The past re-made: the case of oriental carpets.

The past re-made: the case of oriental carpets. Old carpets, as informative material objects, are therefore theproper stuff of archaeology. Aspects of the carpet world offer food forthought as to how entities we recognize among the debris of antiquitycome to be recognized and valued. Here James Mellaart's recordedpaintings from Catal Huyuk, which 'surfaced' a generationafter the dig was completed, have now come to have an unexpected role.Carpets: names and historiesThe process by which an unprovenanced object of purported antiquityacquires a genealogy and value involves the fabrication fabrication (fab´rikā´shn),n the construction or making of a restoration. of history. Notoften the recipient of 'serious scholarship', carpets havelong been considered the domain of thieves, swindlers and naiveromantics -- all busy fabricating history. While a solid data-base hasbeen developed from which rugs may be coherently categorized andunderstood, dealers apparently still manufacture myths and tradeterminology with facile grace. Although the best of the new books nowreflect a scholarly approach to their subject, many are still littlemore than thinly disguised sales talk.The major sources of information about the oriental carpet have oftenbeen dealers, who can be extremely insightful and well informed, but whoare also interested in selling. Some early scholars prominent in thefield were dealers, although not actually presenting themselves asbusinessmen. F.R. Martin, author of the first comprehensive history oforiental carpets (1908), was a successful dealer. Arthur Upham Pope,organizing force behind the massive, six-volume Survey of Persian art(1937/8), actually was the selling agent of a number of classic carpetsdepicted in his history. How objective is a dealer in his scholarshipwhile he is simultaneously trying to sell a rug? Creative labelling bydealers illustrates the problem. Starting in the 1920s, a group oflarge, red field carpets, originally seen as originating from MughalIndia, began to be labelled as 'Isfahans', presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. from theSafavid court. Strong evidence against this appellation ap��pel��la��tion?n.1. A name, title, or designation.2. A protected name under which a wine may be sold, indicating that the grapes used are of a specific kind from a specific district.3. The act of naming. began to surfacewith non-dealer carpet scholars such as May Beattie (1972: 39-40) andCharles Grant There are many people named Charles Grant. Some included on Wikipedia are: Charles Grant (Scottish footballer), Scottish football (soccer) player Charles Grant (American football), American football player Charles Grant (game designer), wargaming author Ellis (1988: 211). Further scholars, such as Eiland, Jr(the father of the writer), noted that even today the greatestconcentration of these rugs remains in Jaipur. Early Mughal buildings,including Akbar's tomb in Sikandra and a number of structures atFatehpur Sikri Fatehpur Sikrior Fathpur Sikri(both: fətəpr` sĭk`rē), historic city (1991 pop. 25,446), Uttar Pradesh state, N India. , show architectural details similar to those found on thecarpets. Mughal miniatures, such as in the Hamza ham��zaalso ham��zah ?n.A sign in Arabic orthography used to represent the sound of a glottal stop, transliterated in English as an apostrophe. Nama, also show asimilar design vocabulary (Eiland, Jr 1991). Unfortunately, the dealerstoday still find that the rugs sell best as 'Isfahans'.Mellaart, Catal Huyuk and Anatolian kilimsDealer scholarship, making use of a prominent archaeologist, hasresulted in Turkish kilims, long a low spot on the market, now beingsold as 'archaeological relics'. Many Turkish kilims haverisen from 10 to 100 times their previous value, over a time-span ofless than five years, following a recent publication of James Mellaart James Mellaart (b. November 14, 1925, London) is a British archaeologist and author who is noted for his work at the Neolithic village of ?atalh?y��k in Turkey. He was also expelled from Turkey suspected of involvement with the antiquities black market and was involved with the ,known excavator ex��ca��va��torn.An instrument, such as a sharp spoon or curette, used in scraping out pathological tissue.excavator (eks´k of Catal Huyuk and Hacilar in Turkey. AlthoughMellaart's last excavations there were in 1965, he announced in1983, at the 4th International Conference on Oriental Carpets in London(published by Frauenknecht 1984) that he had withheld a number ofdrawings from Catal Huyuk that demonstrated a startling connectionbetween Neolithic art and the modern Anatolian kilim kilimPileless floor covering handwoven by tapestry techniques in Anatolia, the Balkans, and parts of Iran. The name is also given to a variety of brocaded, embroidered, warp-faced, and other flat-woven rugs and bags. . In 1989, heproduced 44 reconstructed drawings alleged to be of wall paintings foundat Catal Huyuk (Mellaart et al. 1989). Almost immediately, a wave ofenthusiasm directed toward those kilims thought to contain descendantsof the Mellaart 'goddess figures'. Kilims that had been a'hard sell' at $2000 were fetching prices in the vicinity of$50,000 or more. In reaction, rug scholars compared Mellaart'soriginal field reports with the new material in his goddess publication(Eiland, Jr 1990). In 1967, Mellaart provided a chart in which heclearly delineated which of the excavated rooms at Catal Huyuk had wallpaintings, and he further described their content (Mellaart 1967: 81).As he noted in this same publication (1967: 166), 'Paintings ofhuman figures, goddesses, and animals, are comparatively rare at CatalHuyuk. The goddess is usually represented in plaster reliefs, which mayor may not have been painted.' The plaster reliefs show the goddessfigure in an entirely different pose from that found on thereconstructed paintings. Among Mellaart's reconstructions werepaintings from 10 rooms which, in a chart in his 1967 book, weredescribed as having no wall paintings (Eiland, Jr 1990: 23). Furtheranalysis noted the vast stylistic differences between the 44 newdrawings and the photos of wall decor in the original field reports. Itwas later observed that designs shown in these new drawings could not beproduced in slit tapestry unless turned 90 degrees from the way they arerepresented in the drawings (Mallett 1993b).Dominique Collon (1990) and Mary Voight (1991) pointed outsubstantial inconsistencies in Mellaart's material, which had notbeen published in a scholarly journal, but in an expensive, privatelyprinted, four-volume, slip-covered edition from an Italian rug dealerwho had made a substantial business selling Anatolian kilims. Voightstated, 'neither Collon or I have found anyone associated witheither the excavation and recording of the wall paintings at the site,or with the subsequent conservation of paintings and fragments at theMuseum of Anatolian Civilizations The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Turkish: Anadolu Medeniyetleri M��zesi) is located on the south side of Ankara Castle in the Atpazarı area in Ankara, Turkey. |Ankara~, who had seen or drawn anyfragment that he or she considered as evidence for the sketched scenesand designs'.Voight continued (1991: 33), 'The reconstructions presented inThe goddess can only be considered as Mellaart's personal visions-- imaginative products derived from small, burned, fallen pieces ofplaster.' Voight then provided a coherent and convincing analysisof the evidence for a predominant female deity at Catal Huyuk,concluding that the available evidence provides no justification toelevate one of these deities (1991: 39). Prompted by a favourable reviewof the Mellaart material by Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas (Lithuanian: Marija Gimbutienė, born Marija Birutė Alseikaitė) (Vilnius, Lithuania, January 23, 1921 – Los Angeles, United States February 2, 1994), was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known , who found her own views onmother-goddess cults supported, Carl Lamberg-Karlovsky (1992: 38), ofthe Peabody Museum The Peabody Museum can refer to several museums founded by or dedicated to George Peabody: George Peabody House Museum at his birthplace in Peabody, Massachusetts Peabody Leather Museum in Peabody, Massachusetts , Harvard, presented a highly critical opinion both ofMellaart's reconstructions and Gimbutas's unquestioningacceptance of them. He found no objective evidence for the existence ofdozens of 'new' wall paintings, and noted that there is not asingle photograph nor a single fragment which substantiates theirexistence.To date, no one has been able to verify Mellaart's drawings, norhas there ever been explanation as to why there is not a singlesurviving photograph of any of the original paintings. Unfortunately,some modern publications simply perpetuate this unproven hypothesis, andoffer rationalizations for the survival of ancient designs (Petsopoulis1991: 27-8).Turkoman carpetsDealer hype also fuelled the Turkoman carpet boom of the 1970s. Theliterature on which it was based reflected a genuine enthusiasm from asmall group of collectors, used for massive promotion by dealers. Thenew theories were based upon the idea that guls, the repetitive motifsin Turkoman rugs, most of them octagonal oc��tag��o��nal?adj.Having eight sides and eight angles.oc��tago��nal��ly adv.Adj. 1. , were ancient tribal emblems bywhich a tribe identified its weavings and proclaimed its identity.Elaborate systems were devised for identifying a rug by these decorativemotifs. Some began to hypothesize hy��poth��e��size?v. hy��poth��e��sized, hy��poth��e��siz��ing, hy��poth��e��siz��esv.tr.To assert as a hypothesis.v.intr.To form a hypothesis. that guls were so important thattribes victorious in warfare made the vanquished weave their guls as asign of submission.As these issues were argued over during the 1970s, prices of Turkomanrugs began to rise. The rugs came to be placed into discrete groupsbased on structural features (such as whether the knot was open to leftor right) and idiosyncrasies of colour, and it became clear that thesegroupings probably represented the output of particular tribaldivisions. As soon as a tribal name was attached to a structural group,demand for it would increase.There was certainly some productive scholarship during this period,as rugs of the Arabatchi tribe came to be recognized among the largeassortment of weavings that had previously not been identified (Thompson1980: 130-33). It was perceived that there were more structural groupsthan there were names of tribes that could still be identified, and yetit was clear, to those dealing in this merchandise, that a tribal labeltranslated into a higher price. By the late 1970s, more obscure tribalnames were being attached to rugs that had only a few years beforereceived a generic Turkoman label. Rugs attributed to obscure tribes,some of which had entirely disappeared, became hot items on the auctionmarket, at times in a manner obviously unrelated to aesthetics. Theevidence linking these structural groupings with obscure tribes wasoften tenuous. Jon Thompson (1980: 135-9) introduced the label'Imreli', after a tribal group so obscure that no one couldascertain whether a trace of the tribe had survived. Justification forthis attribution was scanty, but no worse than for other tribal namesthat came into use at about the same time. David (1980: 20) commented:'to parade this half-developed schema in front of a serious groupof Turkoman experts is an affront and ought to elicit laughter ratherthan applause'. Eventually, at the 1986 International Conference onOriental Carpets in Vienna, Thompson confirmed that the Imreli label hadnever been intended to be taken seriously, but as something of a joke(personal communication from a number of delegates). The Imreli labelcontinues to be used by dealers. The phenomenon of'Turkomania' began its descent in the early 1980s. Somestudents had always doubted the theories of tribal emblems because rugguls never appear on Turkoman banners, weapons, garments, yurts orritual objects. When precursors of some of these 'ancient'guls began to be recognized among late, degenerate floral forms on urbanPersian rugs (Thompson 1980: 146-50), the theories came under fire. Whenrelationships between other Turkoman guls and earlier Chinese, Persianand Byzantine textiles were observed (Eiland, Jr 1981), the tribalemblem theory began to unravel.With further evidence from such sources as Timurid miniatures (Briggs1940), it has become clear that the 'guls' of Turkoman rugsare a mixture of motifs from diverse sources. Robert Pinner, an earlystudent of the 'guls as tribal emblem theory,' conceded themultiple origins of the gul in his 1990 address to the 6th InternationalConference on Oriental Carpets in San Francisco (heard by the author).One wonders weather the dealers were listening.ReferencesBEATTIE, M. 1972. The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection of oriental rugs.Castagnola.BRIGGS, A. 1940. Timurid carpets, Ars Islamica 7: 20-54, 146-63.COLLON, D. 1990. Subjective reconstruction? The Catal Huyuk wallpaintings, HALI (October): 119-23.DAVID, M. 1980. The new Turkoman mythology, in P. Saunders (ed.),Tribal visions: 17-24. Novato.EILAND, M.L., JR. 1978. Chinese and exotic rugs. Boston (MA): NewYork Graphic The New York Graphic (also called the New York Evening Graphic, and is not to be confused with The Daily Graphic) was a tabloid published from 1924 to 1932 by physical culture promoter and publishing mogul Bernarr Macfadden. Society.1982. The origins of Turkoman guls, Oriental Rug Review (July): 1-3.1990. Book review: The goddess from Anatolia, Oriental Rug Review(Aug./Sept.): 19-26.1990. Turkoman rugs: myths and scholarship, in M. Eiland, Jr (ed.),Oriental rugs from Pacific collections: 116-29. San Francisco (CA): SanFrancisco Bay Area “Bay Area” redirects here. For other uses, see Bay Area (disambiguation).The San Francisco Bay Area, colloquially known as the Bay Area or The Bay Rug Society.1991. The Moghul strapwork strap��work?n.Decorative work, popular in northern Europe in the 16th and early 17th centuries, consisting of interlacing straplike bands, often used in low relief on ceilings, screens, and panels. carpets, Oriental Rug Review (Aug./Sept.):28-37.ELLIS, C.G. 1988. Oriental carpets in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia Museum of Art,established in 1875, chartered in 1876. When the city of Philadelphia planned to erect a building to house the Centennial Exposition of 1876, provision was made to keep the building permanently occupied; the Pennsylvania Museum and School .Philadelphia (PA): Philadelphia Museum of Art.FRAUENKNECHT, B. 1984. Early Turkish tapestries. Nurnberg.GIMBUTAS, M. 1990. Wall paintings of Catal Huyuk, 8th-7th millenniaBC, Review of Archaeology (Fall): 1-5.LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY, C.C. 1992. Constructing the past, Review ofArchaeology (Spring): 37-9.MALLETT, M. 1993a. The goddess from Anatolia: an updated view of theCatal Huyuk controversy, Oriental Rug Review (Dec./Jan.): 24-31.1993b. A weaver's view of the Catal Huyuk controversy, OrientalRug Review (Dec./Jan.): 32-43.MARTIN, F.R. 1908. A history of oriental carpets before 1800. Vienna.MELLAART, J. 1963. Excavations at Catal Huyuk, 1962, secondpreliminary report, Anatolian Studies 13: 43-103.1967. Catal Huyuk, a Neolithic town. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of (NY): McGraw Hill.MELLAART, J., U. HIRSCH & B. BALPINAR. 1989. The goddess fromAnatolia. Milan: Eskenazi.PETSOPOULIS, Y. 1999. Kilims: masterpieces from Turkey. New York(NY): Rizzoli. POPE, A.U. 1937/8. A survey of Persian art. London:Oxford University Press.THOMPSON, J. 1980. Turkmen: tribal carpets and traditions. Washington(DC): Textile Museum.VOIGHT, M. 1991. The goddess from Anatolia: an archaeologicalperspective, Oriental Rug Review (Dec./Jan.): 32-9.