Tekke Rugs: Guide to Tekke Guls

Tekke Rugs: The Allen Tekke Main Carpet

This is one of the more common Tekke carpet minor Guls. not as common as the Chemche Gul but not uncommon.

Tekke Rugs: A Connoisseurs take on 6 gull torbas

Tekke Rugs: Tekke Main Carpet

Star is not quite right but it is in common usage. Actually the stars are floral forms that may be best called rosettes. This is an old border seen in carpets generally considered older,

The Star and Octagon Border predates the Salor Tekke split. For Salor use of the Star and Octagon Border in an Ensi see 19th century Salor Ensi page 31, Thompson, Jon. Oriental Carpets  and also in a Salor (S-Group) Ensi Group 2 circa 1800i.

Tekke Rugs: Tall Gol Tekke Main carpet

Tekke Rugs: Tekke Main Carpet

Tekke Rugs: Small Tekke Rug

This is the most common main Gul in Tekke  main carpets.  An  important clue to estimating age is the height to width ratio. Those with a greater height to width ratio tend to be older. Please note the top Gul. I feel this is older than the lower gul. The middle gul even though it has good age strikes me as younger that the top gul. The bottom Gul is much younger dating to turn of the century 1895 - 1920. The Gul has flattened out dramatically.

I believe this was due to European market influences. For my purposes I will consider Russian merchants as European. As European influence increased there became market pressure to weave fine rugs. With the patterns staying the same the weaver turned to fine yarn and more compression on the loom. Consequently as the rugs got finer the guls got flatter.