Textiles Studies
Date of this Version
1996
Document Type
Article
Citation
Arts of Asia (Jan-Feb, 1996), pp. 66-81.
Abstract
ORIENTAL CARPETS reached a peak in production in the late nineteenth century, when a boom in market demand in Europe and America encouraged increased *24 production in Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus.* Areas east of the Mediterranean Sea at that time were referred to as. the Orient (in contrast to the Occident, which referred to Europe). To study the origins of these carpets and their ancestral heritage is to embark on a journey to Central Asia and the Middle East, to regions of low rainfall and many sheep, to inhospitable lands where animal husbandry and the seeking of good pastures has historically served as the primary economic force for sustaining human life.
To consider what an Oriental carpet is at its point of origin is to realise a difference of cultural perspectives. No one sets out to weave an Oriental carpet, for that is a Western construct; as expressed in one's own language, one simply weaves a carpet.
Wool is the material of choice for carpets woven among pastoral peoples. Deriving from the fleece of a sheep, it is a readily available and renewable resource. Besides fleece, sheep are raised and tended in order to produce dairy products, meat, lard and hide. The body hair of the sheep yields the fleece. I t is clipped annually or semi-annually; the wool is prepared in several steps that include washing, grading, carding, spinning and dyeing.
Traditionally, women undertake the preparation of woo!. After preparation, it is taken to market. Depending upon cultural norms, men or women are involved in dye processes and in the production of felt. But women more often than men are responsible for the weaving of textiles, including carpets, for domestic applications and for sale.
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Art and Materials Conservation Commons, Art Practice Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Museum Studies Commons