Stories
BAGHALI PILAU
Persians love fresh herbs. Even the most bitter herbs are handled with aplomb, so the final result is perfectly balanced. For example, this is a simple rice dish with a whole cup of finely chopped dill. 2 cups basmati-style rice. Cook as usual. 1 cup steamed broad beans. Fresh or frozen not the brown dried type. 1 cup dill, finely chopped. pinch saffron salt and pepper to taste.
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The Afghan Dish
THE AFGHAN DISH 2 large Eggplant 1 large green Capsicum 2 medium brown Onions 1 cup Passata sauce 2 cloves of garlic 1 cup Greek Yogurt 1tsp Chilli pwd Olive Oil Salt Tbsp fresh Corriander 1/ Cut Eggplant into circles and sprinkle with salt, put in a colander & leave for 30mins or more. 2/ Put Yogurt in a piece of chux in a strainer & put in fridge for a couple of hours, its to get some of the liquid out, it makes a creamier yogurt. 3/ Slice Onion & Capsicum. 4/ Rise salt from Eggplant and then fry Eggplant until cooked on both sides, it will take a lot of oil. 5/ Fry Onion. 6/ Layer veges as you would Lasagne in a large pan or frypan with lid In order of :- *Eggplant *Capsicum *Onion *Sprinkle of half the Chilli pwd *Half Passata sauce Then repeat finishing with and Eggplant layer. 7/ Cook on a very low heat for 30 mins or until capsicum is soft, if it drys out you may need to add a little water. 8/ Get strained Yogurt & mix with crushed garlic & salt. 9/ When veges are cooled a little cover with Yogurt mix and sprinkle with coriander. Eat hot or cold with rice or fresh bread. Enjoy!
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DYES - The Tale
Alchemy was the dyers’ magic prior to our modern knowledge of chemistry. "Today a turquoise from your plain wool, tomorrow pure gold from your old coppers." Englishman Richard Hakluyt belonged to a "Middle Temple" and sent a dyer to Persia in 1579AD with the written instructions..."In Persia you will find carpets of coarse thrummed wool, the best in the world, and excellently coloured: those towns you must repair to, and you must use means to learn all the order of dyeing those thrums, which are so dyed as neither rain, wine nor vinegar can stain." The MysteryThe vast and glorious kaleidoscope of colour found in oriental carpets came from dyeing traditions now mostly lost, like the nomadic horsemen themselves, cultural victims of the Industrial Revolution and 20th century imperatives. The trail of evidence has been picked up in various areas and disciplines. The CluesThe published work of Bruggerman and Boehmer identifies dye flora growing today in West Asia and then matches constituents to the colouring compounds in old rugs. Exact recipes, however are more difficult. Scouring old Persian texts has been an interesting if sometimes puzzling source, coming up with descriptions like this:- "Rose Colour: Take ratanjot, a thought of cochineal, madder or Lac colour a very little, add cinnabar and water and soak for 12 hours. Add the wool and steep for 36 hours, boil for 3 hours, then bathe in alum and wash well. Afterwards dry in the shade." Extenuating CircumstancesLike the colour of wine, regional variations occur even within the same recipes. But each village area and especially each tribe had their own palette. This greatly assists tapetologists detect the origins of particular carpets but does not help to find and reproduce particular dye recipes. Compounding this was the secrecy that protected the dyers guild. Weird and wonderful ingredients and transmutation processes were included to obscure the important steps and preserve the dyers’ standing as a magician in the community. The Dyes - Traditional Organic Reds were produced from the roots of the madder bush but a skilled dyer could conjure shades ranging from pale orange to deep purple with the same root. Blues are vat fermented and came mostly from indigo tinctoria although the Afshar and Belouch preferred the Anil and linifolia varieties. Yoghurt and pomegranate produces a bright orange regarded as the true Afghan colour by Afghans themselves but labelled synthetic by dilettantes. With every Mohan, Lal and Baksheesh entering the noble and historic carpet trade misinformation abounds! Both the leaves but especially the sour inedible pith and skin of the pomegranate could produce red through yellow hues by the judicious application of mordants and astringents such as alum, yoghurt, wild citrus, walnut galls, potash and rusted iron water. The mordant was used to fix the colour as well as to change the hue. For instance the West Persia wild delphinium produces yellow with alum and green with copper sulphate. Most greens, however, were double dyed yellow with blue and most yellows show safflower predominant. The beautiful shades once produced by these dyers were always a complex mixture of plants and minerals. The Dyes - Imported - A Feminist View The dye, cochineal, a native of Guatemala, became popular in Europe during the English Georgian period and was imported in vast quantities into Turkey then Persia and later via Russia and India. This bullish trade died overnight, eclipsed by the discovery in Germany of aniline dyes - red, blue, brown and black at first and others later. By the 1870’s these inferior dyes were widespread, appearing in rugs from even the remotest communities like the nomadic Tibetans. Azo dyes were the second generation of imported synthetic dyes, and were, unfortunately, light fast. Bright apricot and orange colours were most popular with the weavers. The advent of synthetic dyes in the East was coupled with advances in weaving technology in Europe (invention of the jacquard loom etc.). Almost overnight tens of thousands of shawl and brocade cloth weavers and fabric printers, all traditional male occupations, became redundant. At the same time the carpet weavers, mostly women, at home, were released from the tyranny of the dyers, and, a more titanic change could not have been forecast - women could use the dyes themselves! Many took on the role of principle breadwinner in many households. This improvement in status continued throughout most of the 20th century. The emergent wealthy Trans-Atlantic middle classes had already deemed oriental carpets the height of fashion. There was public brawling at Liberties’ carpet openings and shady types profiteering among the Virginian plantations. Carpet making revenue in the east rose accordingly.
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The Oriental Rug - A Brief History
Circa 8,000 BCE First domestication of the sheep in Luristan SW Persia Off-loom textiles such as felt, knitting, and macrame. 7,000 year old jars of wine found in the Zagros Mountains. Early loom technology. By Circa 5000 BCE Wool was being dyed and woven. Circa 3,000 to 500 BCE. Elam. The first great Persian Empire. The first writing, pre-dating the Mesopotamian. They refined the art of spinning, dyeing, and weaving to an extent unsurpassed to this day. 500BCE to present day. Central Asian nomadic tribes also developed the art of the rug to equal the cities. 7th – 10th Century AD - Advent of Islam facilitated urban expansion. Women as the newly exclusive housekeepers and home-weavers became the de facto custodians of tribal lore expressed via the designs they wove. 16th – 17thCentury - Rise of Europe The Renaissance was matched by a concomitant flowering in Central and Near Asia with a new emphasis on powerful and wealthy sedentary city-states and kingdoms: The Ottomans in Turkey and the Safavids in Persia, the Central Asian dynasties in Herat and Samarkand, and their cousins in India, the Moghuls. This is the period of the advent of the realistic floral rug. Cartoons, or graph paper blueprints, began to be drawn first, moving creative intent from the weaver to the designer. Whole teams of artisans became involved. As with European Renaissance painting, the first fashionable decorative carpets were made in ateliers under the name of a great designer. Traditional home-based weaving continued. The first large-scale rug exports to a broader Europe are reflected in paintings of the period. Circa 1720’s – Destruction of Urban Weaves Persian royalty and their cities were destroyed by Afghan, Belouch, Afshar and Turkoman nomadic tribes. Tribes and villages continue their home-based weaving unabated. The Ottoman workshops produced great numbers of rugs. Kurdish khans keep the fine workshop tradition alive and the culture flowers sans Persian hegemony. Late 19th Century Revival The rise of western economic power following the industrial revolution causes a massive upswing in demand for the oriental carpet. The first western run manufactories were set up to supply the increasing demand. This new demand primarily came from the nouveau rich and was exclusively for the floral, Imperial style of court weaving. The floral carpets of the Safavid workshops were copied ad infinitum. The modern floral style Persian rug was born and has since become known as ‘revival weaving’. Meanwhile the traditional feminine home-based weaving art with the meaningful apotropaic and shamanistic symbols begins to decline with the advent of the cash rug economy, synthetic dyes, and machine spun worsted yarns. 20th Century - Decline in Quality - Increase in Quantity Oriental Carpets reflect the momentous changes of the last 100 years. The discovery of synthetic dyes was a by-product of the research into radium and they spread just as virulently through eastern carpets. Increasingly, the traditional symbiotic relationship of weaver to wool producer and dyer became undermined by a new commercial imperative. The importance of Mid-East oil brought western economic politics into the equation. By the end of the First World War the degeneration was in full swing. The weak Persian Government tried to halt the degeneration and took extreme counter-measures, such as, proclaiming the death penalty for using inferior dyes. Tribes living in or around sensitive oil producing areas were forcibly settled. The chivalrous age of cavalry became obsolescent as lines of oil-powered, lethal armoured tanks choked the migration routes. Motorised ground and air transport and international politics turned even the most far-flung reaches of desert and mountainside into the pawns of questionable international interests. Virtually the whole of Central and Western Asia was carved up to suit European equations. The demand for rugs increased steadily and the only consideration of worth also became a European equation: construction. The noble traditional aesthetics reduced to simple technique, with the number of knots-per-square-inch the new benchmark. The beauty of the antique rug, with its glorious, naturally harmonious colours and spontaneously poetic designs, became a thing of the past. This new world order of anonymous mass production and multinational finance saw looms set up in poor countries outside traditional rug making lands. The reasoning was if the construction was the prime benchmark, then anyone could do it. 21st Century Revival By the last years of the 20th century, the end of 5000 years of great domestic weaving was being confidently predicted. The denouement to this sad tale, is however, surprisingly wonderful and hinges on a newfound self- discovery and pride in tradition. Changes have taken place in the last 20 years which show that all is not lost. The future looks brighter than ever, especially for the weavers, shepherds, and dyers returning to the traditional relationships. For instance, the weavers weave at home. They weave in their own time around the household tasks, having and feeding babies and being the glue that holds large families together. The weavers are related by extended family to the sheep growers, the spinners, the loom makers and the dyers. In this way carpet making takes on a soul and everyone has a meaningful part to play, in what is essentially a value added home industry. This is the traditional co-operative way those glowing antique carpets were made before the deleterious effects of 20th century modernisation. For instance Afghan Turkomans’ were still weaving traditional designs and still owned grazing land that produced some of the most lustrous wool in the world but their dyeing had degenerated. So they were ready for a change. This return to hand-spinning and hand-dyeing wool shorn from sheep belonging to weavers’ relatives, and dyed with plants growing locally; that had died out during the 20th.century; is now the accepted benchmark. Antique and art connoisseurs reject all other contemporary carpets, which supports further re-generation of tradition. A by-product of this demand ensures the future in the west of specialist antique rug dealers because the very nature of the trade, the personal scale, denies access to chain store “sales” operators. Of course, the very word Asia is synonymous with cheap copies. The future? Comparisons have been made with other tribal people like the Australian Central Desert painters: tribal people finding their voice after a century or more of colonisation and stunning the art world. As the Californian architect Chris Alexander said at an earlier stage of this revival, it is, “a foreshadowing of 21st century art”.
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A Dyers Tour
A short flight out of Istanbul found us braving a series of bracing frosty mornings in the villages of mountainous western Anatolia. A picturesque setting worthy of a travel brochure with whitewashed buildings and sinuous cobblestone alleyways. Vegetable dye guru Harald Boehmer was taking a knot of keen international ruggies through his beloved traditional weaving area. We saw the plump and hard working village women in action lighting fires and boiling dyestuffs in great cauldrons while the men smoked and looked on: Madder for reds and purples, camomile for yellows and indigo for blues and so on. A quiet revolution is underway as age-old traditions reassert themselves. Younger women can now choose to remain in their ancestral villages rather than joining the urban poor in the cities. The international oriental carpet buyer is becoming more discerning, demanding natural dyes and genuine traditional weaving. This means the traditions established thousands of years ago continue to develop. After years of exhaustive research Bruggerman and Boehmer published their findings on the dyes in antique carpets in 1980 and went to work right away with Josephine Powell and others, reinforcing natural dyestuff methods in traditional villages. Most of these villages had slowly embraced a range of chrome and acid dyes peddled by European fertilizer firms, in the process losing their famous individually hued palette. But now no longer uncomfortably straddling the first and third worlds, these villagers are now self sufficient and quite well off, with a pride and cultural self-confidence that sets them apart from the tourist meccas of the nearby Mediterranean coast. Harald Boehmer also published the indispensable “KOEKBOYA - Natural Dyes and Textiles. A colour journey from Turkey to India and beyond.” He has since passed away. Thanks for everything, Harald. Back in “The City” as Istanbul is often referred to we knew that Josephine Powell had died before the ICOC and so made a beeline for the exhibition of her exemplary collection of naturally dyed flat-woven rugs called Kelims, which was especially warmly welcomed by attendant ruggies. The most stunning exhibition in Istanbul, however, was one of the most important collections of the carpets in the world, the Seljuk and early Ottoman Carpets in the state museums. Also very popular was the Yastiks - the jewel-like bolsters of traditional village households. A visit to the Topkapi Palace of the Sultans left us wondering, “why?” “With so much wealth and this is all you could do?” Like the story of the Texan boasting to the Afghan, “we have the biggest, the best etc. etc.” The Afghani replied, “yes but what have you done with it?” Now the Afghans are making some of the best carpets of the last 100 years with the knowledge of natural dyestuffs first disseminated by Harald Boehmer. There are now sophisticated natural dye-works in Shiraz, southern Persia where the tribal women can take their hand spun lambswool and for a small barter get their choice of colours, naturally dyed. It certainly beats going to the alchemist, a shark who could give you any mix of cancerous substances and wool destroying stearates, all ready to fade and run as soon as you breathe on them. Back to the International Dealers Fair to dodge European Armani suited, black stockinged salespeople, over-aggrandising quite respectable carpets that for the most part are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. When the carpet is good the sales pitch is redundant. Both the “cold stare down the nose” and the “wall of words” were too noisy for us and belonged with the garish synthetic dyes endemic to the Grand Bazaar. One thing everyone agreed upon was the Turks really know how to eat and the mantra “fresh is best” sees a wonderful regard for the natural flavours of foodstuffs. One wonders at the synchronicity, the simpatico with the desire for natural colours by these wonderful people. Thanks Istanbul, thanks villagers, thanks Harald Boehmer, thanks Turkey!
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COLOUR - Contemporary
Sonia Delaunay, who has my vote for most influential artist of the 20th Century, wrote, "we are only at the beginning of the study of these new colour relationships, still full of mysteries to unravel, which are at the base of a modern vision.....there is no going back". Her Zen-like "simultaneous contrast" is a good definition of the tribal rugs we all love and, coincidentally, a harmonic of Alois Tiegl's "Law of Infinite Relationships" referring to Islamic Art in general. I have spent some years collecting and refining a range of modern carpets that reflect my earliest inspirations: Sonia Delaunay: Mark Rothko: Michael Johnson. For me the wheel has come full circle, a dream come true. The weavers call this "colour pleasure" and it is second nature, as they have been immersed in weaving colour for generations. With a freedom to create as close or distant from the original images as they please wonderful things happen. Design was never an end in itself rather a way to divide and place the colours. Henri Matisse said, at the end of his life, "Revelation thus came to me from the Orient". Commenting on their knowledge of the new colour theories, Matisse's friend Paul Signac wrote, "The worst oriental weaver knows as much about them".
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ABRASH - FLAWED COLOURFIELDS
ON FORTUITY - THE RANDOMNESS OF COLOUR CALLED ABRASH " I tend to reflect that handmade objects....give off a life force, an indefinable resonance, that mechanically produced objects cannot match" Giles Auty, in The Australian. And Jon Thomson ..." It was an education for me to witness the amazement and disbelief of an educated Persian carpet dealer, recently arrived from Persia, when he saw the price paid at auction for a kazak, a coarsely woven, crude looking village carpet with a bold pattern and strong colours. ‘They (tribal/village rugs) are so coarse and ugly, how can they pay so much money?’ he was genuinely distressed. For him the ideal of beauty and desirability was a rug with a perfectly ordered, detailed pattern, finely worked in evenly balanced colours without any mistakes." ABRASH - The Persian word has entered English because there was no existing term to explain the abrupt changes in the intensity of colour often seen in traditional rugs. It is from the root meaning silky and is most commonly caused by the weaver using wool from different dye batches or dyed at different times in the vat. Strands dyed towards the end of the process are normally lighter than those dyed at the beginning when the dye has been freshly prepared and is at full strength. This can be an indication of authenticity as it rarely occurs in mass produced rugs, for although they may still be made by hand the very nature of the cost savings of large production runs requires extensive and therefore uniform dyeing.
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The Attitude of Altitude
Two things. First, traditional handmade wool carpets are a function of altitude. Second, the value of most carpets is related to the level of feminine involvement in the weaving process. The first statement may seem self evident as higher, colder altitudes demand the warmth and insulation of wool. A point is reached with rising latitudes where the summer thaw is too short for the warm-fingered time-intensive work required. There is more than meets the eye however with the second statement. Take a look at the "carpet belt" which stretches across the world from Morocco in the west to China in the east. For instance Morocco has a traditional carpet weaving culture synonymous with the Berber and Arab tribes grazing their flocks in the mountains and high plains. Boys tend the sheep, men prepare the looms, and the women weave. Coastal weaving is of the flat-woven cotton tapestry type carried out in ateliers with flying shuttle looms manned by skilled men. An exception is modern commercial weaving where rugs are hand knotted with an eye on western markets. These are made in similar ateliers regardless of country or tradition. This scenario holds true across the "carpet belt". The modern countries of Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan, the core of the "carpet belt", are almost completely plateaux and mountains. The surrounding countries of Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, the Gulf states, India/Pakistan are mostly under 1000 metres and traditionally produce only flatweaves. The cold northern neighbours, Russia and the "Stans" are mostly at lower altitudes and preferred to make less labour intensive felt rugs. India/Pakistan has a royal carpet weaving culture as opposed to an indigenous grass roots one that stemmed from 700 years of ruling mountain Afghan dynasties. Distinctive also are materials. Cotton requires broad-acre farming which presupposes flat lowland conditions and is so intensive in it's land use it requires land ownership. Cotton fabric is less insulating and cotton weaving is logically a lowland occupation. By contrast sheep pastures are usually elevated and are mostly lands held in common. Wool production and wool weaving are elevated occupations. This appears to be the case generally but many types of traditional mountain village rugs are part cotton in that they have a cotton warp (the longitudinal base threads). The important connection here is commerce. Pure wool rug making is basically value-adding to a family's flock of sheep. All materials come from the family or are produced by someone in the wider clan. Cotton is a trade commodity that must be bought or traded by the mountain rug making people to use instead of their own wool. This implies a cash component in the making of a rug, adding a subsequent cash or trade value to the finished product. Cotton therefore is often found to equate with commercialisation of the rug making process. Look at loom technology and find the number of shafts or "sheds" inversely proportional to the geographic elevation of the loom. Traditionally, knotted pile rugs were made at altitude by family units using simple one shaft looms, while lowlanders produced flatweaves and mass produced rugs. The lowlands are the domain of the fine silk brocades, shawls and other fine clothing fabrics. It is interesting to note that religious fundamentalism seems to be a function of altitude, or lack of it, calling the lowlands and deserts home while the mountains and the high plains are home to a more conservative adherence to traditions with a more liberal outlook. Look at a map of say, the USA and find that topographically, the "Barble Belt" equates with the "green" areas. Do this with maps of relevant parts of Asia for a similar result. There are connections between the low country, mass production and religious fundamentalism, and the high country, family weaving and liberalism. Mass production involves working men with jobs outside the family whereas family weaving is done by the women of the house. Social mores also seem to follow this altitude-specific way of life. Travelling from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Mountains of Kurdistan or Karabagh one sees more women and fewer veils. Similarly from the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Persia and Afghanistan one sees increasing liberalism, even Sufism, and personal eccentricity and creativeness coming to the fore. Traditional knotted pile weaving flourished in the freedom of liberal but conservative communities driven by family, community and a complex and nourishing mysticism. Family designs, clan motifs, and talismans are all part of a rich vocabulary that evolved over long periods. Like musical harmonies these designs form colourfields in an endless interplay where rug weaving becomes a form of prayer, of connection with the universal, a humble submission to the will of God, the definition of Islam. It is this that gives the Oriental Carpet true value.
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Islamic Timeline
The Timeline dates below are the Gregorian Calander, CE. 570 Birth of Prophet Muhammad, Makkah 610 Muhammad's first revelation 622 Muhammad & Muslims emigrate to Madinah; Year one of the Muslim Calender 630 Muslims return to Makkah 632 Death of Muhammad. Beginnings of Shia, the supporters of Ali bin Abi Taleb, Muhammad's son-in-law, and one of the first Muslims. The Sunni supported Abu Bakr, Muhammad's close associate. 656 Ali becomes caliph 661 Ali murdered by the Syrian Muawiyah. Shia sect developed. Umayyad caliphate established at Damascus by Sunnis with Muawiyah caliph. 680 Ali's son Hossein killed at Battle of Karbala. Shia formation completed. 691 Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem 711 Muslims enter Spain from Morocco 750 Abbasid caliphate established, Iraq 794 State- owned paper mills established in Baghdad 800 Harun al-Rashid embassy to Charlemagne 825 Kwarizmi writes concept of zero in maths 850 Early treatises on the astrolabe 900 Tales of 1001 Nights 1010 Firdowsi presents The Shahnama at Afghan Ghaznavid court, Persia 1258 Mongols sack Baghdad 1325 Ibn Battuta leaves Tangier for China 1370 Tamerlane rebuilds Samarkand 1429 Ulugh Beg completes observatory at Samarkand 1453 Ottomans take Constantinople, becomes Istanbul 1498 Vasco da Gama and his Arab navigator set sail from Portugal 1502 Persian Safavid dynasty established with Shia the state religion 1526 Mughal dynasty established in India 1722 Afghans defeat Persians. 1732 End of Safavid dynasty 1747 Afghanistan founded by Ahmad Shah Durani 1869 Suez Canal 1922 Ottomans end. Modern Turkey begins. 1932 Saudi Arabia founded 1967 Aga Khan foundation established 1970 Hasan Fathy's "Architecture for the Poor" 1978 Islamic Revolution in Persia, world's first theocracy 1979 Abdul Salam Nobel Prize for Physics 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan 1983 Muhammad Yunus founds Grameen Bank, Bangaladesh 1988 Naquid Mafouz Nobel Prize for Literature 1998 Petronas Towers, world's tallest building, Kuala Lumpur 1999 Ahmed H. Zewail Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2001 Ahmad Shah Massoud assassinated 2001 World Trade Centre known as 9/11. 2011 Tarwakel Karman Nobel Peace Prize O mankind! We created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other, not that ye may despise each other. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is here most righteous. The Quran, Chapter 49 Verse 13.
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History and this Berber Rug
The history of weaving is like this rug. In the beginning there was Neolithic Cave-stylised animals followed by millennia of design development. The sophisticated Persian Rug we see today has been perfected for over two millennia, with ethnic and commercial additions becoming part of the rich history. Here we see the Neolithic animals in the border and geometric shapes carrying their own ciphers of meaning in the field and inner borders.
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How long does it take?
I watch a scene completely surreal in appearance, but firmly rooted in practical science. Bejewelled, unveiled and kohl-eyed tribeswomen chatter in surroundings as modern as tomorrow: Men with white coats and hairnets move about behind the glass, checking temperature gauges on metre-diameter stainless steel vats. The haughty women exude a brash confidence, mistresses of their universe, relaxed and cavalier in their approach: The men by comparison look like overworked tea ladies. These large rooms, each with a dozen or so vats deliver a quality of dyed wool for which the region has been famous since other locals dyed the colours in the famous Pazyryk Carpet 2400 years ago. The women deliver their undyed spun wools and collect their previous deliveries custom-coloured to their specifications. They will use this wool, in beautiful naturally dyed shades, in their homes, weaving, they believe, the lives of their families into existence. In modern economic parlance they are sheep graziers value-adding to their primary production. Their work is not travail, it is kismet, destiny, and is destined for far away Australia via my own established carpet business. I feel a deep sense of belonging as I continue to play my part in these age-old traditions. Certainly these people afford me that love and respect. I am the merchant and the Prophet was a merchant. The French colossus Henri Matisse came from a family of weavers and I feel deeply honoured to be in such company. These days we Australians and Europeans know enough about hand-knotted carpets that we are prepared to pay for recognisable quality. The general public is quite au fait, and no longer chauvinistic. The Mysterious East is no longer mysterious; real people live there and their lives are as fascinating as people anywhere. Young tribal women and men can now actively consider a future in their own traditions rather than joining the urban factory poor. Like our original Australians, whose aesthetic abilities and determination to tell their tales has resulted in artworks that command the highest international respect, the tribes of Persia are similarly telling their tales. The primary difference in this comparison is that the carpet is a family affair, no one signature can be put to a carpet. It cannot be signed by one person, only the family or clan name can be the signature. Why? The sons who herd the sheep and help with selective breeding, and their fathers who know when to move to new pastures on the migration routes, when to shear, and how to separate the fleece into its different uses are the ancient fundamental beginning. Then there are the jobs of washing and carding the fleece, spinning the fibres and plying the yarn, done by all the family, and the girls who collect the dye plants, the grandmothers who teach the weaving traditions, the loom makers and their sons who warp the loom, all are a necessary and equal part of the final artwork: the carpet. The actual weavers, mostly sisters, who squat together, happily chatting and knotting the same carpet, are just one of many stages in the process. Finally there are the all-important finishing jobs, the carpet washers, stretchers, and repairers-of-mistakes. This is truly a family affair. The dyeing and sometimes the loom making are the only jobs done outside the family. No money changes hands, nobody is paid, and all have equal gain. Traditional leaders, akin to English Dukes and Earls, wear the same clothes and eat with their families and share the tasks. Quite often I am asked how long it takes to make a carpet and the question is really unanswerable because this traditional weaving does not fit a western economic time and motion study, but belongs in a completely different paradigm. Certainly we can say that an accomplished weaver of this type of carpet may do up to three or four thousand knots a day with a facility equal to my own grandmother’s knitting. If there were say, 9 people available domestically, probably 3 weavers would work on the carpet at any one time. If ten thousand knots were tied in a day, at an average of 8 knots per square centimetre, an average room size carpet measuring 3x2m would be completed every 48 days during the season. This assumes of course that all the other tasks have been completed, and the next spare loom has been warped and is waiting in a different tent, a rare occurrence. Most often a party is required to start weaving a carpet. It could take up to a week to prepare for such an event. A carpet party may be held to celebrate or commemorate a birth or a marriage and is a great opportunity for married sisters to get back together.
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Modern Kelim Weaving
On the roofs and in the yards of family homes all around the village area of Lahore, Pakistan, Kelims are being woven in various modern stripe patterns with the most vibrant vegetable colours. Looms are simply made from local wood or bamboo and secured to the ground with large tent pegs. A very basic setup, purely traditional, and with tarps shading from the sun, it is a cool, airy and comfortable place to weave.
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