A Lesson in Azerbaijan Flatweaves

In my journey of learning about the world of textiles / rugs, forums & blogs on the internet have been extremely useful resources.

Because one cannot have all the books in the world – and because even if one did, accessing information from webpages is just easier than extracting details from books, the internet has been a preferred partner in my lazy meandering journey.

So I use the net extensively for initial readings and then, to seek answers to the questions that come up in the screen research I reach out to real people at the source of production.

Those answers are full flavored comprehensive bodies of knowledge and offer insights that extend into the cultural paradigm.

And so it is in this manner that I began from my zero base of knowledge in Caucasian flatweaves a month ago and eventually learnt a little something from a local Azerbaijani.

The matrix below is my understanding of the differences between the 4 names – Verneh / Sileh / Sumakh / Shadda.

Since this system of nomenclature is based on weaving technique and not visual appearance, the next step is to learn to identify the various techniques through real exposure to many many real examples in each cell of the above matrix.

As this large number of examples cannot be found in my home, this endeavour will probably mean a trip to Azerbaijan.

👀

Someday.

June 2019