Turkmen carpets

The Asian Study Group is a community organization that hosts many events in Islamabad. One group of this organization has a monthly program on carpets, and I attended one on Turkmen carpets last night.

Turkmen carpets are from Turkmenistan of Central Asia. Turkmenistan lies on the east of Caspian Sea and to the north of Iran and Afghanistan. This country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The people of this nation are traditionally nomads, but there are five traditional tribes associated with Turkmenistan - whose carpet designs each appear on the Turkmenistan flag. The romanized spellings of these groups are Arsary, Chowdur, Salyr, Saryk, Teke, and Yomut. [See Omniglot for Turkmen alphabet].

It seems that carpets were not traditionally floor coverings, according to our speaker. The carpets were folded in half with the sides sown up to serve as bags to throw on a camel or horse both as a practical tool and as decoration. Alternatively, the carpets were displayed on walls outside homes so that travellers could identify the tribe of the home from a distance. The ground inside homes was rather covered with felt material.

The traditional designs of the forementioned groups and other family/tribe symbols changed with time. Commercialism brought importers sending instructions for colors, designs, etc. which gradually mingled and change traditional designs. For example, only natural vegetable dyes (examples) were used before 1925 when apparently German chemical dyes were introduced.

The material of the carpets we saw was wool. The quality of the wool depended on how it was produced. Wool taken from sheep in the summer was said to be cleaner, more oily and soft, and generally favorable to winter wool. The wool is always spun before weaving. This spinning is entirely machine-based these days and has a synthetic feel (because the linen has been removed?) rather than by hand. However, the carpets are still woven by hand and machine alike, and the quality of the knots tied in this process also determines the quality of the carpet.

The overall quality and age of a carpet or kilim is arguably difficult to determine. New rugs may be great after a few decades or they may fall apart, so older rugs with their softer and shinier appearance are favorable because they are "tried and true."

Thank you to our host and speaker.