This is a classic 19th century Talish Met Hane rug from the collection of Sam and Barbara Gordon. These rugs are typically 2 to 3 times as long as they are wide. They average 80 knots per square inch and have a 1:1 knot ratio. See Stone,Peter. The Oriental Rug Lexicon and Hubel, Reinhard G. The Book of Carpets. Besides the long narrow format an uncluttered often plain field is expected. Hubel describes the structure as 2 ply wool warps, Twisted and undyed. The wefts are always two shots and usually cotton. Hubel also notes supplementary discontinuous wefts along the sides up to 6 cm into the rug. Selvages are usually blue and sometimes white warped over 1 to 4 warps. Knot counts can range from 75 to 120 knots per square inch. Hubel, Reinhard G. The Book of Carpets.
This is the less common Talish border. More common is the variant without the lines from the blossom to to leaves. The Talish live "along the Caspian coast south of the Viliazh-Chai River". The Talish are Shia Muslim. Ethnologue: Azerbaijan - Talish. The Talish are on both sides of the Azerbaijan Iran border. Two related examples:
Please note the abrash. Sam Gordon has a very refined esthetic sense that is a great help to him in collecting rugs. Green is the rarest field color in Talish rugs and this is a beautiful example of a rare group. Who are the Talish? The Talish are an old tribe in that they date back to at least the 13th century and certainly much earlier. Eiland speculates thousands of years Oriental Rugs A Complete Guide Page 264. The Ethnologue Database places them in the Indo European Family close to Persian. So we may see them as one of the original indigenous Persian people. However James J. Reid notes that the the Talish were one of the first four tribes of the Kizilbash. Tribalism and Society in Islamic Iran Page 20. He does note that the early Kizilbash spoke Turkic, Kurdish and possibly Luri. Reid notes that the the Talish were one of the first four tribes of the Kizilbash. The other three tribes were the Shamlu, Rumlu and Ustajlu. As we can easily see those three each end in Lu which is a form of the Chagatai word Ulus meaning Tribal state so I conclude they are Turko-Mongolic. Talish which is not overtly Turko-Mongolic is linguistically close to Luri may indeed be the Luri that Reid alludes to. Tribalism and Society in Islamic Iran Page 20 - 24. The 16 Remaining Talish Ethno-Linguistic Groups
For Further Reading: Guide to Rugs & Books Thanks and best wishes, J. Barry O'Connell Jr. |
Persian Rugs the O'Connell Guides | ||||||||||||
