Kurdish Rugs

We had a very interesting lecture on Kurdish rugs yesterday, Saturday organized by the Textile Museum Associates of Southern California TMA/SC here in Los Angeles. James D. Burns was the speaker of this well-attended morning event. He is the author of several books on rugs. His most recent book is Antique Rugs of Kurdistan.

The Kurdish people have been master weavers for centuries.  However, because they have been a minority culture spread across a wide range of political boundaries, rug scholars have paid little attention to their weavings as a comprehensive whole.  As a result, in most books about rug weaving published over the last 50 years, one can find Kurdish rugs in the chapters on Turkey, Persia, and the Caucuses, but rarely have they been discussed as a cohesive group.  In this lecture, which was illustrated entirely by rugs from Jim Burns’ collection, Jim discusses some of the design and structural features that have defined Kurdish weavings across many centuries, regions and styles. Which color combinations are almost exclusively used by Kurds?  What weaving techniques?  How did this cohesive tradition persist through centuries of migration, political oppression, and cultural intermingling? This important weaving tradition, which, until recently, has been little studied and poorly understood deserves more attention.

There was a show & tell section at the end of the program.

Dr. Khosrow Sobhe (Dr. Kay)
Certified Rug Specialist (CRS)
www.LosAngelesRugCleaning.com
www.RugIdea.com
Tel. 310-770-9085