rugsofwar

How fast does an observation become an “ism”? Here’s an example of the kind of thing Max Allen correctly describes as coeval production: examples of carpets that are clearly made within the same environment, possibly by the same people or persons, with or without an antecedent. The first was this rug collected by Hans Werner Mohm in Kabul in 1992. It is reproduced as Plate 37 in his book (co-authored with Jurgen Wasim Frembgen) Lebensraum und Kalashnikow: Kreig und Frieden im Spiegel afghanisher Bildteppiche (2000).

By coincidence, we spotted the frayed corner of the second carpet peeking out from under about three other carpets in the doorway of a bazaar shop in Herat. It needed a wash.

Comparison of the similarities and differences reveals the extent to which such coeval production reflects the individual design decisions made by makers in close proximity with each other: colours, motifs, texts move around within the common schema of the abstracted map of Afghanistan. Both are dated 1989/90. If you compare the details from the bottom of the carpet upwards, you can see how the elements within the framework are varied by the maker(s). The Herat province (bottom center) can either be represented by buildings or camels, and so on up the design. It’s as if the process allows for a degree of creative freedom, in the hands of the makers.

We don’t often debate our differences in interpretation and methods of analysis, but here’s a start. Let’s bring forward Max and Nigel’s disagreements in their comments on the previous post, and see what others think?

1. max allen said:
   October 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 pm eWell, Nigel, that’s certainly a leap. Perhaps you might have headed your entry “Progressive Imagination.” Why is your explanation any better than mine, which might go like this: The two rugs have a common ancestor and were made about the same time, one by a more skilled weaver with better materials at hand. One does not “evolve” from the other. They are coeval. I can give you a hundred examples (and you have some yourself) of the horizontal city rugs, some of which are really nice and well drawn and detailed, and some are really crude and awful. Would you suggest that the nice ones are necessarily earlier?
2. Nigel Lendon Says:
   October 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm eWell, Max. Until we find a more ragged, more abstracted (pace Harold Osborne) carpet from the same ancestor with a proven earlier date than a finer, more detailed example, my perceptions still favour some kind of evolutionary model whereby copies (whether literally pixel-by-pixel reproductions, or by looking and making it up as the image is built, or made from memory) tend to produce less detailed representations which tend towards abstracted designs. So yes, I suggest that the nice ones are probably closer in time to the (nicer) ancestor, but yes, it’s not a neat time-line, more a tangled brachiate. That said, I prefer the “progressive abstraction” model to your more random skills and opportunities account of coeval production. Sure, it could even go backwards in the age of colour photocopiers and mass reproduction of pattern cartoons, but is that likely? Everything I saw which looked like contemporary reproductions of earlier (ie. already known in the outside world) patterns, were simpler, less innovative in the micro-structure of their imagery and pattern, and therefore more “abstract”. Which is not to say that this resultant abstraction follows any of the models and motivations we would associate with western artistic practices in the 20th C. which is what makes it an interesting and provocative concept. So, until we find the contradicting evidence, PA has more going for it than coeval.

Next?

Here’s a classic case of progressive abstraction, but this time we have some provenance to provide a time-frame. Both are small-scale versions of the Salang Pass landscape which celebrates the defeat of the Soviets. The best collection of large-scale, beautifully made rugs of this category is in Verona. The story which comes with the image above has been reported previously: it was found in September in Badmurghan Street, in Herat, being used as a doormat in a textiles shop.

This rug was acquired in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1994. When you look at the comparisons you’ll see that the overall image is remarkably similar, although being better made, and more detailed (even though its colours have faded) we can reasonably assume that it was made first, and that the Herat rug is a copy. By “progressive abstraction” we mean that the process of reproduction of a given design results in the simplification or evolution of forms, and a gradual reduction in the resolution of details. This can be seen in the image which compares the border design, and in the ways the helicopters become less literal in their representation.

In the case of these two rugs, the Adelaide carpet is better made, and of better materials. It has, for example, a two-tier selvidge with a more elaborate braided structure, and the border has much finer detail in essentially the same pattern.

See also how the warp in the Herat rug is a mixture of cotton and wool, as if the maker was really short of materials. From the reverse view, even the colours of the Adelaide rug are more intense and consistent than what was available to the Herat rug maker.

Apart from the fact that the Herat rug has had a harder life, and made of much poorer materials, we can safely assume that they both come from the same region, and a time frame of earlier and later in the first half-decade of the 90s is most likely for these parent-and-child examples.

On our second visit to Chicken Street one of the dealers had dug out a war rug in an interesting style we haven’t seen before. The dealer suggested this example was made by Turkmen people living somewhere to the north of Herat towards Qal-e Naw. It’s tightly made, wool on cotton warp, and the frame design is consistent with the Turkmen attribution. What we do like is the asymmetry of the design, which echoes the early 80s Farah carpets collected by Luca Brancati, and the irregularity and liveliness of the infill figures. We would judge this war carpet to have been made any time in the last fifteen years. See artwranglers for a detail…

…or more properly, Koche Morgha, which runs off Turabaz Khan Sq, in downtown Kabul. On Chicken Street there are about 40 carpet stores, together with about 100 antiques, clothing, and furniture stores. Most of the wares in this street are modern reproductions, and the same applies to most of the war rugs. Whereas “old!” is the catch-cry of the dealers, one of whom protested that his tank-pattern war carpet was “35 years old”, to which I asked “before the war?”, “Yes!” he said. I visited every rug store. Only two of about 20 war carpets I saw (not counting the myriad S11, Defeat of the Soviets and Tora Bora “mats”) showed any signs of age or usage. When you comment on this, they say “Ah! But it’s so precious it’s been put away in the carpet store!”, or, “This kind of rug has been hung on the wall”. At least their age hasn’t been accelerated, yet.

The most common type was the tank and armaments patterns typical of the Zikini (a.k.a Zakini, Zaikini, Zukini) people from around Farah, south of Herat. From two years old to ten years old, would be my guess. However the dealers’ attributions of this style of carpet were vague and various, from just “Herat” and when pressed, from Ghor to Badghis, to Farah provinces. My guess is that the dealers of Herat were the source of this style of carpet, but that the actual origins are quickly forgotten. I saw two Minaret of Jam rugs, with helicopters in the sky, and a larger 6×10 slightly worn rug with what looked like motor yachts, and UMOs (Unidentified Mechanical Objects). The newer simplified reproductions are more common, and the multitude of Defeat of the Soviet and S11 mats (produced in who knows what circumstances at Shebrghan to the north) are clearly still in multiple reproduction. These pictures show such mats in the process of being cut apart (multiples produced on continuous cotton warp) and having their fringes trimmed. “Who buys them?” I asked. “ISAF personnel” was the answer. But you don’t see ISAF people hanging out in Chicken Street, or elsewhere in the city, since the frequency of suicide bombings is on the increase in Kabul, and military personnel are the prime targets. So I went with a “fixer” Mohammed Hashim, a medical student, and on the advice of a press security officer, we didn’t hang about. Kabul is not a happy place.

The Heetal Plaza Hotel is a well protected oasis in the foothills behind the diplomatic sector in Kabul. It is said to be owned by the son of Burrhanuddin Rabanni, who was President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan from June 1992 to September 1996. Rabbani is said to be one of the wealthiest people in Afghanistan today (Giradrdet and Walker 2004). Ahmed Shah Massoud, the now revered leader of the Northern Alliance, who was once Rabbani’s senior military commander, looks down from a billboard on the hilltop behind. Note the sandbagging to reinforce the bunker under the restaurant, which spoils the effect somewhat…

Here’s the war rug we found in the shop of Mohammed Omar (that’s Mr. not Mullah) in Herat (see previous post). As you can see, it’s a cityscape/landscape, derived from the Salang Pass carpets of the second generation. It’s made of poor materials, wool on wool, loose weave, scraggy pile, and has had a hard life. And it needs to have a few more washes - any suggestions how to get rid of the animal odour?

Here’s evidence of a war rug discovered in use in Afghanistan. Mr Mohammad Omar is a textile seller on Sarak-t-Darb Iraq street in Herat, who had this war rug serving as a door mat at the entrance of his shop. Mr Omar bought it from “village people who were selling their carpets door to door”. It’s worn, and damaged, and extremely dirty, and clearly is not regarded as being of any great value. It may well be that such rugs were once made for sale, at the lower end of the market, and when they didn’t sell, they eventually found a use in such prosaic circumstances. Nobody I have asked knows of any in use in domestic situations.

Readers will remember our previous speculations about the identity of the many arched bridge war rugs. We wondered how rug makers might find images of Sydney harbour… well here I am in a take-away outside the Mashhad bus station. If here, why not just across the border?