia.

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Kairene rugs = see "Mamluk Rugs"!

Kairouan = City in the north of central Tunisia; there in the early 19th. Century mainly prayer rugs were made there with prayer niches facing each other. The areas in the mihrabs are red; some rugs have Kufic borders. Later Kairouan rugs were knotted with natural colored sheep wool in gradations of black, gray, brown, yellow-brown and white.

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Kaitag = Designation of textile artworks produced in a mountain massif and coastal strip between the Black Sea and the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus province of Daghestan. This region used to lie between the Russian and Persian Empires. There, between the 16th and 19th centuries, unusually designed embroidered needlework was made according to down-to-earth models, partly of wool and partly of silk, merely for home use. Under the

Soviet rule in the Caucasus, this production was suppressed. The Kaitags are one of 33 distinct ethnic groups that live a secluded life around the city of Derbent, formerly al-Bab. The vivid designs and colors of the embroidered cloths made by the women of the Kaitags in domestic diligence combine Zoroastrian, Byzantine, Fatimid, Mongolian, Timurid, Mamluk, Chinese, Ottoman and Celtic traditions of a multi-religious mountain population. Further design influences of these embroidered cloths brought in their former use in ritual celebrations during weddings, births and funerals. Kaitags are dominated by rectangular fields and vividly colored silks. Scholars consider the creations of kaitags to be closely related to the ornaments that dominate the oldest physically preserved knotted carpet on Earth, the Pazyryk, as well as the embroidered felt curtains found in its ice tomb in the Altai Mountains.

 

Kalgan = City in China; its name is the Mongolian word for "battering ram", it refers to a passage through the Great Wall of China and is a main collection point for Chinese carpets.

Kalif = spiritual and secular leaders of Islam; see this.

Calligraphy = Calligraphy art, which is particularly intensively cultivated in the Orient, because pictorial representations of people in Islam were and are mostly prohibited. It experienced its heyday at the founding of Islam; it was considered the most important form of artistic expression. Arabic calligraphy was developed from the Nabatacan script, a family of Semitic writing forms that was transferred from the ancient Phoenicians to the Greeks and ultimately into the Latin alphabet.

Kalpak = means "hat" or "cap" in German and is the name of a Kyrgyz tribe; there are carpets with the name "Kara Kalpak"

Camel wool = cold-protective knotting material for carpets, but less elastic than sheep's wool, difficult to dye and susceptible to moths; it is used only for camel-brown knotting places, for example. B. in Hamadan and Sarab used.

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Comb = a motif especially on prayer rugs, which reminds the pious Islami on the commandment of ablution and cleanliness before the daily ritual prayer; the same purpose serves the occasional representation of a water jug.

Kamseh = see "Chamseh".

Kangal = Turkish town in central Anatolia southeast of Sivas, where so-called yastiks, small Anatolian upholstery or cushion surfaces, are manufactured.

edge or carpet-edge = often called "Shirazi"; refers to the long sides of knotting and weaving. They are secured from fraying or in their durability by looping wool around them, sometimes goat hair. More often, at the back of the carpet along the side edges about 4 centimeters wide bands - formerly leather, now plastic - are sewn to prevent curling. See "Salband"

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Cap = Turkmen name for any kind of Turkmen bag.

Kapan = Kurdish name for camel blankets, which often have tassels.

Kapun(n)uk = knotted angular, unusual shape of a decoration for the inside of Turkmen nomad tent doors or peasant huts; they often have in the middle and

always have tassels at the ends; in the past they were used especially by the Tekke tribe; "kapu" means "door" in German.

Karabagh = Mountainous area in Russian Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, an enclave considered among the oldest carpet-making regions in the Caucasus. "Kara" means "dark", the Azeri word "bagh" means "garden" in German; what is meant is the depiction of a garden in a black-earth landscape on a carpet; Karabagh is an area with an ancient knotting tradition. The capital is the carpet-making Shusha. Karabagh carpets are among the largest Caucasians in their dimensions; common patterns of these pieces are Sunburst or Eagle Kazaks, Cloudband, Kasim Ushak, Lampa or Herati.

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Karadagh or Qaradagh = in German "schwarzes Gebirge", a region in Persian Azerbaijan; also collective name of carpets from the area south of the Atrak and the Caucasian province of Karabagh. They are knotted works of farmers, herders and nomads, rural-simple, generously drawn, hard-wearing carpets with shiny wool supplied by the sheep of the region; medium-high pile and 1000 to 1800 Turkish knots per square inch, i.e. 60,000 to 1,200/m².

Karadj = City in Azerbaijan, Iran, about 30 kilometers west of Tehran.

Karadja or Karaja = 1. : often misused term for "gharadjeh". 2nd : designation of carpets from northwest Persia with Caucasian influence, a Heriz species.

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Karagaschli = Village south of Derbend in the Caucasus; 19th-century carpets of this place. Century are attributed to the Cuba type and have patterns consisting of toothed squares, which can be called geometrized palmettes. They are small carpets that have a density of 90,000 knots per square meter.

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Karageceli = Western Turkish tribes, who settle east of Bergama. Kara is Turkish and means "black" in German, "Keceli" means "goat."

Karagöz or Karagös = this Turkish expression means "black-eyed" in German; it refers to a settled nomadic tribe from the area between Hamadan and Bijar. "Karagös" also means in Turkey what in Europe is called Kasperl, a figure of fun.

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Karahisar = 1. : Name for carpets made in Afyon (in German = "Opium"), a town in western central Anatolia, a former Seljuk city. 2nd: small town in the county of Tavas in the Turkish textile province of Denizli.

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Karakoyunlu = carpet-making nomadic Yüruk tribe in the Central Taurus in Anatolia; in German, the name means "black sheep".

Karakul = originally Asian breed of sheep whose flow color varies between black, gray, yellow-brown and brown. High-quality items made of Karakul are made from the skin of newborn or unborn Karakul lambs. The name means in German

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"black slave".

Karaman or Karamanli = Turkish name of a fat-tailed sheep breed, named after a town in south-central Anatolia. Among other things, knotted carpets are made there, but the town is best known for the kilims woven in the area; the "karamani" are made using the slit kilim technique. Karaman is also an obsolete European term for Turkish kilims in general.

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Karaover = Name for a special type of Milas rugs with fields consisting of single vertical narrow or multiple vertical narrow compartments.

Karapinar = In German, this Turkish village name means "black spring". The village is located in the south of central Anatolia, south of Konya; ancient carpets of this name are valued for their high pile.

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Karachi = Major city in southern Pakistan. Mainly factory carpets are made there, mostly copying Turkmen patterns.

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Karatschoph = Village in the Southwest Caucasus. The carpets made there belong to the group of Kazaks, which show animal abstractions in clear drawing, but with sparse ornamentation.

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Carding = Method of making wool suitable for spinning by combing and washing; the wool is pulled through a series of metal teeth called a carding brush. Hand carded wool is often referred to as "hand spun".

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Kargarhi = solid, inexpensive Afghan rugs with different geometric patterns; "Kargar" means "worker".

Karhane or Kar-Chaneh = Central Persian term for "workshop" for making carpets and other art objects. The Farsi word "Kar" = means "work",

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"Chaneh" in German "Haus". Such manufactories were grouped together during the reign of Shah Abbas I with the aim of creating an industrial state manufactory that served the court. The patterns were created by professional designers. The workers were socially secured; they received sick pay and a pension in old age. At present, there are only a few carpet manufactories in Iran and Turkey; most carpets there are made by home crafts.

Karimov, Latif = well-known Azerbaijani state artist and carpet designer (see

"Ganja Group"!)

Kars = City in northeastern Anatolia near the border with the Caucasus; the carpets made there have modified Caucasian patterns, are made only of wool, are coarsely knotted, and are similar to Kazaks in both structure and pattern. In the last decades before 2000, large quantities of this type of carpet came on the market. Today, this production has almost come to a standstill.

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Cardboard = in the context of carpets, this term means a knotting pattern that has been drawn or pasted on a cardboard with all its details, and according to which the knotter can make an intricate pattern. Each small square pre-drawn on the cardboard corresponds to a knot; its color is also pre-drawn.

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Cardboard = Expression of ornamental lore; meant is an oval, medallion-shaped or angular ornamental frame with its own decoration, which in carpets, eg. e.g. contain pious inscriptions, designations of origin or weaver's marks. Often occurs in borders, where they alternate with other motifs.

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Kazakhstan = landlocked Central Asian country, former Soviet republic between the Caspian Sea and the Altai Mountains, extends to China and Russia, lies north of Uzbekistan and has become the largest and richest economic power in Central Asia. The carpet economy is negligible; heavy, petroleum and natural gas industries dominate.

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Kazak or Kazak =most famous among the Caucasian carpets, which were knotted by Kazaks, Kurds and Armenians until about 1930 in the difficult-to-access mountains of the Lesser Caucasus in the home.  Many types of Caucasian carpets such as Karabagh, Ghendje and others are offered under this name. Today, this type of carpet is one of the most popular of Afghanistan.

Kashan = important carpet center in central Persia; it is considered the center of the silk industry and arts and crafts. In the 16th century, four groups of carpets were made in Kashan: a) pile carpets with four-petaled central medallions and corner spandrels; b) similar carpets with animal combat scenes; c) carpets with animal designs, arranged singly or in groups; d) pile carpets with four-petaled central medallions bordered with a band. The hunting rug in the Vienna MAK is a Kashan lace product. Kashans are seen as the most conservative of all Iranian carpets; they are made in sine knots; the ground weave is cotton, in silk kashans made of silk the fine blue weft thread is barely visible on the back, the pile is low in older pieces, higher since about a century. This style of making is consistently maintained until recent times.

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Kashan Dabir-Sanayeh = Persian master weaver, whose creations differ significantly from usual Kashans by color choice and designs.

Kashan medallion = Central medallion as it is used in Kashan rugs. It is shaped like a diamond or a pointed oval, which may also be lobed or toothed. It is filled with floral motifs and always has some appendages at the top and bottom.

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Kashgar or Kaxgar = City in western East Turkestan in the Tarim Basin, near the border with Kyrgyzstan. Perfect silk carpets with gold and silver embroidery were produced there in the 18th century. These resemble the products of Khotan and Samarkand. Today Kashgar is a gathering place for nomadic carpets from the deserts and mountains of the Uyghur autonomous region, in which the basic Turkmen character of the knotted works often emerges; today there are no more nomadic carpets from there.

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Kashkai = see "Qashqai".

Kashkuli or Qashguli = Turkic-speaking tribes in the deserts of southwestern Iran. They are one of the five tribes of the Khamseh Confederation ("chamseh" = "five"). Their rugs and kilims are among the finest of their kind. The wefts are usually colored red.

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Kashmar = City of the same name province in eastern Iran in Khorasan, about 200 km south of Meshed, not to be confused with the Indian province of Kashmir. The city is known for its saffron production and hand-knotted carpets. Today it is known on for coarse Nain-style carpets.

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Kashmir = 1. : northernmost part of India bordering Pakistan; a Himalayan country with a largely Muslim population and the habitat of the mountain-adapted Kashmir goat, whose fine hair is made into scarves and other quality textiles. The area was under British administration until 1947 and has been a bone of contention between Pakistan and India ever since. Today, from this region come the world-famous cashmere carpets with silk pile, but also made of artificial silk. Warp and weft are made of cotton.

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The most common quality has about 500,000 knots per square meter. 2nd: Designation of very fine carpets produced with wool from cashmere, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, often decorated with the boteh motif. Contemporary cashmere carpets are usually knotted on cotton ground, and in the better make they

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F units of 160 to 320 knots per square inch, which is 250,000 to 500,000 knots per square meter. Today, the main products from there are silk carpets, which are exported in large quantities to Europe; they usually have cotton as warp and weft.

Cashmere goat = Mountain goat species originally found in Kashmir in the Himalayan region. The undercoat of this goat, called "pashmina", is very fine and silky; its fibers are rounder than those of sheep's wool and taper to a point. Today, Kashmir goats are also bred in Australia, China, Iran and Mongolia; see "Pashmina"

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Kashkuli = see "Gashkuli"!

Kasim-Ushak = Patterns of 19th century Caucasian carpets. Century from Karabagh area, which are from flower and dragon carpets. In these patterns, a large toothed diamond is enclosed by four hooked brackets.

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Cassette ornamentation = rectangularly divided inner field of a carpet with similar ornamentation of the individual rectangular fields.

 

Katababandlik = see "Ketebes"!

Kathmandu = Capital of Nepal and place of origin of knotted carpets made there by Tibetans who fled. See "Nepal"

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Katt, Jan = contemporary German carpet and textile designer from Bochum in the Ruhr area, who strives to give the outdated design of the oriental carpet a fresher image through modern motifs, patterns and color combinations; he also creates new names for these pieces. Katt has his carpets made in Nepal, India, Thailand or Morocco.

Katum = Tibetan Pillar Rug.

Kaudani = tribe of Beludjen in eastern Iran and western Afghanistan.

Caucasus = one of the five major knotting regions of oriental carpets in the world, located at a narrow mountainous migration gateway between Asia and Europe, which led to the development of an amazing variety of attractive carpet motifs and patterns. The Caucasus forms a land bridge between Europe and Asia; it encompasses about

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400,000 square kilometers of area between the Caspian and Black Seas; it is believed to be the earliest country of origin of oriental knotted textiles. All patterns and motifs of Caucasian carpets show strong colors and geometric (rectilinear) drawing. Most of the Caucasian carpets are made of wool and served for own use. They are the result of centuries of nomadic handicraft tradition as it developed in this region. Until about 1930 there have been village carpets, later good but soulless manufactured carpets; since about 1990 this production has become extinct.

Kavak = Behind this city name from east-central Anatolia, located southwest of Sivas, is the Turkish expression for "poplar" ("poplar"); there prayer rugs are made with stepped mihrabs.

Kavkas = Turkish or. Persian name for the Caucasus.

Kayseri or Cay series = Name of the former Caesarea, a Turkish city with strong Roman fortifications, located at the crossroads of important trade routes in the center of Anatolia. The city is one of the most important places of origin of large-sized wool-cotton-

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or silk carpets with pile of sheep wool or silk. In the city, manufactory carpets with floral patterns similar to those from Tabriz with predominant use of silk from Bursa were and still are produced. Until 2000, saphs (see these) with pile of mercerized cotton, called "flosh", or artificial silk came from there.

 

kbA = Abbreviation of "controlled organic cultivation" of cotton. With kbA, the use of chemical fertilizers, defoliants and synthetic pesticides is prohibited during cultivation. kbA cotton therefore has a low allergy potential and is gentle on the skin. kbA is monitored by independent institutes and certifies the organic cultivation of cotton annually. For organic cotton, the cultivation soil must have been used for three years without chemicals, in addition, the cultivation in mixed culture and crop rotation.

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Kelardascht or Kalardasht = Iranian valley in the Elburs mountain range northwest of Tehran; carpets there have large red medallions with the Memling gül and stepped or white contours.

 

Kelim or Kilim or Ghileem = woven carpet, one of the many types of flat weaving, older than the knotted carpet. It is the result of a weaving process in which the wefts are entered pattern-forming only over the area of the intended pattern and are reversed and returned at its boundaries. Depending on the type of pattern reversal, slit kilims are distinguished from the single and multiple weft kilims and the so-called running kilims. The name comes from Turkish and used to mean only

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"Prayer rug". Incorrectly, all types of flatweaves are often called "kilim". Originally, they were made only for personal use as bridal offerings, room dividers, coverings, gate curtains, or transport wrappings. They originated in nomadic settlements or village communities. Later kilims were woven by almost all oriental peoples. Senneh kilims are the finest and softest, and Caucasian ones are considered the most beautiful.

 

Kelimlik = means in German "like a small kilim"; it is the name for broadloom finishing borders on knotted carpets.

 

Kelleh = Persian size name for long, narrow rugs of about 350 x 150 centimeters. The name comes from the Persian term for "main rug", which lies across the top among several other rugs in the room. The name refers to the traditional carpet arrangement in oriental countries, where in palaces and luxurious homes four carpets are arranged so that a kelleh lies across the top, in the middle a wider ghali with a narrower companion carpet on each side.

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Kenareh = means "hem" or "edge" in Persian and Turkish and means a normal narrow runner, which is called "gallery" in German.

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Kendirli-Kula = Double niche carpet made of Kula, usually with irregular wefts, occasionally made of jute, causing pronounced horizontal ribs on the back of such carpets.

Kepse-Gül = Motif of the Turkmen Jomud tribe in the form of elongated anchors contained in the ray bundles of Göl; in its center is an octagon.

Kerki = 1. : Azerbaijani village surrounded by Armenia on the M3 road between Yerevan and southeast Armenia, occupied by Armenians. 2nd : a town on the Amu-Darya in Turkmenia, a gathering place for Turkmen carpets, especially Turkmen Afghans, Kisil Ayaks, Kara Kalpaks and Ersari Turkmen.

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Kerman or Kirman = City and province in southeastern Iran. Carpets have been made there since the Safavid era. In the early 19th century, Kerman became famous for producing hand-woven shawls. The great period of carpet production there began around 1890; in the early nineties of the twentieth century, most Kerman carpets were exported to the United States. These were knotted on a cotton ground with three wefts between each row of knots. The fineness ranged from 300,000 to

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500,000 knots per square meter. The patterns were intricate floral arrangements; there are medallion rugs, prayer rugs, and checkered patterns, and a wide range of colors. Well-known contemporary carpet designers in Kerman include Arjomand, Sefaresh, and Golam Hussein.

Kermanshah = City and district in western Iran on the road between Hamadan and Baghdad, currently called Bakhtaran; it is a market for sheep wool and place of origin of Kurdish village carpets with symmetrical knots with a fineness of up to 500. 000 knots per square meter.

Kermes or Kermesrot = see "Lac" and "Cochenille".

Ketebes = Azerbaijani term for "cartridge". Usually it is used for the center field of a carpet or its medallion. The carpet name "Katababandlik" refers to "Ketebes" as a relevant design element; see this!

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Chain = the taut yarns on the knotting loom, through which the knotting yarn is looped and fastened into individual knots. Above the knots and across the warp, after the entire width of the warp is covered with knots, the weft is pulled and beaten tight on the knots with a comb (daragh). The fringes of a carpet are the extended warp, which are cut with a predetermined length. The length of the fringes is individual and has nothing to do with the value of each object.

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Keun & Co = Austrian carpet company, established in the late 19th century. Century in the region of Ushak in Turkey raised a carpet production with 80 employees.

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Khaden = Tibetan sitting and sleeping rug.

Khagangma = Seat mat or. Textile back of chair seats placed on another carpet or prayer rug in Tibetan monasteries.

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Khal Mohammadi = medium quality Afghan carpets, which the dealer "Hadji Mohammadi from Kunduz launched several decades ago.

Khal Mohammadi Belgique =carpet knotted from imported European wool, mostly from Belgium, which gives their pile an extreme luster.

Khalik or Chalik = U-shaped or. rectangular Turkmen weave with triangular ends and appendages, used both as camel ornaments or as a curtain in front of a bridal palanquin at a wedding; usually comes from the "Tekke" tribe.

Khampa-Dzong =important Tibetan carpet production site.

Khamseh = 1. : area in northwestern Iran, south of Zanjan, where small, low-quality rugs originated 2. : tribal confederation in southwestern Iran, see

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"Chamseh".

Khatai = Azerbaijani carpet from the17th century. It is one of the variants of Ajdahali carpets (see this!), whose name means "dragon".

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dragon motifs were/are characteristic of Turkic peoples; they are also among the oldest carpet motifs in Azerbaijan; there they are often combined with names of one of those tribes, which are among the oldest in the country.

Khatchli or Katchli or Hatschlu = see "Hatschlu"!

Khiva = City and district in Russian Turkestan, south of Lake Aral, formerly an independent khanate; in the 19th century. Century collection and shipping point for Turkmen carpets; Youmud Turkmen settle around Khiva. They are partly under Caucasian influence with their ornaments of leaves, vines, animals and geometric patterns. Khiva carpets are also called Kisilayak.

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Khod rang = in Persian means "natural color"; this refers to carpets that are made only with natural wool. Meant are also those carpets that have been knotted especially in the sixties of the twentieth century in the Chahar Mahal region of Persia.

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Khoja Roshnai = Designation for the finest Afghan carpets with rather dark coloring.

Khurjun =Azerbaijani saddle or travel bag consisting of two parts.

Kordschin = see "Chordschin"!

Khorrassan or Khoros(s)an =one of the largest Persian provinces in the far northeast of the country with a lot of sheep breeding and saffron cultivation; often misused name of origin of carpets.

Khorramabad = Market center in Luristan in southwestern Iran.

Khotan, Hetien or Hotien = City in East Turkestan in China, as well as the name of a type of carpet that was made there; this took place as early as the seventh century. In 1870, about 5,000 carpets per year were said to have been exported from this city and its surroundings. Khotan is considered the place of origin of most of the Turkestan medallion carpets; the carpets from there always have a basic cotton structure. Early carpets from there usually have three wool threads as weft between each row of knots; some Khotan carpets from the 18th and 19th centuries were made with metallic yarns. Century were made with metallic yarns; later Khotan carpets have cotton ground structures; the wool carpets were knotted with densities of 40 to 100 asymmetrical knots per square inch, silk carpets with densities up to 200 knots.

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Khoylivan or Choylivan = Border town in West Azerbaijan province north of Urmia on the Silk Road.

Khusistan or Susiana =an area inhabited by Turkmen, Lurs and Bakhtiars.

Khyrsek = rough-knotted carpets from Hamadan, which look shaggy. The name means

"young bear".

Kibitka =ribbon made partly in knotting and partly in flat-weaving technique; served Turkmen nomads as ornaments in their round yurts or living tents; see

"Yurt"!

Kibla or Quibla = see "Ghable"!

Kif = Persian term for a purse or small bag.

Kilin or Kilim = Old Persian animal motif, a lion or a doe, which is said to originate from Chinese art; others think China later adopted the animal motif from Persia; see "Kilim".

Kilimgulu = see "Gul"!

Child rugs = A distinction is made between modern play carpets for children's rooms and inexpensive knotted carpets that underage children in Far Eastern workshops anfertig(t)en. Against the latter argue non-profit organizations that want to eliminate child labor on carpets.

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Kyrgyz = Central Asian people, some of them still living nomadically, weaving carpets. They live north of Tajikistan, which borders Chinese Turkestan to the east. The carpets from there are of low quality, often lacking color and design harmony.

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Kirmanshah = City on the Kerne River southwest of Hamadan. The carpets there are mainly blue or red, less often cream/ivory; in the central part is usually a large medallion, oval or a square drawn out in length.

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Kirsehir = Turkish city with carpet production located in the province of the same name in central Anatolia, a good 150 kilometers southeast of Ankara. Carpets from there became largely known by the name Mecidi-Kirsehir. This is attributed to Sultan Abdül Mecid (1839-1861), under whom French influences on Ottoman knotted works had a strong creative impact. From Kirsehir different types of carpets are known.

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Kis or Kiz = 1. : prefix from Turkish, translated it means "girl" or "bride".

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2. : designation for carpets woven with great care by a bride as dowry for the future groom, e.g. Kis-Gördes, Kis-Bergama or Kis-Kelim; in trade this prefix is often given for special quality, not for the origin of the piece. E.g., "Kis- Kilim" is a woven kilim made by a girl for her groom.

Kis-Ghiordes =this is the name given to small-sized carpets used as bridal gifts in Turkey.

Kizil = 1. : Turkish word for "red"; 2nd: name of a place in eastern Turkestan; 3rd: archaeological site where pile carpets were made in the 15th and 16th centuries, found as fragments only in 1913. The pieces feature knots tied on a single warp thread, with both ends of the thread protruding from the same side of the warp.

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Kizil Ayak or Kizil Ajak = 1. : Turkish expression for "red foot"; the Turkish word "kizil" means "red". 2nd : Turkmen tribe considered a subdivision of the Ersari; due to the great similarity of their structure and patterns, it is often difficult to distinguish Kizil Ajak rugs from Chub Bash weavings. The major gul of the Kizil Ajak is the Tauk Noska (in Turkish, "chick motif gul"), a Turkmen motif used by the Kizil Ayak, Ersari, Arabachi, Yomoud, and Khodor tribes; this gul concludes two small

animals in each quarter; in early versions, the animal has two heads; its origin is traced to the ancient Luristani in the eleventh century, an ancient clan that used an Iranian language and lived in the Zagros Mountains of southwestern Persia. The small gul of the Kizil Ajak is the chemche (= spoon or ladle); it is among the guls in Turkoman rugs, is made of a quartered diamond, and often has eight radial arms. Kizil ajak carpets have asymmetrical knots that are open to the right.

Little Asia = mountainous area in the south of the Black Sea, bordered on the west and south by the Mediterranean Sea, it forms politically the main part of Asian Turkey. Its population is a mixture of Greeks, Kurds, Turkmen, Armenians, Israelites and European minorities. It has made history in ancient times, as there were notable Greek and Persian cultural and religious centers here, such as Pergamon, Christian apostles passed through it, and the famous Western Anatolian (Anatolia =

"Land of the Rising Sun") carpet creations; it was here that the second important carpet knot, called the Gördes or Senneh knot, was created.

 

node = Loop over several threads, the smallest component of a carpet pile, which can be wool, cotton or silk; pile threads are looped in different ways around warp threads; see "knotting", "Persian", "Turkish" or "Spanish knot".

number-of-nodes = A carpet knotted according to a pattern will be the stronger and therefore the more valuable, the denser and tighter the knots are knotted, the more closely the warp threads lie next to each other, the finer these warp threads are, the finer the weft threads are and the finer the knotting wool is, the more knots there are on a unit of area, e.g. one square centimeter. e.g. one square centimeter or one square meter. The more knots per unit of measurement, the finer the carpet, but also the longer the working time required. The number of knots in a carpet knotted according to a pattern determines its fineness, its quality and its market value. For nomadic carpets, the number of knots and thus the fineness is usually not a criterion for its value.

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count nodes = To determine the number of knots - strictly speaking, loops - of a knotted carpet requires great precision and a good eye: you stake out 10 centimeters vertically and horizontally on the back of the carpet with needles, count the knots between these points, multiply both values and take them times 100. The result is the number of knots per square meter.

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Tie density or fine = the number of nodes per square meter or square decimeter or square centimeter or square inch or square foot. To be able to calculate the different measurements inches or feet or centimeters into the other, you need to know the following: One square inch is 0.092903 square meters; one square inch is 6.4516 square centimeters. One square foot is 929.03 square centimeters or 0.09 square meters; for example, 300,000 knots per square meter is 194 knots per square inch.

Tie Setting = Specify the knot density intended by the weaver for a carpet before it is made; this predetermines the fineness of the knotting.

Tying = is the main manual activity in the production of carpets on knotting or weaving looms. Knotting is usually done by women, but in exceptional cases by men; see "baft". Carpets are usually knotted from the bottom up. There are different types of knotting. (See "Turkish", "Persian", "Djufti knot"!)

Through the vertically stretched and divided warp threads, horizontal weft threads are shot above a completed row of knots.

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Knotting performance =number of knots a weaver(s) can achieve per hour. This output depends on the fineness of the carpet and the professionalism of the weaver. Good weavers need 3 seconds per knot, medium talented 10, beginners about 15 seconds. Carpet manufacturers calculate an average output of about 7,000 knots per day per weaver.

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Master weaver = this job title corresponds to the European work master as the head of two to three knotting chairs in carpet manufactories. He is responsible in manufactories for the careful execution of the specified patterns, manages the knotting material and usually remunerates the weavers subordinate to him.

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Tying chair = in Persian, "dasgha"; a technical device for knotting carpets, which evolved from initially simple rectangular, primitive, wooden, easily transportable devices of the nomads with horizontal, later with upright position for the production of more sophisticated textile works of art (see "Hereke"); Knotting looms always have a device that separates even from odd warp threads when weft threads are inserted, creating a firm base fabric for attaching pile knots. See "loom!" Nomadic and partial village carpets are horizontal, court carpets knotted according to templates, and partial village carpets are made on vertical looms.

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Knotted carpet = it is created by looping pile threads over two or even more warp threads. The outward ends of these threads together form the pile.

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Kocak or Kotschach = Ram's horn, an ornament often used as a motif in Turkmen and East Caucasian rugs. See also "Tachte Shirvan"

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Cochineal = Name of a scale insect species that lives mainly in Mexico and India and after drying finely ground provides a crimson dye, which since 1770, among other things. Among other things, for the red dyeing of knotted yarn is consulted.

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Koehler carpet or Demirci Kula = this is how carpets from Kula are called in the trade, which have a particularly dark colors. The name comes from the Turkish "Demir" for "iron".

Kohna Guba = name of an Azerbaijani carpet species belonging to the Guba group;

"kohna" comes from the Farsi word meaning "old" in German.

Kohna Ladik = Trade name for Anatolian prayer rugs of the 17th. and 18th century, in which the prayer niche is divided by columns or by pairs of columns. See also "Ladik"

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Kolyai = Kurdish tribe living in the Sonqur area, 50 miles from Hamadan, in northwestern Iran. New rugs from there have a cotton ground, older ones a wool ground as well as a single weft thread; the colors are bright.

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Commercial = in specialized trade unofficially used term for mass-produced carpets, which thereby lack the originality and aesthetics of lace carpets.

conaghend or conagkend = City located about 20 miles south of Cuba in the northeastern Caucasus; today without carpet production.

Confucian symbols = see "Taoist Symbols"!

Konya = former Iconium, the former residence of the Seljuks; today provincial capital in southwestern Anatolia, site of the Seljuk University. The area surrounding the city is rich in sheep breeding. The Mevlana Monastery, located near Ikonium, has a museum attached to it that has many ancient Turkish carpets. Konya or Mevlana is an important place of pilgrimage for Islamic believers. Especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, carpets of Seljuk austerity were produced there, mostly in bright yellow-red colors; their density is 10,000 to 14,000 knots per square meter. Until around 1900, large quantities of samples of village and nomadic carpets came from Konya, made to order in a wide variety of qualities.

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Konya-Kavak = Kavak is a carpet-making village near Konya. Bright, simple, attractive knotted works with asymmetrical border stripes and symmetrical variations of floral patterns were created there.

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Koran or Quran = in German "Lehre", the Bible of the Islamic world. It contains in 114 suras (= "lines" or "main pieces") with 6,206 sentences the word of God proclaimed by the prophet Muhammad, which is considered infallible by believing Islamis. The Quran was established in its present form under Caliph Omar (644 to 656 AD) after the death of Muhammad. To order the way of life of Islamis, the Koran is supplemented by non-canonized messages of Muhammad, the Hadith, an oral teaching.

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Kordi =this is the name given to Kurdish knotting and weaving in eastern Iran, which was made in Persia, probably in the region northeast of Meshed. Im

18th century, West Persian Kurds were resettled in northeastern Iran by the Shah to defend the border areas there against the Turkmen. Over time, a special type of carpet emerged. Kordi has become the collective name for Iranian carpets made by Kurds in the east of Iran The reputation of these carpets is very good, their composition beautiful, their durability great.

Kordschin or Khordjin = see "Khordjin"!

Cork = Persian term for "finest wool" from the neck and throat of sheep up to six months old. In Iran, better carpets are often called "cork"; the terms "cork" and "cork wool" are congruent.

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Cork Wool = one of the particularly often used attributes for the wool of fine carpets, many times wrongly. There is no verified information about the real quality of the wool. It is often claimed that it is particularly fine goat wool.

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corroded = chemically attacked resp. destroyed pile parts e.g. of a carpet due to dye-chemical impairment in the course of time; see "color corrosion"! Especially the black or dark brown color in the knotting yarn, which is achieved when using natural dyes with gallstones, is subject to natural oxidation; thus, old carpets, in which these colors have been used, usually show a changed color and a relief-like effect in the pile.

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Kocak = see "Kocak"!

Kozak = 1. : Turkish term for "pine cone"; 2. : city in western Anatolia; the small rugs produced there are made of wool and have striped kilim ends; bright colors are used for this purpose with patterns reminiscent of the Central Caucasus.

Crapp = Latin "rubia tinctorum", a red-dyeing substance; it is obtained from the roots of the dyer's red, a herbaceous plant that grows widely in the Orient and

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used to produce various shades of red to brown and blue-red; one of the most important dyeing plants.

Cross = motif on carpets; with the exception of Armenian knotted products, it has no religious significance in Oriental carpets.

Crucifer or Crucifers = also called dyer's crossberry (rhamnus catareticus), in English "buckthorn", an intense sap-green vegetable substance that yields a yellow, orange to brown-red dye. (See also "Shirvan"!)

War rugs =artistic knotted products from countries in which prolonged armed conflicts have taken place or are taking place, such as. Afghanistan or Pakistan, for example. The patterns of these carpets often show maps of war zones, depictions of weapons, war equipment, number of shootings and names of belligerents.

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Cuba = City and district in the south of Derbend in the northeastern Caucasus. In the 17th and 18th centuries, so-called dragon carpets were made there, and in the 19th century small, relatively finely knotted carpets of particularly good wool quality; the main patterns are those of Chichi, Konaghend, Perepedil, Zejwa, Karagashli, Seishour and Turret (= "keyhole design").

Kufa = located south of Baghdad in Mesopotamia, former capital of the caliphs, headquarters of the Mohammedan sciences; place of origin of the Kufi script, the first High Arabic ornamental script, which appears on almost all oriental works of art, including carpets; see "Calligraphy"!

Kufi = oldest Islamic calligraphy form, a calligraphy written by hand with a brush or quill pen. Calligraphy has been cultivated in many ancient cultures and has always been used in connection with religious texts. Such writings always have an ornamental character and are often used in carpets or festive textiles. In Kufi there are variations such as square Kufi, Nakshi, Thuluth, Riqa or Diwani.

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Kufi Motif or Kufi pattern = strongly stylized Kufi Arabic script; it is mostly seen in carpet borders. Kufi patterns in carpets are ribbon interlacing in red or yellow, derived from Kufi script but containing no discernible messages.

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Ball rugs = Name for Anatolian carpets, which show the typical Chintamani pattern; this consists of three spheres and two wavy lines; it is likely to originate from China; see "Transylvanian carpets" and "Chintamani"!

 

Kuhi = Persian expression for "coming from the mountains"; "kuh" means "mountain"; it is the name for tribesmen of the mountainous Kerman region west of Sirjan; their carpets are made with symmetrical knots and double wefts; saddlebags with knotted tops are also produced there (see "Afshars").

 

Kula = City located north-inland from Ghiordes in western Anatolia or south of Demirci, about 80 miles east of Izmir. There in the 18. Century, prayer rugs were made there whose design shows individual mihrabs very similar to those of Gördes. The short distance between Ghiordes and Kula explains the frequent exchange in ornamentation in the carpet production of the two cities.

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Kum = see "Ghom".

 

Kum Kapi or Kum-Kapu = a district of Istanbul (translated as "Sand Gate" in German), famous for the finest silk carpets made there by Armenians in the 1900s. They combined silk and metallic threads to create brocaded carpets; the patterns have been influenced by Turkish and Persian knotted works.

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Kumüken or Kumyk = Caucasian tribe, the main part of which is located in the Daghestan region; their carpets are called Dagestan or Lesghistan.

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Kunduz = Provincial capital with large carpet market in northeastern Afghanistan; carpets and bags made in Imam Saheb, Qala-i-Zal, and Chardarah areas are traded in the city or sent to Kabul for the market.

 

artificial silk = since the end of the 20th century. Since the end of the 20th century, artificial silk or "viscose" has also found its way into carpet production, especially in China and India, replacing natural silk. Today, the English term "Bamboo silk" is also often used for viscose carpets.

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Küpe = a dyeing vessel or vat, where dyeing processes are going on. It is a bellied clay vat about 50 centimeters high, glazed on the inside, and equipped with a heating chamber at its base. Newer vats are made of copper.

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Vat dyeing =This type of dyeing uses natural, wash- and fade-resistant water-insoluble dyes, such as. indigo, for example, would only be drawn onto a fiber material in a reduced state without additives, are previously dissolved from a plant by a chemical process. The most important vat dyes contain anthraquinone or indigo as a base, some naphthalene or perylene; urine is also occasionally used in vat dyeing. In modern dyeing processes, the dye is applied to the dyeing material as a pigment and cupped onto the fiber material. The name comes from the Küpe, a dyeing vat in which the dyeing takes place; usually the vat has a heating unit.

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Kurden = West Asian mountain and pastoral people, whose main settlement area is called "Kurdistan". It forms an autochthonous ethnic group living in present-day Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Their language belongs to the Indo-European language family, to the northwestern branch of Iranian languages. In the 18th century, Kurds resettled in eastern Persia to defend the country against Turkmen incursions. Since 2014, efforts to establish a separate Kurdish state have intensified. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims; Shiite Muslims are an important minority; some still live semi-nomadically. There is no basic characteristic for Kurdish knotwork, because patterns and motifs handed down over the centuries have been influenced by borrowings from other tribes and ethnic groups. Generally, Kurds use geometric patterns and abstract motifs; the density of knotted works is medium to coarse. Typical Kurdish carpet names and origins are Bidjar, Cihanbeyi, Hakkari, Harsin, Iraq, Kermanshah, Sauj Bulaq, Senneh, Siirt and Sequr.

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Kurdish Carpet = this type of village carpet comes from northwestern Persia and the areas east of Mosul. They are mainly nomadic or

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half-nomad products and still popular for their rural character; they are characterized as coarse, yet appealing and pleasing.

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Kurdistan = Persian term for "Land of the Kurds", often also called Eastern Anatolia.

 

Turmeric = Turmeric from the Zingiberazeen family, an ornamental plant from whose roots a yellow to brown-orange dye is obtained.

 

Kürt = Turkish term for Kurd.

 

kurvilinear =means curvilinear, curvilinear or curved, a term for naturalistic carpet motifs and patterns formed by delicate curvilinear branches, flowers or diamonds. Such are typical of fine to highly refined manufactory and court carpets. Another type of carpet patterns and motifs are rectilinear or geometric figured carpet motifs and patterns typical of nomadic and village carpets. The curvilinear type of carpet patterns have been around since the 16th century, when oriental rulers established carpet manufactories and had luxurious grand and court carpets made there.

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Kütahya = Town in western Anatolia near Ushak, where small prayer rugs are made on a cotton base; at the same time, the place is a trading center for such rugs from the surrounding area.

 

Kyongden or Kyongring = Tibetan fringed runner up to 5 meters long.

 

Label Step = International non-profit organization that aims to enforce humane living and working conditions for carpet weavers worldwide. It has existed since 1995 with headquarters in Switzerland. It monitors compliance with its strict specifications at around 300 carpet producers and punishes violators by expelling members who violate them.

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Labidjar or Labijar = Town in northern Afghanistan near Sheberghan, inhabited by Uzbeks and Ersari Turkmen; the latter knot carpets and weave kilims similar to those from Andkhoy; older carpets from there have distinctive smaller borders with pink rosettes, younger kilims have ivory to brown geometric stripes with interlocking square or diamond-shaped motifs or medallions.

Lac or Lac Dye or Dye = royal or purple from natural Asian sources, obtained from gum lacquer (stock lacquer), the resinous secretion of lacquer scale insects. It is a dye to achieve crimson, scarlet and orange hues. The stick varnish of lacquer scale insects is ground, and the powder is agitated in warm water until the urea dissolves. Then the mixture is evaporated over fire in cauldrons or dried in shallow vessels in the sun. In commerce, the dye comes as a flat cake. The dye of the lice can also be dissolved by boiling with diluted soda ash or potash, filtered, and the farwhite precipitated from the filtrate with alum solution. This dye is very close to that of cochineal and Kermes scale insects.

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Ladakh = Part of Kashmir in India near Tibet. In the past, native inhabitants there, who were ethnically Tibetan, made looped carpets called "stan". More recently, Tibetan refugees in Ladakh make typical Tibetan rugs.

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Ladik = Places with this name exist in Turkey several; including a small Anatolian town northwest of Konya, near the ancient Laodicea/Laodikea, which has impressive ruins from antiquity including a large theater. The town was a production site of Anatolian prayer rugs, especially the column ladik. This was developed in the city's manufactories and shows on a light-colored ground in the most delicate drawing a tripartite niche supported or flanked by delicate double columns. There are prayer rugs with stepped mihrabs and two to three columns; they have transverse fields with tulips; dominant colors are shades of red and blue; while carpet production fell asleep after World War I, kilim weaving has spread there.

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Lah = measure of the twisting of warp threads, which is evident from the analysis of the carpet fringes; is a value-determining factor, especially in Nain carpets. The warp threads consist of several individual yarns twisted together; nine lah are three times three twisted threads (coarser qualities), six lah are twice three threads (fine quality). There are also carpets with four lah quality.

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Lahle-Abbasi pattern = also called tulip pattern, gateway or scepter head; it is a recurring triple border pattern with a tulip calyx, which can range from a curvilinear naturalistic to an extremely abstract representation and consists of a string of triangles and rhombuses.

Lahore = City in northeastern Pakistan in Punjab province. From there, the art of carpet weaving spread throughout India. Lahore was a dominant carpet production center of the British East India Company; prisoner carpets were also made there in the 19th century. Currently, carpets with Turkmen patterns, known as Pakistan Bochara, are produced in Lahore. Along with Peshawar, Lahore is now an important transshipment point for Afghan carpets, which are washed and made out there because laundering and exporting do not yet work in Afghanistan.

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Lambalo = 19th-century Caucasian Kazak carpet pattern. Century similar to those of Talish; they are long format pieces with multiple borders; the inner field may be empty or sparsely filled with motifs.

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Lampas = a type of jacquard weaving in which the pattern is raised in relief.

Lamp = decorative motif in prayer rugs in the form of a hanging lamp. It symbolizes the light of God. Lamps in mosques and those on carpets are usually made of glass, ceramic or metal, filled with oil and have a floating wick.

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Lamps are thus a symbol of the holy light and thus of Allah (see "domed column carpets"!).

Landscape Carpet = Name for a group of Anatolian carpets with very characteristic patterning, produced since the 18th. Century are manufactured. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this type of carpet came mainly from Cuba, Gördes or Kirsehir. The specific patterns consist of stylized houses or mosques and trees the

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are strung horizontally. Occasionally, but incorrectly, such carpets are called cemetery carpets.

Lancet leaf = a common carpet motif: a narrow, toothed, straight or curved leaf ending in a point.

running dog = Designation of a secondary border enlivened by distinct stripes with inverted ypsilons resp. a connected hook-like motif, often found in Caucasian carpets and sumakhs; this type of border looks like dog heads placed on top of each other, hence the name; this motif is also called "Georgian border".

Runners = long, narrow carpet; called "gallery" in Germany.

Lavé = If this phrase is attached to a rug name, it means that the piece has been chemically washed to mute or lighten bright colors.

Laver = see "Ravar".

Lawer Kirman = Trade name for old-fashioned Kirman rugs, derived from "Ravar" where these rugs were made.

Lawon = Name for ceremonial shawls from Sumatra, which are made by married women and are part of a bridal outfit; they are usually made of silk and represent high prestige and power.

Leyli and Majnun = classic Arabic lovers, roughly equivalent to the European lovers Romeo and Juliet and often used as an oriental carpet motif.

Lazy Lines = English-language term for diagonally running lines in finished knotted carpets, which always arise when several knotters have worked simultaneously and irregularly on a carpet.

Tree of Life = Symbol of life, prosperity and fertility, which plays an important role in the design of carpets; the tree is usually depicted as a slender cedar and embodies the constant victory over death. The tree of life occurs in carpets both abstractly stylized and schematic, and naturalistically flowering and lush as a clearly salient motif.

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Lenkoran = City and district in the southeastern Caucasus on the Caspian Sea; it was once the capital of the Talish Khanate. The Lenkoran medallion used in most of these rugs, with two or four arms and a large geometricized chalice, may be a rendition of a chalice or derived from the dragon motif; this medallion is found in Kazak and Karabagh carpets.

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Lesghi or Leki = a tribe of Avars living in the northeastern Caucasus; they have sub-tribes called Avars, Darghis, Kumyk and Korins. The Avars were one of a powerful Turkic people in the first millennium, also native to Eastern Europe, who retreated to the mountainous areas of the Caucasus (Daghestan) after heavy defeats; see also "Daghestan"

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Lesghistan = Landscape in the area of Caucasian Daghestan, named after the indigenous people, the Lesghians. The carpets produced there are related to those from Daghestan or Shirvan and Derbent. See also "Kumüken"

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Leyli and Majnun =According to an oriental fable classic Arab lovers, comparable to the European lovers Romeo and Juliet; motif often reproduced in carpets.

Lhasa = capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China; located in the Transhimalayas at an altitude of 3650 meters above sea level, it is a place of pilgrimage and houses the Potala Palace (= "place of the gods" in German), where the Dalai Lama was supposed to live but fled abroad after the occupation by China. Lhasa was once home to many monks and is home to many old Tibetan rugs with original designs. New Lhasa rugs today are mostly knotted in Nepal and come in red-purple or blue-chocolate brown.

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Lightfastness =this is the name given to the color fastness of colorants, paints and other surfaces under prolonged illumination. Sunlight has a high ultraviolet content, which has a decomposing effect on many materials, causing color changes. Lightfastness is specified internationally in the paint industry in four classes (stars): *** is highest light resistance, ** very good light resistance, * sufficient light resistance, no star low light resistance.

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Lilian or Lillihan = Iranian village south of Arak, ten miles west of Khomein; a western Persian carpet type of mahals similar to Saruks is named after it, initiated as their cheaper alternative by the representative of a New York trading company after the First World War in the Saruk and Arak villages. They are knotted works with asymmetrical knots; their ground is cotton, the weft threads can be red.

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During the 1930s, many such carpets were exported to the United States.

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Lines or line = Scale to determine the fineness of Chinese carpets.

Lokari = Place in northeastern Afghanistan inhabited by Baluchis. There, residents make kilims, saddlebags and prayer rugs. These products have far more radiant colors than those normally used by Baluchis.

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Looping =partially mechanized carpet manufacturing, see "(hand-)tufting".

Lori or Luren = ancient Iranian tribe that speaks Farsi and lives in the Zagros Mountains of southwestern Persia; they are tribally organized and largely pastoral nomads. The Lori also include the Bakhtiari; southeast of Luristan, in Fars and Veramin respectively, live other Lori tribes.

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Lori Pambak = City south of Tbilisi in the Kazak region of the Caucasus; the Lori Pambak motif is a large octagonal medallion filled with two pairs of facing goblets, all contracted at the base. This pattern was developed from an Anatolian medallion and is still used by Turkish and Kurdish weavers in the Kars area (see this).

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Lotos = Water plant, which is one of the primal symbols of mankind, especially in Egyptian, Indian and East Asian cultures; it appears as a seedling with bud and is an attribute of the gods Isis, Osiris, Horus and Hathor. The flower is a symbol of the growing primordial life and, ranked according to its importance, is after the spring and even before the tree of life (see this). In Hinduism and Buddhism the lotus is still worshipped today; it is regarded as a symbol of the developing earth; Brahma stands on a lotus leaf, Buddha on a lotus blossom. In the prayer formula "om mani padme hum", which is taken from Sanskrit as a Buddhist mantra, the Eternal is named on the lotus, which is still murmured by Tibetan weavers in Nepal.

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Lotos Flower = flower ornament common in the Near East, which appeared earlier rather plain, later larger and more colorful, symbolizing summer. A stylized lotus flower is also considered a prototype for Turkmen göls.

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lotto carpets = Knotted works from the 16th. and 17th centuries, made in Anatolia around the city of Konya, and according to the Italian painter Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556), they were inserted as decorative pieces in his paintings during the Italian Renaissance period. Lotto carpets have a red background and a yellow continuous pattern with red-yellow-black borders. Related Renaissance-era painters' carpets are by Holbein, Memling, Vermeer and their colleagues, who adopted the designs of Turkish carpets to enhance their works. The patterning consists of pseudo-Kufic script elements in juxtaposed squares.

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Lulehbaft = U-loops in knotted carpets. The Farsi term "Luleh" means in German

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"tube"; an inferior production, because it is used to replace the so-called "knot".

Luren or Loren = ancient tribe with several sub-tribes living scattered in Lurestan, Khuzistan and Fars. They refer to themselves as descendants of the Medes. Many of them are already settled, some are still nomadic. Their pile carpets are called Lori and are highly prized; they are usually covered with hexagons filled with either geometric flowers derived from the Mina-khani pattern or diamond-shaped cells containing the Tree of Life motif; some are knotted with symmetrical knots, others with asymmetrical ones.

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Luristan or Laristan = species name for carpets from this province located near Fars in southern Persia. Luristan is a mountainous country stretching from the province of Kirmanshah to the province of Khozistan. The carpets produced there have mostly runner dimensions.

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Chandeliers = iridescent sheen of carpet surfaces, caused by reflection of incident light. It can be optimized by special treatment of knotting wool with glycerine.

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Mäander =this is the name of the once Greek river Maiandros, now called Menderes, which flows from western Turkey towards the Aegean Sea through many right-angled meanders; it gave its name to all the paths, waters and patterns, many of which are intertwined.

Machmalbaft or Maghmal = Name of a carpet manufacturer in Mesched; it manufactures velvety ikats, carpets with velvety pile.

Maden or Madhen = Turkish place with carpet production, where especially prayer carpets, attributed to the Anatolian type, are made.

Madjid carpets =knotted carpets named after Sultan Abd-el-Medjid (1839-1861); an Anatolian carpet type with European-influenced patterns.

Madras = East Indian city on the Bay of Bengal, where in the late 19th. Century carpets were manufactured.

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Maffersdorf Carpets = inexpensive carpet type, which the textile company C. Genersich and Orendi introduced to the market in Vienna in 1897 as an attractive alternative, both in price and appearance, to carpets imported from the Orient, which at the time had become very expensive due to high import duties. See also

"Machine-made carpets"!

Mafrasch = smaller, rectangular nomadic bag, about the size of a suitcase, usually with patterned sides and a plain (kilim) back for carrying clothing household items, especially bedding during the migration of nomadic tribesmen. Mafrash are never used as cradles; most are made in sumakh structures in pairs, with the sides and bottoms made in one piece. The separately made sides are sewn on to form an open case. The bottoms are usually bare striped weaves, about three feet long and one foot high. Mafrash products are mostly made by the Shahsavan of northern Iran, Afshars and Kurds.

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Maghreb or Maghrib = 1. : penultimate of the five ritual daily prayers of Muslims at sunset. 2nd : collective name for North African carpets, derived from the geographical name "Maghreb" (in German =Sonnenuntergang).

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Maha-djiran = Carpet from the Ferraghan/Sultanabad area with a particularly high pile, reaching up to two centimeters; it corresponds to the typical American taste.

Mahal = 1. : West Persian carpet provenance named after the city of Mahallat; it belongs to the Sarough-Arak knotting area; Arak used to be called Sultanabad and from the seventies of the 19th century it rose to become a main knotting center for Persian export carpets. Mahal carpets usually show the Herati pattern as well as floral and all-over patterns. 2nd: "Mahal" is a term for Sarouk carpets of lower quality.

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Mahallat =this is the name of those carpets that are produced in villages in the area of Farahan, Dulakhor and Mushkabad in central Iran; the usual pattern is Herati and Saruk motifs; these carpets are less densely knotted and have less tightly tapped wefts than other Saruks of the same area; they have a rather coarse knotting.

Mahi = so is called "fish" in Farsi. This refers to one of the most famous motifs for Marand carpets in Ferahan style, which resembles the Herati pattern. Marand is a city in Iranian Azerbaijan, near the Turkish border. Many types of Tabriz, especially those with Mahi motifs patterned throughout, are found there.

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Mahmalbaft = Expression for a particularly soft wool used for the production of very flexible carpets.

Maimana = City in northwestern Afghanistan, a market for kilims from this area.

Makden = Saddle base or. Saddle pad from Tibet.

Makri or Megri = this ancient city is now called Fethiye and is a port city in southwestern Anatolia. Typical carpets from there have two or three vertical stripes, each of which contains geometric floral motifs or trees of life. Towards the end of the 19th

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Century medallion carpets with European roses in Mejid style have also been made there.

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Malatya = 1. : City in central Anatolia that acts as a marketplace for carpets and kilims produced in the surrounding villages. Many of these are made quite coarsely and in geometric patterns by Kurds. Kilims from Malatya are exceptionally long, some up to five meters; they are made in two matching halves; there are usually no borders, and each half is independent in its pattern; various flatweaving techniques are used, such as slashing, sumak, and brocading; the patterns are usually wide stripes with geometric motifs. 2nd: Name for Anatolian Kurdish carpets.

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Malayer = small central Persian town at an altitude of 2000 meters on the river of the same name, about 60 kilometers south of Hamadan, an important transshipment point for village carpets of the area. Although these carpets have their own character, they are usually traded under this collective name.

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Painted rugs = See Lotto, Holbein, Bellini or Vermeer carpets!

Mam(e)luken = in German "in Besitz genommene Menschen", a military unit consisting of former Turkish or Circassian slaves; they were later released, performed war services, became bodyguards of Oriental rulers, took power and became an Egyptian-Syrian ruling dynasty until they were overwhelmed by the Ottomans in 1516/1517.

Mamluk rugs = Frappant is that there is still great disagreement among experts about the beginning and end of these knotted works and why they have not been imitated by other workshops. The style of patterns of Mamluk carpets is considered

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"kaleidoscopic" because quadrilateral and octagonal elements cross each other and form a radial symmetry. Knotted works of extraordinary technical and artistic quality, named after the above dynasty, came from Cairo, Egypt. They were made between the middle of the 13th century and 1517, when the Mamluks were defeated by the Ottomans. After that, they continued to be made under Ottoman influence until the early 17th century. They were produced in outstanding quality with very fine yarns. One of the most famous examples of this type of carpet is in the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna. Mamluk style carpets currently come from Afghanistan.

Manastir = City in the European part of Turkey, in Macedonia; known are the kilims there, which with their typical color character show similarities to kilims from Bulgaria; typical is the technique of arching shots and the abrash that often occurs.

Manchester rugs = knotted works made from yarns produced in the English industrial town of Manchester. This took place from 1880 to 1930.

The basic material of this type of carpet was Australian sheep's wool (merino wool), which was particularly suitable for luxury textiles due to high fineness and silk-like properties..

Persian carpet weavers made use of these then-new yarns to produce large-format carpets with mostly pinkish-red backgrounds, which were popular in the 1920s

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centenary found strong demand especially in the USA; see "Merino"!

Mangalo Kiln = round, stand-alone oriental heater, which is operated with charcoal and the warming of people or. for the preparation of food serves.

Manufacture = Preliminary form of production, rationalizing and organizing manual work on carpets; master knotters supervise quality and pace of work; in addition to weavers, pattern makers, warp judges and master shearers also work in manufactories; they are usually developed from court manufactories of a ruler; in the heyday of court manufactories there were thousands of manufactories.

Maramures = Region in northern Romania, where Maramures kilims were made with warps of hemp.

Marand = see "Mahi"!

Marasali = Place in the south of Shemakha in the Shirvan region of the Caucasus. In the 19th century, prayer rugs with large colored botehs in the borders were made there; their mihrab is pentagonal, the field filled with botehs of different colors.

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Marash or Marasch = Armenian embroidery, which was produced until about 1915 and is currently on the rise again with yarn made of sheep, cotton and silk.

 

Marby Carpet =one of the oldest physically preserved ancient knotted works, discovered in the church of Marby in Sweden in 1886 and most likely made in Anatolia. This carpet is on display at the Stockholm History Museum. See "dragon phoenix motif"

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brand names = Names of outstanding carpet companies that have made an outstanding contribution to the production, wholesale and treatment of oriental carpets, for example. E.g. Ziegler & Co, OCM or PETAG.

Morocco = Moroccan woven and knotted carpets were originally, like those from North African countries such as Algeria or Tunisia, the work of Berber tribes that settled in the period of the conquest of North Africa by the Arabs in the 17th century. Century in the middle and high Atlas settled. Their rugs were first intended for domestic use as bedding, upholstery coverings, tent wall coverings and floor coverings. They are very powerful, often highly abstractly patterned, vividly colored, and display geometric designs. They are usually made of wool and rather coarsely woven to emphasize the impression of softness and warmth retention. In the second half of the 20th

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century, the demand for Moroccan carpets increased, because their making and design met the modern Western style of furnishing. Besides the Berbers, the Beni Quarains also produce typical Moroccan carpets. Since 1919, Moroccan carpets are traded with the designations "M.A.R.O.C." or "Maroc". See also "Marrakech!"

Marrakech = former capital of Morocco. In the past, many carpets were made there; now, diverse Moroccan, oriental and also modern carpets are traded in the souks there.

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Masandaran or Mazandaran = Until the end of the 20th century. Until the end of the 20th century, these kilims from the northern Iranian province were almost unknown to carpet enthusiasts. Now the region on the southern shore of Lake Caspian at the foot of the Elburs Mountains, near the village of Hezar-Jerib (in German "thousand valleys") is considered the origin of modern minimalist flatweaves made according to traditional patterns, which meet contemporary requirements with calm geometric designs. The initiative came from Werner Weber in Zurich. He rediscovered Mazandaran kilims in search of modern oriental textiles and launched them under the name "NOOR" (in German "light"). Until the beginning of the 20th

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In the 19th century, their models were made in narrow panels on old nomadic looms and then sewn together into wide panels. In the past, they were used exclusively for private purposes, as bridal outfits, for weddings or births. Their appearance ranges from warm earthy to strikingly bright tones, which lie close together in the finished kilim. Like their pre-mid-19th century models, current pieces use hand-spun wool tightly woven together, making the pieces thin, yet strong and durable. Good old examples have thus become sought-after new creations.

Machine-made rugs =They are industrially mass-produced counterparts to handmade knotted works; in the relevant large-scale enterprises, a factory-organized industry replaces the individual human manual labor.

Measures, old = in the carpet trade, the measurements "Gereh", "Radj", "Arshin", "Zar" and others used to be common; see these!

Mashad or Meshed = Capital of the Iranian province of Khorasan in northeast Persia and important carpet city, where since the 16th. Century knotted works are created and traded; its name means in German "city of the martyrs". There is the famous Imam Reza shrine with golden domes and minarets, the tomb of the Lebanese scholar Sheikh Bahai, the 15th-century Goharshad, and the city of the martyrs. Century Goharshad Mosque as well as a rich carpet museum. These sights attract pilgrims and tourists, boosting carpet demand and production there. Such famous carpet manufacturers as Soltan Ibrahim Mirza, Amoo-Oghli, Khamenei, Makhmalbaf, Zaber and Zarbaf worked and still work in Mashad. Some Mashad rugs are knotted with symmetrical knots and feature medallions; some are made with jufti knots on a cotton ground. Most contemporary Mashad carpets have double wefts, some even wire wefts; some carpets were knotted with symmetrical knots, the majority sometimes with asymmetrical jufti knots (see "jufti") on cotton ground. Meshed rugs are characterized by deep red cochineal colors; usually the rugs have medallion patterns reminiscent of those of Kerman. Meshed rugs rarely have fewer than six border strips, often up to 12, filled with flowers and vines or flowering branches.

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Masho =Tibetan saddle top.

 

measurement units = Overall, there were and still are a variety of measurements for textiles in the Orient. Here are some important:

Arschyn = 114 cm, is still used today in Tabriz in carpets of the Heriz area, a square assin is thus 1.30 m²

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Tscheirak = 0.25 m²; the usual size designation for a carpet of one m² is

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"Djahar tscheirak". "Djahar" is Farsi and means "four."

Zar = about 95 cm; thus, a tsar is about 0.90 m². A carpet with approx. 150 x 100 cm is a "Zar- o-nim"

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Ghaliceh or Seccadeh are rugs of about 200 x 135 cm

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Namazlik =a prayer rug; "Namaz" means "prayer".

Kenahreh = are galleries or runners. "Kenah" means "next to." In ancient Persia, these were rugs placed next to the main carpet.

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Yoluk ="Yol" in Turkish is "the way", so also galleries or runners.

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Kelegi =elongated rugs approx. 300 x 160 cm

Ghali, in Turkish "Hali". In Iran, this means a larger carpet.

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Mafrash = larger suitcase-like carrying bag of the "Shah-Savan" tribes in Iranian Azerbaijan.

 

Materials for Carpets =to knot the carpet pile is usually used dyed sheep's wool of different softness. For warp and weft either wool or cotton is used. For precious carpets, silk is also used for all three areas. For dyeing wool and silk used to use only natural dyes, since the middle of the 19th century come the new chemical,

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synthetic industrial dyes are used. Currently, there is often a mixture of the two types of paint, with a trend back to natural colors.

Mauren or Moorish = Designation of the Islamic style of North Africa, Spain or Sicily after their conquest by Islam.

Mauri or Mori = Trade name for the highest quality carpets from northern Afghanistan, referring to the city of Merw in present-day Turkmenistan. Carpets of this origin usually show the Bochara (Tekke) Göl in small and dense arrangement.

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mauve = typical color of a wild mauve: reddish-purple.

Mazarlik = Turkish cemetery or funerary carpets; traditionally, all members of a grieving family are supposed to knot a funerary carpet; the dead person is covered with it in the house of mourning; after the funeral, rich families donate the carpet to their mosque. The patterns of such mostly dark pieces contain mosques, weeping willows or cypresses.

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Medachil or Medahil =reciprocal, reciprocal arrowhead motif in narrow carpet borders.

Medallion = round, oval, rhombic, ogival, or octagonal main ornament, usually placed centrally, which is a dominant element in a carpet or fabric. In addition to the main medallion placed in the center of a piece, half medallions may be placed on the sides of the carpet interior, and quarter medallions on its corners. The term "medallion" = "shamsa" is derived from "chams", which means "sun" in Arabic and Persian. The center medallion represents the cosmic power, the center of the world and is modeled after a "mandala".

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Medallion rugs = They have been around since the late 15th century. Century. They were made in the Safavid period under Shah Ismail in northern and central Persia, especially in Tabriz and Kashan. Weavers of these pieces came to the then Turkish-ruled capital Tabriz from Herat and other cultural centers in the early 16th century; the creators were named Mirah, Mirza Ali, Sultan Muhammed and Mir Sayyid Ali. Ardebil carpets are considered the earliest representatives of this type of carpet. They are characterized by large round, oval or octagonal effigies in the middle of the carpet field. There are medallion sumaks and medallion umaks. Experts distinguish between carpets with a single large medallion dominating the entire field and carpets with several smaller medallions surrounded by tendrils of leaves, buds, and palmettes covering the inner field in repeat. The medallion design probably evolved in Islamic art from wall and floor tiles or from the covers of valuable books.

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Medallion Ushak = Carpets made in the 16th. and 17th century in Ushak in Anatolia; they show a central medallion with appendages in the design; the medallion contains a four-petaled design, the field is red. These carpets are large and elongated. Similar ones have been made near Izmir at the same time, but in darker colors and lower knotting density.

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Medakhil = Motif in Azerbaijani carpets embroidered with four-petaled white, yellow, blue, brown, turquoise and carnelian flowers on the outer or inner borders.

Mederstern =in an octagonal frame or octagon stand two rectangular hexagonal bands crossed to form a star, named after the Indo-European people of the Medes, who perished after the battle of 550 BC against Cyrus II.

Medici-Kirsehir = Carpets from the city of Kirsehir, made under the influence of French Savonneries; see "Kirsehir"!

Mediouna = Moroccan city near Casablanca. The carpets made there are strongly influenced by Persian patterns and most have three medallions. The borders are narrow, and intricate floral motifs are worked into an all-over pattern.

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Medjid style = Carpet patterns with naturalistic floral motifs as an imitation of European models that had been favored by the Turkish Sultan Abdul-Medjid (1839-1861); carpets from Gördes, Makri (Fethiye) and Milas had also been influenced by this style.

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Megerian = Armenian carpet manufacturing company, founded in 1917, with manufacturing in Yerevan and with their international sales office in New York, USA.

Meghun = Western Iranian town with carpet production in Saruk region.

Megri rugs = Knotted works from the port city of Makri or Megri; closely related to the Melas carpets; some experts believe they are a transitional form between the two types of Melas carpets; see "Makri"

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Mehraby or Miharaby = this Turkish term means in German "with a mihrab", which is the prayer niche in mosques; in Azeri the name means "prayer rug".

Rugs with "mehrab" or "mihrab" are always considered prayer rugs.

Mehravan = Area near Heris; name for carpets not always coming from this area.

Mekka rugs =no knotted works are created in the holy Islamic city of Mecca; prayer rugs, for example, from Shiraz are brought to Mecca via Mecca's port city, Jeddah, where they are sold to pilgrims on pilgrimage.

Melas or Milas = City in southwestern Anatolia; the type of carpets of the same name from this city and its surroundings include prayer rugs. These have diamond-shaped prayer niches derived from Ottoman horseshoes; there are also carpets with vertical fields similar to those from Makri, as well as carpets with fields filled with a vertical column of boxes or rhombs. Mejidian-style carpets are also made in the area surrounding the city. Melas carpets are all wool with red wefts; most coarsely knotted with densities ranging from 30,000 to

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75,000 symmetrical nodes per square meter. There is an expert dispute about some ancient Melas prayer rugs, whether they were actually made there or rather in Gördes. (See also "Erebuni"!)

Menora = seven-branched candelabrum of the Jews, as it often appears on Jewish carpets; the plural is menorot.

Mercer, John, respectively.  mercerize = in 1844, Englishman John Mercer developed a method of chemically treating yarn to make it shiny and increase its ability to absorb dye. The tightly stretched textile fiber, especially cotton, is dipped in strong, cold caustic soda, making it richer, fuller and

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becomes shinier without losing tensile strength; this method was used between 1880 and 2000, especially in Kayseri and Bursa.

Merino = a breed of sheep that produces very fine wool. This breed was first bred in Spain; later on a large scale in Australia. This wool was used towards the end of the 19th

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Century in Manchester spun into yarn and made into high quality carpets by Iranian, Pakistani, Chinese and Indian weavers. (See also

"Manchester rugs"!)

Merw = Oasis town in Russian Turkestan (Turkmenistan) on the southern edge of the sandy desert Karakum ("black sand") with carpet production. In the 18th century it was dominated by Uzbeks, later by Saryks and Salor Turkmen, finally by Tekkes after they defeated the Salors. Silk is produced in the area and has occasionally been incorporated into Tekke knotwork; in the early 20th century Merw was an important trading center for Turkmen carpets.

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Meshkin = City in northwestern Iran, north of Zanjan; Caucasian patterns similar to contemporary Ardebil carpets are often used there.

Mesjid- or Mesdjed rugs ="Mesjid" means "mosque" in German. Oriental carpet dealers occasionally pass off prayer rugs as coming from a mosque and call them mesjid gjordes or mesjid ladik to get a better price.

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Meyer-Pünter carpet = imitation carpets, which the Swiss Carl Meyer-Pünter decades ago in Persia after templates of the 16. or 17th century knotted. They did not correspond in format to the real originals, but were adapted in format to European living conditions. For example, one of the famous Ardebil carpets or the famous hunting carpet of Vienna were copied by Meyer-Pünter. Who wants to assure himself whether a Persian carpet comes from Meyer-Pünter or is an original, can convince himself in both Meyer-Pünter books, where all imitations are documented.

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Meymeh or Meimeh or Mey-Mey = City in the area of Joshegan in northwestern Iran; rugs from this city have a traditional local pattern, see "Joshegan"! A slightly coarser type comes from Mudjekar.

Mian farsh = Middle carpet in the arrangement of related four carpets in a representative living room (see "Kalleghi" or "Kenareh").

Mihaliccik = Turkish city in western Anatolia between Ankara and Eskisehir; it is the source of smaller prayer rugs with stair-shaped or triangular prayer niche; the edges are wide, water jugs, diamonds and geometrized flowers are used as filling motifs.

Mihrab or Mehrab = 1. : Arabic term for the prayer niche in a mosque; an occasionally recessed, richly ornamented niche, always oriented toward Mecca. 2nd : likewise is called the form of a prayer niche figuratively transferred to (prayer) rugs, which shows differently formed roof shapes, e.g. stepped, dome-shaped or in the form of a "sultan's head" with head and shoulders. On a prayer rug, the believer performs the daily five ritual prayers (= Kibbla or Qabla) prescribed to him by Islam, with the mihrab of the carpet facing Mecca.

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Mikrakh or Mikrach = see "Achty"!

Millefleur =this term comes from French , means in German

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"thousand flowers" and refers to an ornamental decoration for carpets and other textiles consisting of many small flowers and blossoms distributed evenly or inconsistently over a larger area. Originally, the backgrounds of Gothic tapestries were so called; later, Indian and Persian prayer rugs, showing a flood of flowers in the field and border.

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Mina-Khani or Minahani = regular overall pattern for carpets, which consists of two or more flower blossoms forming diamond-shaped grids, of which there are different varieties. In a stylized form, this pattern is found on many nomadic carpets, such as the Baluch. This pattern is said to be due to Mina Khan.

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Ming = Chinese ruling dynasty 1368-1644.

Ming emblem =this is alternatively called the dragon-phoenix motif.

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miniature painting = typical oriental art style of minimalist picture painting, which may have been the impetus for the production of fine naturalistic carpet patterns.

Mir = Carpets of this name are West Persian products from the Ferraghan- area and are considered the finest Serabend variety. Mir carpets usually show closely spaced small boteh motifs; the inner and outer borders are usually decorated with the arrowhead design. The name is believed to have been derived from "Mirabad."

This place is located in the south of Afghanistan in Helmand province; however, many other places with the same name exist. At the end of the 20. Century, many Mir had also been made in India.

Miri = old Tehran merchant family, which in cooperation with Persian farmers, nomads and experts gathered the best carpet materials of wool, silk and colors and successfully revived the discredited culture of Persian knotted works with excellent quality products. In this way, forgotten patterns and combinations of motifs succeeded in replacing the stereotypical mush of mass knotting and bringing back millennia-old materials and time-honored finishes to knotting. The founder of the dynasty was Taghi Miri, who passed away in 2004. Miri masterpieces are knotted with hand-spun wool from the Zagros Mountains.

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Mir-i boteh = Persian carpet pattern formed by a multiple series of small boteh characters; see "Boteh".

Mirzapur = City on the south bank of the Ganges in the "Indian carpet belt"; through it, the art of carpet weaving brought to India by the Mughals from Mongolia via Kashmir and Punjab has spread to Calcutta in the south. In Mirzapur, Hindus and Muslims live side by side; the Hindus are engaged in agriculture, the Muslims in handicrafts, including carpet making. The quality of Mirzapur knotted carpets has declined since the 19th century. Persian, Chinese and French Aubusson patterns are imitated in asymmetrical knots and with cotton ground. "Mirzapur" is also used as a label for poor quality Indian carpet. Prison house rugs have also been made in Mirzapur.

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Mixed media = textile products created by applying several different processing techniques; for example, saddlebags in knotting, weaving and sumac technique.

Mishwaini = Western Afghan tribe that produces Beludj-style rugs.

Moghan = Plain in the southeast of the Caucasus mountain range bordering Iran and Talish; the carpets produced there in the 19th century. Century there produced carpets show mostly so-called Memling Guls (named after the German painter Memling) or hooked medallions.

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Mogul or Mughal = Turco-Mongolian ruling dynasty of Islamic faith in northern India (1526-1858); this name was probably coined by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Century and goes back most likely to "Mongols". Mughal carpet designs are picturesquely represented by naturalistically rendered flowers on a crimson field, as they similarly appear on Persian Safavid carpets.

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Mohadjeran or Mohajaran = Iranian carpet type after Saruk model, which has been produced between 1910 and 1930 in great fineness and beautiful luster mainly for the American market.

Mohär or Mohair = derives from the Arabic-Persian term "Mohayyar", in German "die Wahl", which refers to the preference for goat wool. Since the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, in the Turkish province of Aidin, carpets began to be knotted with goat hair instead of sheep's wool. For this purpose, hair of one-year-old goats from Angora and Konya were used.

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Mohajaran Sarouk = large fine saruk carpets made between 1910 and 1930 especially for American taste. They used particularly shiny wool, and were not chemically washed and dyed; typically their ornaments were a deep orange-red.

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Mohammed = Founder (prophet) of the Islamic religion; he was born in Mecca in 570¸ was son of Abdallah and belonged to the important Arab tribe of Quraysh. Since his parents died early, he was brought up by his uncle Abu Talib; he was later called Al Amin, the Trustworthy; he often meditated in the cave of Hiva, it was located near the peak of Jabal an-Nare, the Mountain of Light.

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Moharamat = This expression is used mainly in the south of Persia for carpets with adjacent vertical stripes. In this word we find the expression "Haram", which means "forbidden" in Arabic (see harem!). The term is used today for Afghan carpets with the above-mentioned drawing.

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Mohtaschem or Mochtaschem = prestigious Persian carpet weaving dynasty, which became world famous for high quality Keshan carpets. It stood at the beginning of the great renaissance of Persian knotting, in which Safavid traditions were remembered. The name comes from a governor of Keshan who gave a new impetus to carpet making at the end of the 19th century. Mohtashem was one of the first to establish a factory for the production of carpets made with a wool imported from Manchester in England. Mohtashem is known as "Ustadan" or "Ostad" (=

"Master weavers") as any master and teacher of the art of knotting; they make fine wool and silk carpets according to their own designs. It is possible that carpets attributed to Mohtashem come from other manufactories, yet are offered at top prices.

molar mass =material quantity-related specification of materials for the production of textiles.

Molke = watery part of milk, which, mixed with madder, gives a specific pink color, used mainly for coloring the pile wool of Sultanabad carpets.

Mongolia = Parliamentary republic bordering China and Russia, known for its vast, rugged landscapes with nomadism still pronounced. Economically, mining and a specialized livestock industry, especially sheep farming, dominate. Important for the carpet economy is the established nomadism coupled with sheep wool production.

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Mongols = descended from northeast Asian Mongol tribes of the 13th century. Ethnic groups descended from the 13th century, which became an overarching ethnic designation under Genghis Khan. Their country is called Mongolia.

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Mosque = Islamic house of worship; the beautiful patterns of mosque domes are very often used as models for carpets, which are sold as "mosque dome carpets".

"Mosque domes" often serve as a motif in prayer rugs; they then hang down from the mihrab depicted in the rug.

Mosque traffic lights = frequent motif in prayer rugs; from their mihrab usually hangs on a chain a traffic light, occasionally filled with colorful flowers.

Mosque dome rug =knotted carpet with the interior of the dome of a mosque traced in detail of reality.

Moskabad or Mushkabad = area east of Arak in northeastern Iran; the name is a trade name for poor-quality modern Saruk carpets and has no connection with the place name.

Mossul = Second largest city in Iraq on the right bank of the Tigris River, located 350 kilometers north of Baghdad, with today rich oil deposits and refineries. It was a staging area for Kurdish carpets from the catchment area between Syria, Iraq and western Persia. The mixture of peoples there resulted in varied patterns with Asia Minor, Caucasian and Persian features. They are mostly nomadic and semi-nomadic rugs.

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Motif = Patterns of carpets are formed from an extensive repertoire of simple or complicated symbols and motifs; their method of composition often gives important clues about their place of manufacture. According to the respective role of a motif within a knotted or woven work, one speaks of midfield, border or ornamental motifs. Examples are "gül" or "boteh". (See these!) Until the 18th

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century, the oriental carpet art developed many new motifs; after that, the talent and imagination of designers diminished. The elements of the carpet field were then no longer grouped around a central ornament, but arranged on either side of a central axis or distributed over the inner field according to a geometric arrangement. This is related to the decline of the Persian Empire due to the fall of the Safavid dynasty. Explanation and meaning of the individual motifs and symbols and their connection with the life and fate of the weavers or that of the users is a special science. Motifs and symbols are a common property, but their respective execution and combination with other symbols and motifs allow the assignment to certain tribes or peoples; see also "Symbol"!

Motte = Biologically, it is a type of small butterfly; tapitologically, it is a dangerous carpet pest that should be professionally controlled. Clothes or fur moths lay their eggs in carpets, where they develop into caterpillars that feed on the keratin contained in wool fibers.

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Mrirt = Berber tribe in the Middle Atlas in Morocco, at the same time a high-pile carpet type without or with a sparse pattern.

Mucur = see "Mudjur"; see "Mina-Khani Pattern"!

Mud or Moud = Place in the district of the same name in the area of Bir(d)jand (see this) in northeastern Iran. Carpets of the town and its environs usually have curvilinear floral designs with a sunflower in the center; the knotted works are typically dark blue with an arabesque medallion or herati design; they are made of wool with cotton warp and usually show high quality; the asymmetrical jufti knots have densities between 300,000 and 500,000 knots per square meter. The carpets date back to the Safavid king Shah Abbas I; he not only built castles in the area, but also promoted original Persian patterns and knotting techniques.

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Mudjur = small city in central Turkey. There, mainly knotted works in the prayer rug pattern are produced, usually with more than eight shades of color. They are considered the most colorful Anatolian carpets. The warp is usually made of cotton, the weft and the pile of sheep wool. Main colors are a strong red, besides blue and ivory.

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Mudjur is the source of sapphas and prayer rugs with stair-like prayer niches pointed at the top; the main border may consist of rectangles studded with geometricized flowers.

Murgi = Carpet motif derived from the Persian term "morgh" and translated into German

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"chicken" means; a geometric-abstract image of a small bird, found mainly in carpets from southwestern Iran, especially in knotted works of the Chamseh Federation (see "Chamseh"). Pieces in which this motif is clustered are therefore often called "Murgi rugs".

Murtschechar or Murdshekar = Village between Isfahan and Joshegan in central Iran; the carpets there show jusheghan or herati patterns.

Musalla = Arabic term for the prayer rug, derived from "salla", which means "to pray" in German. Derived from it, "musalaha" means in German

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"Peace agreement".

Mushkabad = Area east of Arak in northeastern Iran, also trade name for carpets from the area of Arak. They are related to the "Mahal" and more distantly to the

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"Saruk". The warp is made of cotton, the weft of sheep's wool or cotton, the pile, Persian knotted, of sheep's wool

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Mussel = is considered the name of coarse carpets traded in Hamadan.

pattern = There are two groups of patterns of carpets: on the one hand geometric (rectilinear), on the other hand curvilinear, floral (curvilinear). See these!

Pattern protection = for real oriental carpets there was and is no pattern protection according to European models; each weaver was allowed to imitate or freely modify patterns of his colleagues. Therefore, it came to a variety of pattern migration and pattern dragging.

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Sample hike or pattern-dragging = the transplantation of carpet patterns from one region to another through nomadic migration, warfare, or caravanism along important trade routes. Examples: In ancient Persia, mythical animals were adopted from China; in Asia Minor, geometric carpet patterns once native to the Caucasus found their way into Asia. Later, oriental carpet art was enriched by French influences and vice versa: around 1700, carpet weavers were brought to work for the Savonnerie manufactory in Chaillot near Paris; when they returned to their homeland, they brought back French patterns, which can be found somewhat modified in oriental carpets. Since the second half of the 20th century, it has become common again to carry carpet patterns and color schemes geographically and to imitate them in often far-flung places on earth. Pattern carryovers have taken place both in the east-west direction and vice versa. In addition, colors and patterns have changed over time in many places, adapting to current tastes; especially in Afghanistan, many new qualities and patterns have recently emerged, entering Western markets under various new fancy names.

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pattern-drawing = While carpet weavers in villages or (nomadic) tribes usually work according to their own imagination, in urban carpet manufactories pattern drawings - called graph or nagsh -- are usually used as a model for the design of the carpets. The drawings come from artists or experienced weavers.

 

Nafar = Subtribe of the Chamseh Confederation; see "Chamseh".

Nagsh or Nakhshe =Tying template, tying pattern for a carpet.

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Naghse Faranghi = Persian name for European carpet patterns.

 

Nahavand = City in the Hamedan region of northwestern Iran; it is considered one of the most important trading centers of large-sized carpets in the country. Namely, carpets with geometricized versions of the Saruk pattern are mostly made there; in some pieces, the border design penetrates the carpet field; the dominant color is blue, the medallion motifs are usually pale rust and beige, and depicted as a leaf with flowers and branches in the background; the knots are symmetrical on cotton warp, the pile wool is shiny; the carpets are very durable. They are solid fleshy small-pile patterned carpets, mainly dozars and runners, similar to the Malay, mostly measuring 300 x 150 centimeters.

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Nain or Naien = Iranian city on the edge of the central Persian desert. From there comes an elegant, delicately drawn, sometimes sober-looking type of carpets, created in the 1930s by an abrupt change of style, which enjoyed a high reputation until the 1980s, but then, because of the thankfully only partial mass production -- there are still very good Nain! -- in several cities of Iran and because of increasingly coarse Machart lost again.

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The creator of the Nain pattern was Fatollah Habibian, who also signed some of his works. The patterns are similar to those of Isfahan and Safavid respectively. The reason of Nain carpets is

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made of cotton, partly of silk; the motifs are highlighted by silk framing. An important quality characteristic for Nain carpets is the way the warp threads are made, measured in lah, which are twisted together from several yarns; the finer the warp, the finer the carpet. The density ranges from 150,000 to 800,000 knots per square meter. Nain have three qualities: Shish lah: there the warp consists of six twisted threads, each of which again consists of two threads. Noh lah: Here the warp consists of nine threads, each of which consists of triple twisted threads.  Tjahar lah: the warp thread consists of two times two, thus four twisted threads; this is the least common type of Nain; see "Lah"!

 

Najafabad = City in the Iranian province of Isfahan; it is gradually growing together with Isfahan. It is the place of production of knotted works reminiscent of Isfahan and Keshan carpets; these also have high quality and wearability; their medallions are in red, khaki, green and blue, the patterns are often strongly influenced by the tiles of mosques as well as gardens and palaces of Isfahan province: delicate floral tendrils, pleasant, finely tuned shades and combinations of colors with robust quality.

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Nakhi = Persian decorative font.

 

Namaazlik or Namaslyk = small Turkmen or Uzbek prayer rug similar to engsi, a tent curtain; the Farsi word "namaz" means in German

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"ritual prayer".

 

Namad = Persian term for "felt"; also Turkmen felt with rough patterns.

 

Namad or Numdah or Numud = Felt carpet from India. The pattern is sewn onto the felt or introduced with colored wool during felting.

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Namakdan =knotted salt bag of Persian nomads; the Farsi word "namak" means

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"Salt".

 

Nandan =breadcloth; the Farsi word "nan" means bread.

 

Napramatsch =a large carpet bag that is also used as a child's sleeping space.

 

Naqsh = see "Nagsh"!

 

Nasdaligh style = Persian calligraphy, which appeared in the 15th. Century emerged. It is a mixture of the literary cursive Nashki script with one of its more elegant variants, the Taligh script. The Nasdaligh is especially found in borders of Safavid carpets.

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Nashkhi font = see "Nagshi"!

Nasirabad = Trade name for carpets, which originated in the southeast of Isfahan. They are produced by the settled Lori; the wefts are made of cotton.

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Natanz = Carpet-producing city in central Iran surrounded by oases, in Isfahan province on the eastern flank of the Kuhrud Mountains, between the Namak salt lake and Isfahan; site of Iran's nuclear power plant.

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Natural colors = dyes suitable for dyeing carpet yarns, which are obtained from plants, animals or minerals. They are in fierce competition with chemical or synthetic dyes, which appeared on the market from the second half of the 19th century. Century on the market. (See "aniline dyes" or "chrome dyes"!) Examples of natural dyes are indigo, kermes, madder root, woof, saffron or woad. See also "Bohemians"

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Nawar or Navar = term from Persian, in German "Band" or "Gurt".

Nazarlik = Turkish name for a talisman that protects a person against the "evil eye"

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Carnation = Symbolic sign in oriental carpets, especially Turkish, where it often appears naturally drawn, such as in Mughal carpets, or geometrized in the field of Cuban carpets; in Persian and Kurdish carpets, the carnation usually appears in border meanders. The carnation, along with the tulip and hyacinth, is one of the three typical "Ottoman flowers."

Nepal = Asian democratic federal republic at the foot of the Himalayan mountains, its capital is Kathmandu, starting point for Himalayan mountaineers. Nepal borders on Tibet in the north, otherwise on India. The most important places of carpet origin are Kathmandu, Pokhara and Patan. In Nepal, Tibetan carpets made by refugees were created on European initiatives. The pile consists of sheep's wool from the Himalayas, the ground is cotton, the fineness is 250,000 knots per square meter.

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Nepal link = original Tibetan or Chinese stick weaving, where loops are pulled over a rod and cut open to form the pile.

Nepal Tibetans = contemporary Tibetan rugs made by semi-skilled Nepalese weavers or Tibetan refugees in Nepal. See "Tibet rugs"

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New Zealand wool = Sheep's wool from New Zealand, which is used in many places on Earth for commercial carpet production because, according to expert judgment, it has the best quality on Earth.

New-Country-Style = Furnishing style at the turn of the 20th to the 21st century. Century, which affected the lifestyle, housing and carpet design; it was a reaction to the then often too modern, sometimes cool and impersonal designs of the beginning digital century, which triggered a return to rustic and nomadic forms of design; see "Vintage Look"

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Neyden or Nyeden =small Tibetan sleeping rug.

Neyestan = Designation for kilims made by Kurds over and over with diamond motifs in North Khorasan.

Non-oriental rugs =These include knotted and woven works from areas that are not considered traditional Oriental countries of origin, e. Egypt, France (tapestries, aubussons), tapestries from Flanders, carpets from Portugal and Spain, North African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Jewish-Israeli carpets.

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Nigde = City in south-central Anatolia, which is a carpet production center as well as a collection point for prayer rugs and kilims; the latter have rather wide borders with zigzag stripes connected with florets and hooks; the medallions are hexagonal and hooked, the mihrab is often stepped in design.

Nimbaft = compound word from "nim" = half and "baf(f)t = knotted, accordingly, a half-knotted textile product; it refers to a woven carpet, which has a partial pile and is partly flat weave.

Ningxia or Ning-Hsia = City in the Chinese province of Gansu, where since the late 17th century. Carpets have been made there since the end of the 17th century; in the 18th century, a group of carpets emerged there that show gray-brown side edges and a wide variety of patterns, with motifs typically appearing blue in a yellow field. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Ningxia carpets were made with 40 asymmetrical knots per square inch, respectively

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6,000 knots per square meter and cotton warp were made quite crudely.

Niriz = Capital of the region of the same name in southwestern Iran. It is a rather insignificant place of origin of carpets with medallions depicting the tree of life; they are made in the style of Gashgais. The city is a gathering place for tribal carpets from its surroundings.

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Nishapur or Neyshabur = City located in the mountains of Iran's Razavi-Korrasan province on the Silk Road east of Mashad; it was still a place of exchange of Western and Eastern knowledge in the pre-Islamic period under the Sassanids, later it was a wool center and classic gathering place of carpets. Today, carpets similar to Nain are produced there.

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Nomads = non-sedentary pastoralists who moved around in family groups in search of fresh pastures for their animals -- sheep, goats, cattle, horses, occasionally camels -- and lived in tents that were easy to erect, dismantle, and transport. Nomads do not practice agriculture and live largely off their free-grazing animals. Semi-nomads are pastoralists who have a fixed dwelling place in winter, but move around with their animals in search of new pastures in the warm season. According to Khazanov 1984, page 17f, both types of nomads live "in a food-producing extensive economy". According to experts, nomads existed since the Hittites around 1600 BC; they still exist in Mongolia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, East Turkmenistan, as well as in small groups in Turkey. According to experts, at the turn of the 20th century into the 21st century, there were still 400 settlements with tribal names of nomads. See "Qishlak"

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Nomad rugs = Modern nomadic carpets are made only a few today. Semi-nomads, who follow a way of life similar to alpine pasture farming, are still active in the mountainous areas of Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan. Nowadays, nomadic carpets are also made for urban dwellings and barter.

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nub rug = (carpet) fabric with pile-forming loops = burls.

North Africa = Carpets from this region are described under the country names Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco.

Noskhi = Persian decorative script.

Nuska = comes from Turkish and means "amulet" or talisman, in Arabic

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"nushka". It is a pyramid-shaped arrangement of isosceles triangles that is believed to have magical properties; the name derives from the shape of koran bags or pouches for religious-shamanistic relics. In Anatolia, a nuska is considered a defensive symbol against evil.

Nutshell =green shells of walnut yield a natural brown dye after fermentation in water.

Nylon = Plastic fibers, which since the second half of the 20th century. Century also used in the carpet production.

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Obruk = City in south-central Anatolia, place of origin of rather coarsely knotted carpets of nomadic character as well as fine kilims; from the late 19th century also prayer kilims were made there. Century on, prayer kilims were also woven there; the mihrabs of these pieces are stepped and decorated with hooks; the motif of the tree of life appears on the free sides of the mihrab.

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OCM = Abbreviation of "Oriental Carpet Manufacturers Ltd.", an internationally positioned carpet company with purchasing offices, manufacturing plants and laundries in Izmir (Smyrna), Tabriz, Nepal, Afghanistan and Amritsar, which collected carpets for export to Europe. OCM-was represented by sales offices in Constantinople, Cairo, Alexandria, Moscow, Vienna, Paris, London, Buenos Aires and Sydney. It is considered the first company to practice globalization of the world economy. The OCM logo showed three camels loaded with carpets. The company went under in the second half of the eighties of the 20th. Century perished.

Odschalik or Ocaklik or Odjalik = Turkish U-shaped hearth rug; also name of rugs that have two mihrabs pointing in opposite directions in the center field; see also "asylum rug"

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Oghusen or Oghuzen = ancestors of today's Turks. They are a people formed in the 6. Century after Christ in the steppes between Syrdarja and the lower Volga at the Aral sea and the Kaspischem sea settled group of people of the formerly powerful early Turkish realm in Central Asia; in the 10. Century converted to the Islamic faith, in the 11th

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hundreds of years ago, under the leadership of the Seljuks, they advanced into Asia Minor and Persia.

Ogurjali or Ogurdschali or Ogurjali = probably an early Turkmen sub-tribe of the Yomud (see this), who lived on the east coast of the Caspian Sea. Their carpets are rare, as the tribe is engaged in fishing and mining minerals rather than carpet weaving.

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Ok-Bash = literally "bow end", a knotted round container used by Jomud nomads to store the bent tent poles during migrations; also a tent pole decoration for wedding caravans of Turkmen.

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Octagon = octagonal or eight-rayed (carpet) motif; its name is "Filpah", which means "elephant foot" in German.

Oltenia = an area in the southwest of Romania, place of origin of fine kilims with floral and animal motifs scattered over the infield; the latter is often black, and the motifs are rendered in red, blue, white and green.

O.N.A.T.  = Abbreviation of the Tunisian government organization that controls the country's contemporary carpet production. The full name: "Office National de l`Artisanat Tunisien"

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Orient Carpet = an unofficial and not well-defined term. Originally, it applied to all handmade knotted carpets made in the Middle East or Asia. Currently, it applies to all hand-knotted products used as rugs, wherever they come from, including flatweaves from the Middle East or Asia. The term

"Persian carpet" is occasionally, but incorrectly, used as a synonym for Oriental carpet.

Ornament = term derived from the Latin "ornare" (= to decorate) for a multiple repetitive naturalistic or abstract ornamentation, decoration, decorative form of carpets and products in the field of fine arts.

Ornament Treasure =the ornamental treasure trove of geometric oriental carpets includes mainly octagonal, square, diamond and similar shapes, also stars, crosses, volutes, S- shapes and many other structures; the decorative forms of naturalistic nature include human and animal figures, but especially motifs from the plant world.

Ortaköy = City in Central Anatolia, where small carpets are created in mostly screaming and flashy colors. "Ortaköy" is a common place name in Turkey, because it means

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"middle, central village".

Ottomans = Turkish ruling dynasty (1281-1924), named after the founder of the empire Osman I. (1259-1326).

Ottoman carpet = The production of Ottoman carpets began in Konya, the center of Turkish carpet production, probably also in Sivas or Kayseri in the 14th century. Century. Venetian merchant and world traveler Marco Polo reported about it in his 13th century book. Ottoman carpets are the result of the overcoming of the Seljuks by the Ottoman dynasty around 1300.Typical example of an early Ottoman carpet is the Marby carpet, which was accidentally discovered in 1886 in the church of the Swedish village of Marby; it is a dragon phoenix carpet probably made in Anatolia. See "Marby"

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Osmolduk = obsolete expression for "Asmalyk", see this.

East Turkestan = a large region in northwestern China, also called Xingjiang; it was Buddhist in the first millennium AD. In the following Muslim era, the oldest surviving East Turkestan carpets date back to the 17th century; for example,

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B. gold and silver brocaded pieces with silk weaving from Kashgar. The region of East Turkestan, unlike West Turkestan, has had important artistic and economic ties with Tibet, China, and India for many centuries. Carpets from this region are often called "Samarkands" in the West, but "Gansu" or "Kansu" in China. They usually come from the oasis towns of Khotan, Karakash, Chira, Keriya, Niya or Yarkand. Regarding the motifs and patterns, experts speak of a union of Chinese, Buddhist and Islamic designs. Their formats were based on the perimeter of the Aivan estradas; these are square atrium rooms in which the inhabitants of the house live, receive guests, eat and sleep. Carpet sizes are about 400 x 200 centimeters, twice as long as they are wide. The pomegranate pattern is common, as is the three-medallion rug, in addition to the one- and two-medallion rugs.

Ottoman = incorrect designation of the Ottomans as a ruling dynasty that founded modern Turkey in 1279.

Ouaouzquite = tribe from the High Atlas and Siroua Mountains in Morocco. It makes weavings of various structures, flat weaves with pile bands or pile borders. Many of these rugs are checkered all over or covered with diamond motifs. Others show various geometric motifs with stylized geometric figures or animals.

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Oulad Bou Sbaa = Moroccan tribe living in the southwest of Marrakech. Their carpets usually have a red or orange field with geometric motifs, including human figures. These pieces are called "Chichaoua" after a town in this area. Their fineness is low, with 15 to 20 symmetrical knots per square inch, which is equivalent to 97,000 to 129,000 knots per square meter.

Oxus = historical Persian river, now called Amu Darya.

Öy = see "Yurt".

Özipek-Cinar-Sirinyan-Durmas =Amalgamation of leading Turkish carpet producers in the high-quality field with classic and modern designs.

 

Pah chordeh = Farsi term for used carpet; literally translated, the phrase means "used by the foot."

Pakistan = Islamic Republic, once part of India; the country is not one of the classic carpet-producing countries, has only become so over time. Under the name of Pakistan, carpets come to Western markets that were knotted in Afghanistan and are brought to the world market via the Khyber Pass and Pakistan. Pakistan has not produced any independent knotting patterns. In addition to the so-called Bochara and Jaldar there are still very fine carpets (= Sutri) with Persian drawing.

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Pallas or Palas = 1.: in Persian, this name means "old rag"; it is a striped flat weave or a roughly knotted carpet. 2nd: in Caucasian, it is understood to mean a double-sided flat weave, formerly of plants and later made in linen weave; usually a material patterned with stripes, holding together hand-knotted bags, see "chordjin". (See also

"Hasirs"!) 3rd: In Afghanistan, it means a flat weave of goat hair for tents or large sacks. The particular meaning of this term usually depends on the practical use of the textile.

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Palmette =fan-shaped leaf element modeled on the fan palm, which was fashioned into a flower shape in Greek art; it is thought to be a further development of the motif of the Egyptian lotus blossom or pomegranate.

palmette border =carpet border designed with palmettes strung together.

Palmetto Carpet =with the repeating motif of stylized palmette leaves patterned through, artistically often valuable knotted carpets from Persia.

panel = rectangular field above and below the mihrab in the pattern of prayer rugs.

Panj Mihraba or Pandjmihrabe = Afghan name for "five mihrabs", a trade name for prayer rugs made south of Maimana, which have a row of five small mihrabs at the top. Today, this production no longer exists.

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Pao Tao or Baotou = Western Chinese city in Inner Mongolia northeast of Ningxia on the great loop of the Huanghe River. Carpets from there and surrounding towns are more densely woven than those from Ningxia and use more blue in their patterns; early carpets of this type have multiple repeating motifs, while later ones contain more pictorial motifs. Especially in the first half of the 20th

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Century smaller carpets, often with figural drawing, came from there. The often held view that only blue and white patterned carpets were made in the Baotou factories is not true. Since the 19th century, carpets in almost all colors and with a wide range of patterns were made in the local factories.

paragraph border = Merchant's term for borders of Caucasian carpets, showing continuous left-slanting S-signs and a bar in the middle, reminding of a paragraph sign.

Pardeh = Persian term for "curtain" or for carpet formats of about 300 x 150 cm. Such carpets or kilims were used as a partition or door in mosques, which can still be seen in some older pieces; see "double knotted"

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Parokhet = woven curtain in a synagogue in front of the Torah shrine, where the Torah scrolls are protected.

Pars = Name for ancient Persia, a variation of "Fars", the southwestern province of Iran with the capital Shiraz.

Pasargardeh or Pasargadai = Residence of the Achaemenids; see this.

Pashmina or Paschmina = Scarf or cloak for women made of fine wool or silk, originally originating from Kashmir; it got its name from a Persian dialect word meaning "made of wool"; "pashm" = "cashmere yarn"; see also "cashmere"!

Pashtunen or Pathan = ethnic tribal group that makes up about half of Afghanistan's population; their language is Pashto from the Iranian language family; a minority of Pashtuns live in Pakistan; carpets are produced by the Pashtun tribes of Durrani, Ghilza'i, Haftbala, Mushwani, or Shirkhani.

Patchwork = contemporary textiles or carpets, which consist of sewn together geometrically shaped sections or patches of different patterns, colors and types of manufacture. For this purpose are often used worn carpets, which are also still taken by washing the color. Place take these fashions (vintage) especially in India, Pakistan and Turkey. Substitute names for it are for example

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B. Mishmash, pastiche, medley, hodgepodge, or pastiche.

Patina = Condition of muted colors and shine after long use of art objects, such as oriental carpets.

Patrone = see "Sample Drawing".

Pazyryk or Pasyryk = oldest known physically preserved carpet on Earth, about 2500 years old, discovered in 1946 by Prof. Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in an ice grave on the border between Mongolia and China and is almost completely preserved thanks to a layer of ice. It is displayed under glass in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in Russia.

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There are surprising artistic similarities between the Pazyryk and the ancient Persian capital Persepolis.

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Beijing = Capital of the People's Republic of China, where the first Chinese carpets were made around 1860. Intensive carpet production began in 1880 and lasted until 1920; then it largely shifted to Tientsin. The best Peking carpets imitated ancient palace, court, and temple carpets; the more popular Peking carpets had a blue main field with designs and borders in leather brown, white, or gold colors; motifs included Buddhist and Taoist symbols, occasionally mixed in the same piece and without regard to their meaning. Beijing carpets were and are predominantly knotted with asymmetrical knots; Beijing continues to have modest carpet production with densities between 200,000 and 300,000 knots per square meter.

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Pendeh = 1. : name of a trading center for carpets and an old term used to describe Turkmen weavings of unexplained origin. 2nd : Persian term for

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"five places", an oasis surrounded by Turkmen villages near the border between Iran and Afghanistan, where carpets are made.

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Perepedil = a city southeast of Cuba in Daghestan in the Caucasus; the carpets of this area are often called Cuba; their pattern consists of stylized ram's horns or. Flower calyxes, often with a Kufic border.

Persepolis = Capital and residence of the Achaemenid dynasty north of Shiraz; see

"Achaemenids".

Persepolis Carpets = Persian carpets whose pattern depicts reliefs or ruined parts of the ancient Persian city near Shiraz. Many of these pieces were made by the Gashghai. These patterns are mostly copies of French lithographs or engravings made in the 19th century; some rugs even contain inscriptions from the lithographs or engravings.

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Persia = called "Islamic Republic of Iran" since 1936. Next to or after the Caucasus oldest country in the world, which consistently maintains the carpet culture to this day. Persia is a world leader in the development of innovative naturalistic carpet designs, the combination of motifs into imaginative patterns, as well as in the development of sensational colors in the visual impact of carpets, but since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 on the carpet markets purely fashionable in retreat.

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Persian Knot = asymmetric carpet knot, also called Senneh knot, second most commonly used type of knot in oriental carpets. See also "knots"

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Peshawar or Peshawar = City and carpet production center in northwest Pakistan; a transshipment point for carpets originating from Afghanistan.

PETAG = abbreviated name of the on 14. 9. 1911 in Berlin, which had carpets produced in Tabriz in northern Iran for worldwide export. The founder was Heinrich Jacoby (1889-1964); the company produced five different qualities: Cyrus, Rustem, Teimuri, Hamajun and Pertovi. The company has long since ceased to exist.

Petit-point = Needlework, which uses pearl stitch to embroider patterns with a density of up to 25 stitches per square centimeter on a fine canvas backing with colorful yarns. This is practiced in Europe, Turkey and Kashmir by women.

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Pfau or Peacock carpet = Persian knotted works, which show a peacock with ruffled feathers as the dominant motif. "Peacock throne" was the name of the ruling seat of Persian shahs. The peacock motif in a carpet symbolizes divine protection.

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Phoenix Dragon Motif = the union of a phoenix, a mythical mythical bird of the Egyptians, which dies in fire and is reborn from the ashes, with a dragon, which is considered a miraculous animal in China. This motif on a carpet means supreme power or invincibility. See "Marby carpet"

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Pit-Loom = pit loom, the kicking device of which is located in a pit in the ground; the weaver sits on the edge of the pit and operates the kicks resp. the wefts; found mostly in Indian and Pakistani handloom weaving, where cheap handlooms are made; the English word "pit" means pit. See "handloom"

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Ply = is the English name for two or more yarn threads that are twisted or twisted together. twisted.

Pole rugs = erroneous carpet designation due to a misunderstanding at the 1878 Paris International Exhibition about their actual origin. These mostly small-format carpets from the 17th century or Safavid period did not originate in Poland, as has occasionally been speculated, but were ordered by Polish princes in Turkey or Persia and made according to decided specifications as they now look. They can be seen in many carpet museums. They are in fact silk Shah Abbas carpets from Isfahan or Kahan. A typical example is the so-called Czartoryski carpet (see this one!), currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, made of cotton, silk and metallic threads by Safavid weavers in Persia, with an imaginatively designed Polish coat of arms in the center.

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Polygon = polygonal (carpet) motif.

portrait carpet = knotted product controversial in its artistic quality, depicting concrete people in portrait form, copying the painting schools of Tabriz or Herat. After the assassination of US President Kennedy, thousands of carpets were made with his portrait; the same was the case with ex-emperor Soraya. Also currently it is possible, for example,

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B. in Tabriz to have a carpet knotted after a photo. Among puritan Sunnis, the depiction of people and animals is strictly forbidden; among the less puritan Shiites, this is less the case.

Portuguese rugs =a curious group of eight presumably Persian or Indian medallion carpets with large central medallions surrounded by wheel wreaths, probably commissioned by the Portuguese court. Their spandrels feature sailing ships with European crews. The pieces were previously attributed to India because the Portuguese were the first Europeans in India. These rugs are now scattered throughout museums around the world.

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Poshti or Poschti = the Persian word "posht" means "behind". This term is for knotted upholstery or seat covers; it is also a size designation for very small rugs measuring 50 x 80 centimeters.

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Prince Bochara = Trade name for fine Turkmen carpets.

Provenance =Place of origin of a carpet.

 

Qableh or Qibla = see "Ghable"!

Qaisar = City in northwestern Afghanistan, west of Maimana. There, Uzbeks make carpets with different patterns similar to those of the Ensi; they have double wefts and asymmetrical knots.

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Qajar-= royal Iranian dynasty of Turkic origin, formed primarily by the Qajar tribe, which ruled in Iran from 1789 to 1925, but also over large parts of the Caucasus, such as Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

 

Qarqin or Quarquin = City in northern Afghanistan, west of Mazar-e Sharif; is also the name of a Turkmen tribe; recent carpets from the place are the cheapest and those with the lowest quality among all Turkmen knotted works.

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Qazvin or Kazvin = City in Northern Iran; it was the capital of the Safavid Empire in the mid-16th century. Century. It was probably the place of origin of many historical Persian carpets, which are now exhibited in the museums of the world. Between the First and the Second World War, medallion carpets similar to the Saruks have been made there; their ground is made of cotton and they have double wefts.

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Qishlak or Qeschlaq = Persian name for the nomads' winter quarters.

 

Qom or Kum = see "Ghom"!

 

Quali = Persian term for a carpet, a heavy artistically designed fabric for human, symbolic and religious use; in Turkish "Hali".

 

Quality = For carpets and textiles, it depends on the optimal combination of several factors: These are the fineness of the knotting (number of knots per unit of measurement), the quality of the materials used (cotton, animal wool, silk), the harmonious matching of the colors used, their origin and water resistance, the type and execution of the patterns and motifs, and the age and origin of the piece in question.

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Quedlinburg Carpet = Carpet fragment from the Lower Saxon city of Quedlinburg from the late 12th. Century, a stand-alone product of the nunnery there made of wool on hemp base (see "German carpets").

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Quercetin =yellow natural dye extracted from oak.

 

Quetta =Western Pakistani (carpet) trading city.

 

Quibla = see "Ghable"!

Quilt = Versatile decorative or quilted blanket, suitable as a bedspread or wall hanging. It consists of at least two, but usually three textile layers, which are sewn together and meet artistic requirements.

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Rabat = Moroccan major city on the Atlantic coast; there since the 18th. Century, long but narrow carpets are made there, as they fit in typical urban Moroccan bedrooms. Typically, a narrow inner field is surrounded by strong borders, so that about two-thirds of the rug is border. The patterns are mostly imitations of Turkish designs; they have symmetrical knots on wool ground in older pieces, cotton ground on contemporary ones. The fineness ranges from 40 to 60 knots per square inch, the equivalent of 258,000 to

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387,000 nodes per square meter.

 

Radiocarbon analysis =a scientific radiometric method developed in 1946 to determine the age of organic matter other than living organisms, also called the C14 method. This method makes use of the steady decomposition of C14 carbon in organic matter to date its age.

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Radj or Raj or Reg = Unit of measurement used in Iran, especially in Tabriz. A radj is the length of a cigarette, almost 7 centimeters. Example: 40 radj means 40 knots per 7 centimeters, which is almost 57 knots per 10 centimeters; thus, the relevant carpet has a knotting unit of 325,000 knots per square meter.

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Rakhat or Rakkat = Bag for bedding, which mainly Afshars fertig(t)en; the term derives from the Persian "rakht", which means "bedding" in German. It is a long, narrow knotted bag, about two by four feet with loops at the top so that it can be hung in the tent.

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rank = Persian term for color.

 

Rang-raz = Persian name of a dyer.

 

Rapport = regular, seemingly endless repetition of ornamental sections, patterns and motifs in carpets or fabrics, especially in borders.

Rasht or Rasht or Resht = Iranian city near the southwestern coast of Lake Caspian; wall hangings, animal harnesses and carpets made of sewn-on or inlaid cloth and embroidered silk are produced there; some of these textiles date back to the 18th century. Century; the Persian name for these works is "flower embroidery from Rasht".

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Rashtizadeh = famous Iranian carpet-making family from Ghom, founded in 1940 by Ali R. , continued by his son Reza Tadjerrashti; the manufactory produces extremely fine and artistic silk carpets.

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Rashwan = Kurdish tribe in Iran that makes rugs, bags, and kilims; also a name for kilims made in south-central Anatolia between Kayseri and Malatya; most of them have large concentric rhombic medallions; the rhombuses have geometric attachments; the wefts are made of wool;

occasionally, additional wefts made of cotton, silk, or gilded yarn are brought in.

Rhombus = geometric motif seen on nomadic rugs. It is a flat square with sides that are not rectangular to each other, always arranged in parallel.

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Ravar = Village with long carpet tradition m north of Kerman in Iran. From there come finer qualities of carpets from the area around Kirman, which are occasionally incorrectly called "Laver" (= French and means "washed").

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Ravar Kirman = Name for the particularly early carpets made there; it is also considered a trade name for high-quality carpets traded in Kirman.

Reihan = Place in the southeast of Arak in Iran; from there come carpets with only one weft thread with red field and an all-over pattern derived from Herati.

series = way of placing motifs in the carpet pile. Either they are placed side by side or one behind the other at approximately equal intervals; in the case of staggered rows, the motifs of every other row are shifted so that they appear diagonally behind each other.

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Row prayer rugs = see "Saf" or "Saph"!

Riding bags = They are made in different shapes: knotted they are called Heibe, with wide stripes "Palazde", with fine stripes and openwork "Kesme"; see also

"Kirsehir", "Palazde" and "Khordjin"!

rectilinear = rectilinear or. geometrically figured, stylized carpet motifs and patterns typical of nomadic or village carpets. (See also "curvilinear"!) This type of rugs includes those based on horizontal, vertical, and oblique lines, as well as regular or irregular polygons; the patterns are usually simple and down-to-earth.

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Repair = Carpet repair should be done only by designated professionals. In order to make a damaged carpet usable again, it is necessary to use yarns of the same quality, color and knotting density as can be seen on the original. In most cases, this involves plugging gaps caused by fretting or use, or fixing loose fringe ends, side edges and selvages. The object in need of repair must first be washed or cleaned, both for hygienic reasons and because it is easier to see and assess the damaged areas afterwards. Before placing a repair order, you should ask a reputable repairer to quote the estimated cost of the repair, and you should also ask him about the value of the carpet after repair to make sure that the value and cost are in an acceptable ratio. Regarding costly repairs, see "Restoration"

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Reseda = yellow dye obtained from an extract of Reseda lutuola.

Restoration =this is the name of more time-consuming and financially expensive repairs. As a rule, such repairs are carried out only on antique specimens. Here, too, the cost of restoration and the value of the object after restoration should be taken into account, and the owner's love for his piece is also decisive. Elaborate restorations are now often carried out in Turkey, because they are there cheaper and enough experienced professionals.

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Rey = Suburb of Tehran, the capital of Iran. It used to be known for carpet laundries, which have since been relocated to Veramin.

Reyhanli or Reyhanh = Site in southeastern Anatolia near the border with Syria; kilims from this site date back to the mid-19th century. Century; the early pieces have been very finely woven with excellent patterns; they are long, little wide and made in two pieces.

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reciprocal =means alternating or reciprocal; a special type of pattern arrangement that occurs when, for example. For example, the pattern of a decorative bar appears again inverted in the adjacent bar.

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Rhombus = a carpet motif; it is a diamond-shaped isosceles parallelogram with slanted corners.

Directive List =a comparison list compiled before the Austrian Chamber of Labour for the final consumer prices of new oriental carpets from the year 2010, therefore no longer current.

Rishe ="fringe" in Persian.

RKO = a special type of Chinese carpets, analyzed by Charles Grant Ellis and so named in 1967 because of their visual effect comparable to sound waves after the US TV station RKO. They are a few dozen knotted works made by Muslim Chinese in the provinces of East Turkestan, Ningxia and Gansu for their own purposes, not for the market. They are characterized by tight rows of horizontal, vertical, and zigzag dash bands around a central dragon medallion in varying designs and contrasting colors to the respective border. The older an RKO rug, the denser its dash bands.

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Rose = widespread motif in oriental carpets, especially represented in Turkish knotted works of the Medjid style, in Senneh Kilims from Persia and in Karabagh carpets from the Caucasus; rose bouquets and branches are also represented in Aubusson and Savonnerie carpets; the Turkish "Gül" means "rose" in German.

Rosette = Motif of a flower in plan view; this results in a regular circular structure with the petals as rays.

Rudbar = this Persian name means "bank of the river" in German; the city is located in the north of Iran in the province of Gilan; it is known, in addition to its olives, for its cream-colored carpets.

Ruh-e-farsh = Persian expression for a carpet cover, which wealthy Persians since the early 20th. Century like to use to protect their valuable carpets; the term is the German translation of the Persian "over the carpet".

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call price = see "Auctions"!

Rufu = in Persian, this expression means a hidden repair.

Ruh-e-asb =horse blanket; the name is composed of the Persian words "ruh" for "over" and "asb" for "horse".

Ruh-Korsi = the name is composed of the Persian words "ruh" and "Korsi", which mean in German "auf dem Mangalofen" (see this); this means a carpet or flat weave, which is spread around the stove in the yurt to warm the legs.

Romania = Southeastern European country, where the production of oriental knotted carpets began only after World War I and no longer exists today. Armenian refugees had copied Caucasian and Turkish patterns. The 400 or so so-called Transylvanian or Transylvanian carpets on display in Romanian churches and museums are imported carpets from western Anatolia that traders made between the 16th and

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18th century to wealthy Romanian citizens.

round carpets = newer type of carpets. The oldest round carpet is a Mamluk carpet from the 16th century; there are also younger round Cairen carpets. They were probably produced to cover the tops of round tables. Round carpets from China were first used in Tientsin and Beijing. Meanwhile, round carpets have become a product of many carpet origin countries.

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Rya = coarse Scandinavian long pile carpet, which has been popular in the course of interior design fashion of the sixties and seventies. The name comes from the Swedish word "Rya", which means rough or shaggy. The specific technique of creation is said to have been brought to Sweden, Denmark and Finland by the Vikings in the 9th century AD from their trading voyages as far as early medieval Byzantium; thus, the art of symmetrical knotting is said to have come to northern Europe from the Ottoman Empire.

 

S = ancient Turkmen (carpet) motif symbolizing light, divinity and wisdom. The S sign also acts as a symbol of good luck, especially when it appears in carpet borders. The S symbol also applies to a bird and often appears in recognizable forms in Caucasian and Anatolian carpets only after their prolonged viewing.

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Saalat = ritual Islamic prayer towards Mecca, prescribed five times a day.

Sabden = Name for large-sized Tibetan carpets.

Sabzevar = Iranian city with carpet production. The products are similar to those of Mashad mostly with medallions.

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Safavid = Turkmen ruling dynasty of Islamic Persia (1502-1722). During this period Persia experienced the first heyday of its carpet production. As inspiration served the art of the Timurids (1380-1506), who ruled in present-day Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Iran, in turn absorbed and passed on Chinese art.

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Safran = scientific name crocus sativus", a pale yellow plant pigment produced from the flowers or. pollen of violet crocuses - this is not a contradiction! --, is used as a spice as well as a natural dye, and is considered the "most expensive spice on earth."

Saladjak or Saladjak or Salachyk = because of its true purpose controversial pentagonal to hexagonal Turkmen knotwork. Many experts believe it to be a cradle or prayer rug for children; Turkmen experts such as Siawosch Azadi stated that it was a coverlet for a crib; some specimens have a slit at one end, suggesting that it could also be a saddle blanket.

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Salarchani = Iranian tribe that produces Beludjen-style rugs.

Salband = 1. : technical term from geology for the mutual demarcation of two rock courses; 2.: in tapitology, term for a seam or a fabric edge on the sides of a carpet.

Saliani or Sal`yany = City in the south of Baku on the Kura River, east of the Moghan Steppe; from there come carpets traded under the name "Baku".

Saloren = one of the oldest Turkmen tribes, which emerged from the former Central Asian horsemen nomads and was devastated by the Tekke and Persians in 1830. The carpets of the Salors, mostly in striking red colors, are distinguished from those of other Turkmen tribes by the use of characteristic motifs called darvaza güls; there are also Salor güls, but their characteristics for genuine Salor carpets are disputed. After the defeat of the Salors, other tribes took over the Saloren güls. Experts counted so far only about 230 genuine Saloren carpets worldwide, so their prices are particularly high.

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Salor-Gül = typical irregular octagonal carpet motif of the Salor Turkmen.

Salt bag ="Tuz Torba" in Turkish, "Namakdan" in Persian (Farsi).

Samarkand = East Turkestan carpet from the area between China and Turkestan, named after the ancient capital of the Turkmen; an ancient khanate and city located in western Turkestan on the eastern trade route between Tashkent and Herat, today called Uzbekistan. Chinese, Mongols, Turks, Iranians and Tibetans live together here. The place was a famous carpet market, but not an important producer of carpets. Samarkand was the capital of the dreaded Tamerlan or Timur, whose mausoleum can be seen there among other rare sights.

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Sandjab or Sanjab = Kurdish tribe from the Kermanshah district in Iran; it used to be an important producer of carpets with the Herati pattern and of various functional weavings; the basis is usually cotton with symmetrical knots.

Sanguszko = a group of 14 Safavid carpets in distinctive style, probably designed as hunting carpets, whole or in smaller pieces, made between 1528 to 1535, accordingly in the 16th. and 17th centuries, made under disputed circumstances in south-central Persia. They were named after the Polish-Lithuanian citizen, Prince Roman Sanguszko, who owned a piece of such a carpet; the carpet was on display for years at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York. The group are medallion rugs depicting animals and birds, some in dispute within a floral ornament; all pieces in this group have wide borders and were made with sheep's wool and silk.

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Saph or Saff or Saf = The Arabic "saph" means "row" or "order" and refers to a type of Turkish prayer rug with several - five or seven -- prayer niches next to or on top of each other in different colors and patterns, often

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"Family prayer rug" called; often the pile is knotted of silk. Such carpets were made throughout the Middle East; kilims as well. The Saf pattern is more likely to date back to arcades of Islamic mosques than to the mihrab in the mosque.

Sar = See "Zar"!

Sarab = City in northwestern Iran between Tabriz and Ardebil. Weavers in this area produce runners with recurring rhombuses or hexagonal medallions; camel wool is often used.

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Saratma = chemical wash of a carpet in Turkey; the term means "to make yellow"; see also "chemical wash".

Sarchalka = Stripe border that appears in different variations in some Turkmen tribes, especially Kisilajak, Ersari and Jomud.

Sarkisla = City in Central Anatolia between Sivas and Kayseri, a place where since the 18th. Century only a few carpets have been made; these usually have a grid pattern of jagged rhombuses or other geometric motifs.

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Sarköy = spoken "Sharköy"; 1. : town and area in the south of the Turkish province of Tekirdagh in the European part of Turkey on the coast of the Sea of Marmara. The flatweaves (kilims) of this area have their own character; in addition to small sizes, there used to be oversizes; today there is hardly any production. 2nd: formerly Bulgarian city in Thrace, now called Pirot, located in Serbia and confused with the Turkish city of the same name; kilims were also made there, which had eccentric shots in the reproduction of floral and animal motifs.

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Saruk or Sarough = West Persian city north of Arak, whose name has become the collective name of an outstanding type of West Persian carpets, which reached its peak in the 1920s. Century reached its peak. At that time they were exported in large quantities to the USA, from where they have been re-exported to Europe as "American Saruks" since 1960. Saruks with a pink to red background are particularly prized; saruks with a light-ground pile are rare; inexpensive qualities come on the market as Lilian or Engela.

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Sary Gyra = elaborately crafted wide border with staircase and gable elements, which is often found among the Ersari and Beschir; other Turkmen tribes such as Jomud and Chaudor also tie them.

Saryk or Sariq = one of the five main Turkmen tribes in southern Turkmenistan; many of its members settled around the village of Pendeh (= "five places"), others in northern Afghanistan. Early Saryk rugs have symmetrical knots, later ones asymmetrical; after 1880 they have purple, brown, or purplish-brown fields, earlier high red fields sometimes with cotton in the pile; the most commonly used gül is an octagon with a central hexagon. In Afghanistan, the Saryk use for their "Mauri" (Merv) carpets the so-called Bochara Göl in small form and densely packed.

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Sassanids = second-oldest Persian ruling dynasty of pre-Islamic Persia (224-651 BC).

Saddlecloth = Turkish "cherlyk or "eyerlik", called, Persian "ruh-e-asb". They are usually blankets or knotted textiles (kelims, sumakh or made in Verneh technique); they are placed over the saddle of an animal; often there are holes inside to fix them over the saddle button.

Saddle bag =called "Heybe" or "Heybeh" in Turkish, "khordjin" in Persian, respectively.

"Chordjin". They are textile utensils of nomads or semi-nomads and consist of two transport bags or sacks each, connected by a bridge, usually flat woven, so that they can be carried over the backs of horses, donkeys or

camels or can be carried over the shoulders of people. Their outsides are usually knotted to show a pile, and the insides are usually flat woven. Saddlebags are usually equipped with loops for hanging inside the tent; they are miniature versions of all common carpet shapes and colors. With the decline of nomadism, most saddlebags have been cut up or stuffed as pillows, so few have come down to our time in their original state. Saddlebags from Tibet were made in two pieces, which were then sewn together; Persian and Turkish saddlebags were always made in one piece. A distinction is made between panniers for smaller items for hiking, storage bags in the tent or house, shopping bags for the village population and purely decorative objects.

Saudjbulagh or Sauj Bulaq = City in the mountains of northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urumiyeh, place of origin of Kurdish carpets made with red wefts, dark colors and in symmetrical knots on cotton background.

Column rug =Pillar carpet without side borders, used in China and Tibet for lining pillars.

Saveh = small town west of Ghom; here carpets are made on cotton base. Incorrectly, this type of carpet is often referred to as "Ghom."

Savonnerie =knotted French tapestry with sliced burls; see

"Picture weaving". The name comes from the original production site of these textiles in Chaillot near Paris, which had previously housed a soap factory. Savonneries have existed since the early 17th century, the age of Louis XIII, and were always a product of state manufactories for the needs of rulers and royal households. Around 1850, the high period of savonneries ended, but they continue to be produced for a middle-class clientele, but in modest numbers. Beautiful and high quality savonneries have also been made in China since the beginning of the 21st century.

 

Saz style = typical knotting pattern of Ottoman court manufactories. The name comes from Turkish and means "reed", "rush" or "enchanted forest"; it is a floral pattern consisting of long feathered leaves, rosettes and palmettes.

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Saddleback = comes from the Turkish "caprak" or Kurdish "shabrak" and means in German "Paradedecke" or "horse blanket", a cover for horses.

Chessboard rugs = rare ancient Tibetan rug type that features patterns of squares, lines, and crosses; the pieces are most often used as sitting and playing surfaces (see

"Shotima"). Another type of checkerboard or compartment carpets are a very rare group, which were once thought to be derived from the Mamluk or

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Kairene Ottoman carpets. They are only 30 pieces in total, which have a similar pattern composed of squares, with triangles in the corners and enclosing a star pattern.

Sheep = Main source of natural wool for carpet production in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Basically there are two types of sheep there: Fat-tailed sheep and thick-skinned or bighorn sheep. The former is most common in the Middle East and North Africa, the latter in Central Asia; both species are present in China.

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Sheep wool = Sheep of nomads can not be shorn in the winter; only in the spring it is possible. The nomads were and are therefore not always fresh wool for dyeing or knotting their carpets available; therefore explain problems such as

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B. Abrash; see this!

 

Shah Abbas Pattern = specially patterned knotwork named after the most important Safavid ruler. After Shah Abbas the Great, many high-quality court manufactory carpets are called. It is a floral carpet pattern, which consists of large palmettes and occurs mainly on vase carpets with two- and three-dimensional grid.

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Shah Abbas Carpets = are called such courtly knotted works of the first half of the 17th century. Century called, which were made with silk and broche.

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Schamachi or Shamakhi = ancient cultural and historical city and region in Azerbaijan. Name of a group of carpets originating from the Shirvan region; three Azerbaijani carpet schools are distinguished in this region: Shirvan, Baku, and Guba. (See also

"Shirvan"!)

Snap silk =lower-quality silk scraps such as thread ends and short pieces commonly used as padding or blanket stuffing.

Schar-e-Babak or Schar-e-Bakab = southern Iranian place; the products of the Afshari tribes are different from those from the surroundings of this city and those from Sirdjan.

Scharabian or Sharabian = Persian city in the province of East Azerbaijan in central Iran; carpets from this city belong to the Heris group and are rather rare; they are filled with floral tendrils all over, have a star-shaped central medallion and are very durable.

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Mock fringe = machine-made fringes sewn on only after a carpet has been knotted; they reduce the value of an oriental knotted piece.

Layering = Staggering the warp threads in carpet making.

Fate node = ancient Chinese symbols for infinity or for Buddha: ribbon-like figures entwined in themselves, which have neither beginning nor end.

slanted rugs = see "Village Rugs"!

Schigatse =one of the main places of Tibetan carpet manufacturing.

Shiites = Name for the followers of the Shia; they are the second largest religious followers of Islam after the Sunnis. They consider Ali Ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, to be the only legitimate successor to Muhammad as caliph at the time, in the 7th century AD, and thus stand in contrast to the Sunnis, who do not.

Sign = a shield-shaped medallion found mainly in Persian carpets, which extends or continues a large central medallion.

Schiras or Shiraz = Capital of the southern Persian province of Fars, gathering point for knotted works of the nomads and village weavers of this province. Shiraz is also considered

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cultural capital of Persia, because there are the tombs of poets Saadi and Hafis. In the city are also offered knotted works under the collective name of Shirazi, the quality of which is often inferior.

Shirasi = side fastening of carpets along the warp; in the process, the last lateral warp threads with the wefts running over them are protected and at the same time decorated by additional wool or goat hair.

Schirwan or Shirvan = historical region in Azerbaijan between the Caspian Sea and the Kuva River with the minority of a Caucasian-speaking population; the majority are Turkic-speaking Oghuz. Carpets are produced here that can be classified as Caucasian, but are all finely made and different from other Azerbaijani types. The pieces are made of virgin wool, which has a glossy appearance and is naturally dyed. The carpets are patterned throughout and usually have medallions; there are only old knotted carpets and flatweaves from there. The textiles from the Shirvan group were made primarily as important parts of household needs, not for sale and always with the aim of decorating the home and life. The idiosyncratic and persistent dyeing of the yarns used to make the Shirvan pieces is based on the diverse flora of the region, which experts put at about 1500 species; among them, the buckthorn is the most important. The local population has developed special dyeing techniques that resulted in diverse shades of color. Carpet names from this region are Gabystan, Namazlyg, Arjiman, Agajli, Mecca Madina, Nabur, Padar, Salyan, Duruja or Garkhun.

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screen rugs = see "Akstafa"!

Slitkelim = a type of patterned flat weave with horizontal stripes, made especially in Turkey in Anatolia, characterized by vertical openings (slits). At each color change in the pattern in the horizontal direction, a hole is created due to the reversal of the weft with respect to the immediately adjacent different color. The weft reverses where the pattern and color dictate; if several reversal points are located one below the other, a slit is created. This must be short, otherwise the entire fabric becomes inherently unstable. However, this limits the pattern formation.

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Keyhole rugs = antique, mostly East Anatolian or Caucasian knotted carpets with a dominant pattern called "keyhole" or "re-entry". It is created from the combination of a rectangle and two octagons, which together resemble the shape of an ancient keyhole. Only a few such carpets are preserved. Such carpets were discovered in paintings by Renaissance painters such as Gentile Bellini, Lorenzo Lotto and Francesco da Ponte. (See "painted carpets"!)

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Schotori or Shotori = in Persian means camel brown or natural brown sheep wool; the Farsi word "shotori" means "camel" in German.

slanted cross or shingle-cross = see "St. Andrew's Cross".

Schoolver or Shulaver = a group of carpets from the 19th. Century from the Kazak region in the Southwest Caucasus with designs formed by columns with hexagons or rhombuses, hooked diamonds and wide stylized floral borders.

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Schur = When becoming a knotted carpet, the careful process of shearing the pile follows after the knotting and removal from the knotting loom and after the initial washing. This determines the final pile height; in modern carpets, different pile heights are often sheared in the same piece.

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weft = this is the name of the transverse threads of a knotted carpet, which are inserted between the finished rows of knots in the "tray". Often there are one or two, occasionally up to four weft threads; these are beaten with a comb tool to the preceding row of knots to strengthen the carpet; see also "Daragh".

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Schuturi = see "Schotori"; which means "camel" in Persian.

Black Church in Brasov =In this parish church, burned down in 1689, of the Lutheran Evangelical parish of Horterus A. B. in Romania is the majority of the so-called

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"Transylvanian" or "Transylvanian carpets" are exhibited. See these!).

Seccade = this Turkish term is used for carpets in sizes of about 200 x 130 centimeters. The word comes from Persian and means in German

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"three squares". By a "square" is meant the size of a prayer rug. This word is also used in Turkey. In Iran, for such carpet sizes, the term

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"Ghaliceh" is commonly used.

Seichur or Seishour = Caucasian village with carpet production in the north of the Cuba region; the pieces produced there are attributed to the Shirvan. Their most common motif is a shape reminiscent of the St. Andrew's cross, often repeated in the central field. See "St. Andrew's cross"

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Silk = animal fiber obtained from the boiled cocoon of the silkworm (= larva of the silkworm butterfly); it is the only textile continuous fiber occurring in nature and consists largely of proteins. By twisting the threads unwound from the cocoons, a fine, shiny knotting yarn is produced, which is woven into cloth as well as used for carpet knotting and, when mixed with wool, produces special light and color effects. Recently, it has been possible to produce transparent silk; carpets knotted with it show backlit during the day and in the dark two different ornaments.

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Silk Road = ancient intercontinental trade route or. Caravan route between Europe, the Mediterranean and China with a length of about 10,000 kilometers; it had both a land route and a route over seas. For centuries, it was used to transport trade goods such as carpets, jewelry, silk, incense and porcelain from East to West, and Western goods back to Asia. Thus, pattern smuggling -- see this! -- took place, e.g., the transmission of the dragon-phoenix motif from China; Buddhism was also carried to China via them. In the 19th century, the Silk Road was rediscovered by European travelers to Asia and was first so named in 1877 by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. At the beginning of the 21st century, the ancient Silk Road is experiencing a resurgence as a modern transport route between China and Europe.

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Silk carpets = In carpets, silk has been used since the 16th century. Thanks to the great strength and extreme thinness of the yarn, silk allows for high knotting densities and thus for clear representations of the given patterns. Pious Islamis reject silk because living creatures are killed in its extraction. There is transparent silk that allows light to pass through; carpets knotted with such silk can be backlit when hung on the wall and show two different images depending on whether they are viewed by day in incident light or transilluminated at night. In Morocco, threads of dried agave leaves are used as a substitute for silk, but only in the production of cloth.

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Sekler or Szekler = ethnic group of Hungarians who inhabit part of Transylvania in Romania. They weave kilims with wool wefts on hemp warps.

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Selcuk or Seljuk = the Seljuks were a family of the Oghuz Turkmen who lived in

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11th century founded an empire that included Persia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Syria; their state lasted in Anatolia until the 13th century. Some carpets, most of which survive as fragments in Turkish mosques, were attributed to the Seljuks or their successors in the 20th century; they show stylized geometric floral designs, some with border motifs that correspond to Kufic models. The overall character of these pieces suggests later Turkmen models to the viewer.

Seldjuk rugs =Ancient Turkish luxury carpets, which in the 13th. and 14th centuries AD reached their qualitative peak. They were distributed through the then important caravan routes to Byzantium (present-day Istanbul).

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Selvet rugs = Many pieces of this group of carpets, probably made in the 16th. Century in the western Anatolian village of Ushak, draw attention by the ivory-white ground of the central field and their borders; this gives them a distinguished appearance. The other colors in the carpet are limited; various shades of white predominate and these determine the overall impression. According to the motifs in the center field of these "white Selendi carpets", a distinction is made between chintamani carpets, bird carpets and scorpion carpets. Many of these carpets can be found in the Black Church in Kronstadt and in the Margaret Church in Mediasch, both in Romania. (See

"Transylvanian Carpets"!)

 

Semerlik = Saddle blankets, which were woven carpet-like in equestrian areas; the Turkish word "semer" means "saddle" in German.

semiantic rugs =knotted or woven works that are between 50 and 70 years old.

Semnan = City in the north of Iran; its carpets copy Safavid patterns with some room-filling ornaments; the base is cotton.

Senna kilim = see "Tabriz kilim"!

Senneh or Sanandaj or Sinä = City located in northwestern Iran in Kurdistan, today

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"Sanandaj" called; the Persian or Senneh node is named after it. Senneh Kurds have very fine carpets, usually made with only one weft thread and with densities up to 400 knots per square inch; the ground is cotton except for early specimens, which have silk grounds; the designs are reminiscent of Herati, covered with boteh motifs and with medallions with concentric hexagons. Senneh carpets are mostly in blue and red, have little conspicuous borders, the ground is patterned throughout, contains a large rhombus-shaped medallion, and the patterns are in strict rows. Fine woven horse saddle blankets also come from Senneh; more recent production has lower quality. Senneh kilims are also made in other parts of Persian Kurdistan. "Senneh-Haft-Rang" are a speciality; in them the warp threads had up to seven different colors every seven centimeters.

 

Senneh node = see "Persian knot".

Serabend = District in the southwest of Arak in west-central Iran; the carpets produced in the villages there have a space-filling small boteh pattern and often a bright red field; most knotted works have symmetrical knots.

 

Serapi = trade name commonly used in America for carpets originating from the Heris area of northern Iran and at least 100 years old.

 

Seray = 1. : Persian term for a noble court in the Orient. 2nd : sales court built into a bazaar, where a substantial part of the trade in Oriental carpets is carried on. The serays in a bazaar are arranged by profession.

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Sewan or Sevan = Group of village rugs attributed to the Kazak area around Lake Sevan; they have a medallion in the field showing a variety of cross shapes; these rugs are all so-called Kazaks and not Shirwan. Like most village carpets of the Caucasus, this type has been used since the 1930s

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century no longer produced.

 

Sewan Kazak = Name of a group of knotted carpets made in the 19th century. Century to the Kazan region at the Sevan lake. These are pieces that show medallions of mostly chunky cross shapes with three and six corners in the inner field. This type of design is used in carpets attributed to Cuba, Shirvan and Kazak; the minimum density of the pieces is 58 symmetrical knots per square inch, and the format is 34 square feet. These wool carpets contain about 70 percent red wefts.

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Seyrafian = Name of an outstanding Persian carpet manufacturer in Isfahan, which has maintained the good reputation of Persian carpet culture for decades; founded in 1930 by the former banker Haj Agha Reza Sairafian, who produced the first self-designed carpet in 1939, died in 1975 and left his business to his seven sons and their 24 grandchildren. Even today, such extremely high-quality carpets are produced, which because of their high price usually find sales only in Arab countries.

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Shabby-chic = Furnishing style in which the concept is a mixture of inherited traditional furniture and home textiles with random purchases at flea markets and do-it-yourself items with visible signs of use due to long use; see also "vintage look".

 

Shadda = Flat weave, usually in square format with the motif of stylized camel caravans from the Caucasus region, often brocaded, also called "Verneh". In Azerbaijan, they used to be also called "shatranj" and were produced in Lanbaran, Nakchivan, Gubadli and Kalbajar provinces. Azerbaijani shaddas are distinguished between unadorned, checkered and plotted. There is also a secondary meaning for the expression: it is the accentuation of a consonant in Arabic, as if to write it twice.

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Shagird = Persian term for apprentice, also used for aspiring carpet weavers.

Shah = particularly solid Afghan village rugs with Bukhara patterning from the south of the city of Maimana in the northwest of the country.

 

Shahreza or Schahreza = Iranian place with carpet production in the west of the country; next to it name of the last Persian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlevi. "Reza" is a common given name in Persia.

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Shahsavan or Shahsavan = Farsi expression, which in German means "those who love the Shah"; this is an honorary title given by Shah Abbas (1588-1629) to warriors who protected Persia's northern border. Today, this is an association of Turkic-speaking tribes living mainly in northwestern Iran, especially in the area of Moghan, Hashtrud, Mianeh Khamseh, Bijar, Quazvin, Saveh and Veramin. The weavings of the Shahsavan consist mostly of flat-woven carpets and utilitarian items such as saddle bags, mafrash, and animal ornaments; they evolved under Islamic influence from an earlier naturalistic patterning to a geometric, non-figurative, purely decorative form.

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Shalamzar or Schalamzar = City in central Iran, place of origin of carpets with Bakhtiari field and vase patterns.

 

Sharabian = Iranian city as well as name of a Persian carpet species from central Iran. This type is attributed to the Heris group and is characterized by numerous floral motifs, flower-filled diamonds as well as star-shaped medallions; they are rare and hard-wearing.</