Tekke Main Carpet

Tekke Main Carpet   (Winner Carpet Design Awards 2012)

Foumani Collection No. 6178

Size: 222 x 192 cm

Warp: Wool, Z2S, ivory

Weft: Camel hair, Z2 to Z2S, incidental red wool,

Pile: Wool Z2,

Knot: As 2, open to the right, on the left side one row and on the right side partly 2 rows Sy 1, H 10.5 x V 18 = 189 knots/sq inch or H 42 x V 72 = 3.024 kn/dm.

Colours: purple/red, two reds (one abrash), sky blue, dark blue, green/blue, dark brown, yellow, ivory.

Balkhan Mountains, east of the Caspian Sea

Southwest Turkmenistan, Ca 1800

The field of this Tekke Main Carpet is showing four vertical rows of eleven horizontal rows of

the Tekke main medallions (Göl), with chemche güls. as secondary ornaments.

The composition of the carpet is perfectly

balanced. The main border has a very complex

composition filled with octagon stars,

separated by a variety of dividing ornaments.

The carpet has such a particular artistic style,

a somewhat round Turkoman tent size and an

exceptional border, that it is an artistic work of

Art.

Because of its purple/red tonality it is from

the Balkhan Mountains, which was the oldest

living area of the Tekke tribes.

No other known piece with this type of border found.

Ref:

1. Two main carpets in the Hallwyska Museum Stockholm.

2. Robert Pinner and Michael Franses Turkoman Studies I, London 1980, cat.-no. 163, 164.

3. Elena Tsareva, Rugs and Carpets from Central Asia, The Russian Collections, Leningrad

1984, plates no.28 and 32.

4. Siawosch Azadi und Rüdiger Vossen, Turkmenische Teppiche und die ethnographische

Bedeutung ihrer Ornamente Hamburgisches Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg 1970, Tafel 3 and 5.