1800s, Turcoman; Yomud

Bag Face, hand knotted woollen pile on woollen warp and weft, Central Asian, 19th century

WARP: white wool; Z2S; 16 threads per inch (63 per dm).

WEFT: light brown and white wool; Z spun, unplied; 2 shoots after each row of knots, sometimes one shoot has paired parallel threads; 13 knots per inch (58 per dm).

PILE: wool; 7 colours: dark red, light red, yellow, dark green, dark blue, dark brown, brown; asymmetrical knot open to the right and tied around 2 threads; 104 knots per sq. inch (1827 per sq. dm).

SIDE FINISH: both sides have one cord oversewn with red wool but the left-hand side is incomplete.

END FINISH: Lower: incomplete; a maximum of 1" (2 cms) of red weft plain weave. Upper: 1" (2.5 cms) of plain weave with a narrow band of dark green and then white weft.

DESIGN: Field: a dark red ground with three bands each of three guls. The centre of the gul is quartered dark red/dark green alternating with dark red/dark blue and lies on a white ground with paired elongated hooks. The guls in the lower and middle bands are outlined in dark blue and those in the upper band in dark green. The secondary design lies in two bands and two half bands, each of two motifs and two halves. The vertical and the longer, horizontal bars are either dark green or dark blue and have a pair of white horns at the four ends. In the centre is a chequered lozenge, largely of light red.
Main border: adjoining rectangles with a flowerhead in the centre around which is a small lozenge which quarters the rectangle; primarily in white, dark red, dark blue and dark green.

Inner and outer borders: dark red diamonds within a brown lattice with the triangles along the sides in a variety of colours. The upper inner border extends horizontally through the main border and so framing the top main border.
Innermost and outermost borders: have a dark red ground with diagonal coloured blocks in colour groups of three.
Elem: brown ground with three bands of 21 squares composed of a larger and a smaller triangle divided by a stepped diagonal. Both triangles contain an inner triangle of a contrasting colour. The larger triangle has one and sometimes two outlines. Those outlined in white provide a visual diagonal through all three bands (lower left to upper right). A vertical line of single brown knots between each motif and a similar horizontal line between the lower and the middle band, together with a line of different colours between the middle and upper band, form a faint grid. Immediately above the elem, the ground changes from brown to dark red - this forms an unpatterned outermost border which extends between the outermost patterned border and the upper band.
Upper band: dark red ground with reciprocal dark green, light red horns with paired white and yellow flowerheads and above that a narrow band of dark green pile.


Date catalogued: 14.2.95

mentioned "Turkoman Rugs in the V & A" by R Pinner and M. Franses (intro by Donald King), analyses by L. Pinner Hali 1980, Vol. 2, No. 4, P. 302, 311, 315.

cf> Siawosch Azadi (1975) see. T. 108-1922 (for the elem only, cf. Hali Issue 86, p. 139)

Bags are important household articles for all nomadic people. They are used to transport possessions on pack animals when the community travels and are used for storage and decoration, and as something comfortable to lean against, when the community settles for a while and erects tents. The two sides of a bag, back and front, are called 'faces' and the one at the front is often decorated with knotted pile or with a woven design.
This design looks complex because its motifs and borders have been subdivided into tiny spaces and have been knotted in different colours. The diagonally halved squares, like cracked eggs, in the lower border are not common. This bag face was probably woven by the Ersari tribal group.

T.197-1922