Turkish Carpets - Stories and Pictures in Cotton, Wool and Silk

Three things spring to mind when thinking about Turkey: sweets, gold and carpets. Bazaars are overflowing with today's products. Some very valuable antique carpets can be found and admired in museums and even acquired in antique shops. Skilled carpet weavers with keen eyes and nimble fingers demonstrate their art in front of many Turkish carpet shops.

Three main tales and legends surround the mystery of the magic carpet: King Solomon was supposed to have owned a huge flying carpet, big enough to accommodate his entire entourage. Well known are the tales of Queen Scheherazade who told her husband stories of flying carpets during 1001 sleepless nights. Finally, Aladdin, the original thief of Baghdad, used a flying carpet as "get away car" for his merry band of law-breakers. The dreams of flying carpets even persist in modern day rock bands like "Steppenwolf", and the songs which catapulted them into the charts.

Turkish carpets are woven in four varieties: the most common and least expensive is wool on wool, which means wool pile on wool warps and wefts. Wool is thick and therefore does not allow for a very high knot count which is one of the characteristics of a valuable carpet.

Wool on cotton, which means wool pile on cotton warps and wefts allows more knots, because the cotton base can be spun finer than wool. Silk on wool or cotton, which means silk pile on warps and wefts of less expensive material is not very often found, but silk on silk (silk pile on silk warps and wefts) is definitely the Rolls Royce of carpets. Many of the carpets made from all silk have a very high knot count and should therefore not be used to cover the floor but rather as a tapestry hanging on the walls or as throws and pillows.

There are two other distinctions: carpets made from dead wool and those made from live wool. As the name indicates, dead wool stems from sheep which are already dead and has a rough and rather dull quality because it has lost its natural oils. Live wool is sheared from living animals and of much better quality.

Secondly, carpets are either hand woven, which makes them much more valuable and hence expensive, or machine woven. To tell the techniques apart one has to flip the carpet over and look at the regularity of the little squares which make up the weave. Irregularities are a sure sign of handiwork.

Carpet weaving emerged in Turkey in the 13th century, in the region of Konya. Predominant in the 14th century and produced in Anatolia were animals depicted in the patterns. These carpets belong to the Selcuk period. The Ottoman Empire, in the 15th century, saw an enormous increase in artistic talent, imagination and creativity in carpet weaving. Natural elements such as flowers, trees and fruit were included. Turkish carpets of the period found their way to Europe where they were highly appreciated, to such an extent that the carpets often figured in paintings of the time. Most prominently they were favored by the Dutch painter Holbein, which led to the curious effect that Turkish carpets of an entire period are classified as "Holbein". The same applies to the painter Lorenzo Lotto.

Other famous centers of Turkish carpets are Usak, Ladik, Milas and Hereke. The latter are very large and of very fine quality. In the late 19th century the best carpet weavers were invited to settle in Hereke, where workshops were established for them and where they plied their craft. The products became quickly known as the finest carpets in the world and, like paintings, were often signed by the weaver and showed a "H" as indicator of provenance. Today, Hereke's weaver community does not exist any longer, but the carpet weavers still show their craft and paint woven pictures, selling their beautiful products in every Turkish bazaar.