Afshars, Afshar Kilims, Afshar Carpets and Rugs

Afshars are one of the several tribes in Iran who have beautiful tradition of rug and kilim weaving. Afshars are of Turkoman origin who migrated to Iran probably in the 11th century AD. They speak a dialect of Turkic. Afshars were very brave and powerful and did not get along with the federal government. That is why they were dispersed by the Safavid Shahs who ruled Iran from 1503 to 1722. They were forcibly deported to three regions in Iran, north east in Khorassan, north west in south Azerbaijan, and south central Iran to south of Kerman. There are also Afshars in Anatolia in Turkey.

Source: Tribal Rugs, James Opie

Afshars were pastoral nomads and their means of income was animal husbandry and since they had access to high quality wool, they made and to lesser extent still make beautiful pile rugs and flat weaves (kilims). They use both types of vertical and horizontal looms. They use symmetrical knots to make pile rugs. Usually, Afshars in Khorassan and Kerman make small rugs and kilims. Howevers Afshars of north west Iran who make Bidjar carpets make bigger sizes of carpets. They very rarely make kilims.

Nader a military genius (1698-1747) who became the Shah of Iran and ruled the country between 1736 to 1747 was an Afshar from north east of Iran. He established a great Persian empire and expanded his territory to what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, parts of Caucasus, parts of Central Asia, and Oman. He even invaded and conquered India in 1739.


Portrait of Nader Shah Afshar in British Museum

The Afshars who reside in south central Iran, south of Kerman live in and around small towns of Sirjan and Shahr Babak. They make beautiful small pile rugs, kilims (sumac), bags/salt bags (khorjins and namakdans), soferh (bread or eating cloth), and saddle covers. The weaving is mostly done by Afshar ladies. Men help with wool production and dyeing. Afshar tribal rugs of prior to 1930 have wool foundation. In most of the cases these pieces have two oranges-red wefts. In newer pieces Afshar pile rugs have two blue cotton wefts. Afshar rugs and kilims of south central Iran are influenced by Kerman rug and shawl design and have adopted different types and versions of boteh designs. Red dye comes from cochineal in Kerman rugs, however the red of Afshar rugs and kilims come from root of madder which grows in the desert.

Here I am posting few exclusive pictures and a short video on Afshar weaving.

  Afshar pile rug

  Afshar pile rug detail

 Afshar pile rug

 Afshar pile rug detail

 Afshar rug detail showing the blue wefts from the back

Afshar rug detail showing the blue wefts from the back



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

South Persian Tribal Weavings

Ann Nicholas & Richard Blumenthal

Two independent researchers and collectors from Boston

We had a wonderful program today in our textile and rug society, Textile Museum Associates of Southern California.

Lur, Qashqai, and Afshar weavers make beautiful pile rugs and flat-weaves in south Persia. Many of these woven items are small, colorful utilitarian bags and trappings that are extremely charming and collectible. Ann Nicholas and Richard Blumenthal shared their enthusiasm for these weavings, which they have collected for twenty years. They began researching the historical and ethnographic literature, interviewing people who had experience with the South Persian nomads, and searching for photographs of nomadic life showing weavings in use. They found thousands of photographs, many unpublished, in rare and out of print books, university and museum archives, and personal collections of ethnographers. This work confirms many ideas about nomadic weavings; however, some commonly-held notions need to be re-examined, especially those about piled saddlebags. Now the Blumenthals have two collections: small south Persian tribal weavings, and pictures of their nomadic life. Their talk illustrated pieces from both collections, and reviewed south Persian nomadic life with emphasis on nomadic weavings, and then covered the conditions in 19^th century Persia that fostered the weaving of piled saddlebags.

Ann Nicholas and Richard Blumenthal are long standing members of the New England Rug Society. Ann has written several articles for its newsletter and exhibition reviews for HALI magazine. Their collection of small south Persian tribal weavings was exhibited at ACOR 8, where they gave a focus lecture on the south Persian nomadic life and weavings. Recently they have given talks to several rug societies and published two articles in HALI, “South Persian Tribal Weavings: Their Use in Nomadic Life” (HALI 150, 2007,) and “The Mystery Unraveled: Knotted-pile Saddlebags” (HALI 151, 2007.) .

The participants asked many questions and commented on different points raised in the lecture. We ran out of time and Cheri Hunter, the past president and current program chair stopped the question-answer and wanted to move on to show & tell. Ann and Richard had brought some of their small south Persian weavings to this well received presentation. Few members ofTMA/SC also had brought examples from their own collections for show & tell section at the end of the presentation which was held at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, Community Hall, located in Grand View Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90066. The program started at 10:00 am with refreshments followed by the lecture, Q & A, show and tell. It ended at roughly 1:00 pm.

Khosrow Sobhe

www.RugIdea.com

310-770-9085

Hand Knotted Persian Gabbeh Rug, Area Rugs, Los Angeles Getting Cold

Usually I come to work around 8:00 to 8:15 am every day. On my store and on the Internet, I have posted 9:00 am as the start of my work, but I get to my work earlier. Today, a gentleman stopped by right after I opened my rug gallery and bought a 4 x 6 hand knotted Persian Gabbeh rug made with hand spun wool and natural dye.

During the past couple of days, we also sold one Afshar kilim, a flat weave with no pile and few area rugs. We also picked up and delivered few rugs for cleaning and repair. We have a repairman on site who does the repair and stain removal. We also do water damage and color run and color bleeding restoration. I work with three other repairmen when we are busy with more work load.

It has been cold in Los Angeles these days and it rained last night. You fell the spring, but should have a jacket and sweater with you not to get cold.

Khosrow Sobhe
www.RugIdea.com
310-770-9085