Techniques and Materials of Oriental Carpet Weaving
The techniques of weaving knotted rugs are varied. These techniques have developed in the course of time under the influence of physical and historical circumstances. Many of them date from after the early 16th century, when the character of weaving in Persia underwent a great change and a major proliferation of techniques took place. Carpet weaving began as a nomadic craft and it still continues today basically unchanged amongst nomadic people in Persia and Turkey. Although it may already have been established in the Near East prior to the invasion of the Seljuk Turks in 1037, it took firm root in Turkey and Persia during Seljuk times. It seems to have been organized on a commercial basis in at least one centre in Turkey, and Seljuk carpets enjoyed a considerable reputation in the time of Marco Polo. Technically there is little to distinguish the surviving Seljuk rugs from some Turkish village types woven up to the 19th century. They use warps of undyed two-ply wool and wefts of red wool in multiples of two and three on an even foundation and are loosely knotted with a Turkish knot. Although design is very diversified in later Turkish rugs, there is strong conservatism and general homogeneity in technique. In Timurid times, design in Persia closely resembled that in Turkey: predominantly geometrical patterns arranged in a universal repeat. However, towards the end of the 15th century, design gradually became more curvilinear and floral motifs began to appear.
In the early Safavid period, weaving was elevated to the level of court taste and the vast repertoire of book illumination and miniature painting became a major source of design. To meet these new demands many technical innovations were required, including the use of very fine quality material. The new designs could not be reproduced from memory or sight, but required complex cartoons. The Persian knot was used exclusively, as this was more suited to rendering fine details. Silk was extensively used as a warp material, as it is much stronger than wool in relation to its thickness. The looms producing these carpets relied on court patronage and many were directly organized by the court. The royal looms of Isfahan during the reign of Shah Abbas the Great (1587-1629) were organized on an export basis and during his reign royal looms were also established in other centres including Shirvan and Karabagh in Caucasus. Meanwhile, in Ottoman Turkey royal looms were established in Ushak, Bursa and Instanbul. Large-scale weaving declined in Persia after the collapse of the Safavid dynasty in the early 18th century, but was revived by merchants in the second half of the 19th century. Weaving in India has closely paralleled that of Persia; although certain rugs of the early period are difficult to distinguish from Persian ones, notably those of Heart, and have still not been firmly attributed to a single place. Despite the growth of sophisticated royal looms, weaving continued as a nomadic craft and also developed as a cottage industry it developed its own local techniques and designs. In Persia, design generally reflected the taste of the court, whereas in Turkey and the Caucasus geometrical designs continued to be used. West Turkestan, virtually inaccessible until the 19th century, continued weaving designs unchanged for centuries. Spain and Egypt on the other hand constitute a totally separate development and technically both areas remain influenced by developments further east. Construction Rows of knots are tied on a foundation of warp and weft and become the pile, which consists of upright yarn. The warp runs along the length of the carpet and the fineness of the weave depends on its thickness and the proximity of the warps to one another. It is always tightly spun for strength. When the rug is completed, the ends form the fringes which may be weft-faced, braided, tasseled or secured in some other manner. The warps on the side of the rug are normally combined into one or more cables of varying thickness which are overcast to form the selvedge. The warps must be kept at an even tension throughout the weaving process. The wefts pass under and over the warps from one side of the rug to the other. They are loosely plied or sometimes unplied to allow them to be tightly packed to secure each row of knots.
Weaving normally begins by passing a number of wefts to form a base to work on. The knots are then tied around consecutive sets of adjacent warps. Between each row of knots, one or more shots of weft are passed. The fineness of the weave depends on the density of the knots. The knot count can be determined in a specific area by multiplying the horizontal count by the vertical count. Knot counts vary from sixteen to 500 and more per square inch. Design Village and nomadic rugs generally use traditional inherited designs which are usually reproduced from memory. These often have totemic or symbolic associations, but in most instances they are mutated forms whose original significance has long since been forgotten. More sophisticated town rugs use curvilinear designs reproduced from cartoons and the designs are called by the head weaver. As cartoons are costly, the design of some rugs is sometimes copied from other rugs. Looms These do not vary greatly in essential details, although they vary greatly in size and sophistication. There is no direct correlation between fineness of weave and sophistication of loom. The main technical requirement of a loom is to provide the correct tension and a means of dividing the warps into alternate sets of leaves. A shedding device allows the weaver to pass wefts through crossed and uncrossed warps, instead of laboriously threading the weft in and out of the warps. The simplest form of loom is a horizontal one which can be staked to the ground or supported by side pieces on the ground. The necessary tension can be obtained through the use of wedges. This is ideal for nomadic people as it can easily be assembled or dismantled. Rugs produced on horizontal looms are generally fairly small and cannot be wider than the beams, which must be small enough to be transported. Vertical looms are undoubtedly more comfortable to operate, although they are not portable and thus only found amongst sedentary people. There is no limit to the size of the carpet to be woven, as there is no restriction on the width of the beam, and in India especially very large looms have been recorded. There are three broad groups of vertical loom which, however, may be locally modified in many ways: the fixed village loom, the Tabriz or Bunyan loom and the roller beam loom. The first loom is used mainly in Persia and consists of a fixed upper beam and a movable lower beam or cloth beam, which slots into two side pieces. The correct tension is obtained through driving wedges into the slots. The weaver or weavers work on an adjustable plank which is raised as the work progresses. The Tabriz loom is used in north-east Persia and in commercial centres in Turkey. On this type of loom, the warps are continuous and pass around behind the loom. Tension is again obtained through the use of wedges. The weavers sit on a fixed seat and when a portion of the carpet has been completed, then tension is released and the carpet is pulled down around the back of the loom. This process continues until completion of the carpet, when the warps are severed and the carpet taken off the loom. The roller beam loom is the traditional village loom of Turkey, but is also found in Persia and India. It consists of two movable beams to which the warps are attached. Both beams are fitted with rachets or similar locking devices and completed work is rolled on to the lower beam. It is possible to weave very long rugs by this means, and in some areas of Turkey rugs are woven in series. Tools In order to operate the loom, the weaver needs a number of essential tools: a knife for cutting the yarn as the knots are tied; a comb-like instrument for packing down the wefts and a pair of shears for trimming the yarn. In Tabriz the knife is combined with a hook with which the knots are tied; normally the fingers alone are used. A small steel comb is sometimes used for combing out the yarn after each row of knots, which both tightens the weave and clarifies the design. A variety of instruments are used for packing the weft. Some weaving areas in Persia renowned for compact weaves use additional equipment to the beating comb. In Kerman, a sabre-like instrument is used horizontally inside the shed, and in Bijar a heavy nail-like tool is used. A number of different shears are used, but the type depends on the method of trimming the rug. It may be trimmed as the work progresses, or the trimming may be performed after completion of the rug. In Chinese rugs, the yarn is trimmed after completion and is slanted where the colour changes, giving an embossed effect. The Knots Two basic knots are used: the Turkish or Ghiordes knot and the Persian or Senneh knot. As these terms are often confusing, the terms 'symmetrical' and 'asymmetrical' are often used. The Turkish knot is found in Turkey, the Caucasus, Turkestan and in Persia amongst people of Turkish or Kurdish race. The Persian knot is found in Persia, India, Turkestan, Egypt and in Turkey in the case of some court rugs. Turkish and Persian knots are normally tied around two adjacent warps, although sometimes they may be tied around more. The Turkish knot is executed in the following manner: the yarn is passed between two adjacent warps, brought back under one, wrapped around both forming a collar, then pulled through the centre so that both ends emerge from between the same warps. The Persian knot is wrapped around one warp only, then the yarn is passed open behind the adjacent warp so that the two ends are divided by a single warp. It may be open on the left or the right. The Spanish knot is looped around single alternate warps so the ends are brought out on either side. The Jufti knot, frequently encountered in Khorassan, is tied around four warps instead of two. Materials and Preparation Dyed wool is customarily used for the pile. This can vary enormously in quality. Early Safavid rugs use soft fleecy wool of the highest quality, while Turkish and Caucasian village rugs generally use fairly coarse, harsh wool. Silk is used for more sumptuous rugs and is rarely encountered in village rugs, although it is used in small quantities to embellish Turkoman, Caucasian and Turkish rugs. Cotton is frequently used for details in early Safavid and Indian rugs, in later Ghiordes rugs, Turkoman Saryk rugs and in Ottoman Bursa rugs. Usually it is undyed, but a blue-dyed cotton is used in Bursa rugs. Silver and silver-gilt thread wrapped on a silk core is found brocaded in some Safavid rugs and in later Turkish court rugs like Hereke and Koum Kapou. In later Persian rugs a cruder technique of plain wire woven on directly is found. Foundation In Turkish and nomadic rugs, including those from West Turkestan, wool is used almost exclusively for the warp, which is undyed. It is tightly spun and often of dark colours which are unsuitable for dyeing. In some Transylvanian and Ushak rugs, a technique known as end-dip is used, whereby the ends of the warp, which will later become the fringe, are dyed in colours usually taken from the yellows and reds of the spectrum. The weft is generally loosely plied wool, but cotton is sometimes used, especially in Caucasian rugs. In Turkey and related areas the weft is usually dyed, red being the most common colour. Persian rugs of the early Safavid period use a tightly spun silk warp and loosely spun silk weft. In Persia and India silk warps were gradually replaced by mill-spun cotton warps. As many later Safavid and Indian rugs have a complex weft structure, more than one material is often used. Wool and/or cotton and silk may be found in rugs of the vase groups and in Moghul court rugs. Coarse late Indian rugs often use jute as a weft material. Generally, there has been an increasing use of cotton, often dyed except for silk rugs like Tabriz, Herez and Kashan which use a silk foundation. Coarse town rugs of Persia, like Hamadan, use a home-spun cotton. Spanish and Egyptian rugs use a wool foundation which is usually dyed. Central Asian rugs use wool, silk and cotton as foundation material. Twist and Ply In most weaving areas, yarns of whatever material are spun in an anti-clockwise direction and plied in a clockwise direction. The symbols S and Z are used to designate clockwise and anti-clockwise twist respectively: when the yearn is twisted tight, the diagonal ribs formed will correspond to the diagonal of an S and Z. Cairo and Bursa (which includes Ottoman and later nineteenth-century silk rugs), use an S spin and a Z twist. Dyes Dyeing was carried out in most Oriental weaving areas by the village dyer who was often Jewish and the craft was kept a closely guarded secret. Although similar dyestuffs were used throughout the Near East, enormous variation in colour resulted, as the colour is not determined by the ingredients alone, but by the type of wool used and primarily by the quality of water. This is a convenient guide for classification since particular areas can be associated with particular tones of colour after some experience. Until the introduction of chemical colours in the second half of the 19th century, only natural dyestuffs were used, such as the madder and indigo plant, to produce shades of red and blue. These primary colours could be mixed with other primary colours to produce a wide range of secondary colours. One can find between six and twelve different colours in most antique rugs. Other dyestuffs include berries, plants, fruit, bark and fungi. The agents used in the production of some colours, primarily brown, produce a corrosive effect, and wool dyed in these colours is liable to wear away more quickly than wool dyed in other colours. Ferrous oxide, in particular, tends to weaken the pile very quickly. Structure Each weaving district or atelier has a characteristic weave by which it may be recognized. The main structural feature of a rug is the way in which the warp and the weft are combined and in what factors, and the type of knot used. Additionally, minor features such as treatment of selvedge, ends or presence of diagonal lines in the ground weave help to identify types. Differentiation can also be made in terms of colour and design, but these criteria should never be isolated from structural considerations. Familiarity of all techniques is essential in attributing and dating a rug and also in determining its authenticity. Many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century groups have been skillfully copied. Positioning of warps varies considerably, ranging from a single-plane to a two-plane system. A particular warp system is maintained by a complementary weft system. If a weft is stretched taunt across alternate warps, it will have the effect of displacing them, but if it is loosely applied the warps will remain in an even position. Thus, depending on how the wefts are used in the rug, one may have an even or depressed foundation, as is the case with most Turkish village rugs. A two-plane system is not found and would not seem to be adapted to the Turkish knot. Many rugs with an even foundation are multi-wefted, having an irregular distribution of wefts with anything from one to six shots between each row of knots. Rugs with depressed foundations, like Ushak, Ladik, Kula and Ghiordes, are usually double-wefted, in which the first weft is taut and the second weft sinuous. Related Techniques The term kelim applies to tapestry-woven fabrics in the Near East. The technique produces a weft-faced textile in which the warps are concealed. The wefts are discontinuous and return as the design/colour changes. Unless the wefts of two adjacent colour areas pass around the same warp a slit is produced, and this is the technique used in most areas. This is referred to as slit tapestry weave. If the areas are connected, it is known as linked tapestry weave. The Soumak technique also produces a weft-faced fabric. Here the wefts are passed over two warps and back under one. The weave may be plain or countered. The technique can be either structural or supplementary. The first type uses no ground weave and is usually referred to as Soumak wrapping. The second type uses a ground weft, and Soumak wefts are supplementary and discontinuous in different colour zones. This type is referred to as Soumak brocading. Brocading is similar to Soumak brocade, where a ground weave is patterned by supplementary discontinuous wefts consisting of floats of different lengths. (Siudmak, John. Rugs and Carpets of the World. London: Quantum, 1996.)
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