WORKING TECHNIQUES OF KNOTTED CARPETS

Introduction 

To know knotted carpets it is necessary to examine the techniques used both by nomads and by factories. Handed down sources do not give exaustive information on the matter. Aeschylus, for example, hands down interesting information about carpets, but almost no information about the techiques which were used: he lingers over commercial value, informing us that every kilo of a carpet was paid a kilo of silver. 
It must be reminded that one square meter weighed four or five kilos. Metellus Scipio tells about the carpets of Babilon; the smallest ones, which were used to cover tables, had a cost which nowadays could coincide with millionsof liras. Nero seemed to have paid enormous amounts for an exemplar.Yet there is no evidence of the existence of knotted carpets; they were probably weaved carpets. 
But it is to be noted that, considering the manufactured, it is not right to attach an absolute value to the kind and the number of knots. Like in any other case, all elements must be taken into account, which contribute to its realization, such as the materials, the chromatism, the drawing, the symbolism. Moreover an historical knowledge is necessary of environment and culture coeval to that work and an experience in the evaluation of   line, colour, stamp, mass, areas and in the meaning of measure and proportions. 
 

The techniques  

Raw materials, colours, looms, the texture, the knotting, the drawing and the washing contribute to the manufacture of the carpet. Procedures can be different with regard to the execution which has been effected by nomads, in court laboratories, trading house hold or in factories, by smallor big production centres. 

The materials 

The materials used for eastern carpets are wool (of sheep, goat and camel), silk, cotton, flax and sometimes hemp and jute.   Insome cases metal threads can be found.   Yet wool is the material most in use as it is a local product of those wide eastern areas, especially of  Iranian, Turkish and mid-Asian height where great numbers of sheeps, goats and not so many camels pasture. 
The quantity of wool varies depending on the kind of the animal andon the part of the body (stomach, shoulder, back, leg) from which it is obtained and it is fixed by hair softness, length and elasticity.  A right nutriment fosters a rich and soft fleece and the bushed vegetation of the pastures contribute to the cleanness and elasticity of the fibrethanks to the massage of the bushes on the body. 
The best wool comes from young animals up to 5 years of age.  The worst ("tabacchi") comes from dead animals and it is coarse and rough.  Among the most valuable wools, those are to be mentioned, which are producedby Afshary, Baktiari and Kashkay nomads (south and mid-Persia), the excellent but poor production of Kirman; the wools of Khorassan that together with those of nomads Baluchi form the gross of Persian production; west Persianwools, qualitatively superior even to those mentioned above (wools of Lorand Kurdi nomads which pour in Kermanshah market); the wonderful wools of Carci sheeps with which carpets in mid-Asia are made, particularly theTekke-Bukhara; those of Maku Sardar, Ardebil and Talish used in Tabriz's carpets; the kind of Khorassan, known as Kurk, soft wool obtained nor byshearing - usually done in spring - but by combing wintry fleece of sheepsand goats. 
Very typical is the wool drawn from a breed of goats with long white hair reared in Kirman area and also from the fat sheep, of the same area,whose characteristics are fat shoulders and tail, which produces glossy and strong wool.   The wool from northern Persia is, on the contrary,very hard.   Camel wool, alone or together with sheep or goatwool, is much used in Hamadan area. 
Camel-goat wool combination is also used in Turkestan and Afghanistan productions.   Nomad people use in most cases sheep wool which is not only used for knotting but also for warp and weft thread.  The usage of wool alone brings to rolling-ups of the carpet's edges andundulations of its body.   Therefore well twisted cotton threadsare used and also, but seldom, flax, hemp and jute threads. 
Silk is mostly used for luxury carpets due to its very high cost andto the high number of knots required.   Silk is diffuse in Indian production and, in the past, was used in Persia during the reign of Shah Abbas the Great (1500 - 1600). 
Once sheared, the wool must be carded and spinned: at nomad tribes this is still done by hand, and this procedure keeps the fibres entireand long, elastic and strong, even if threads have irregular size; mechanical spinning shortens the time, keeps thread' shed regular, but reduces quality and value. 

Dyeing 

Men are in charge of the dyeing, which is quite a hard procedure. Shadescan be dark or light, but they are always warm and delicate.  Nomads use vegetable and animal colours: chemical procedures can alterthe quality of the colours and the wear of the wool.   It is hardly impossible to make two similar carpets, even if they are of the same kind. It seems that only during the Safawide period some exemplars were produced in pair. Not all dyeing techniques are known; the colours can have a different shade according to the different kind of wool, the water used, the mixtures, immersion times; depending on dye used, time of wool immersion can vary from few hours to many days. 
First of all the material is washed and the fat is removed in boiling water and detergent; nowadays a mordant is added to the dye.  Natural colours comes from vegetables, animals, stones and the techniques are often traditional and handed on from father to son. Red comes fromthe boiling of the cochineal, an insect the female of which contains acarmine pigment: another shade, which tends to purple, comes from the madder (rubia tinctorum) which is a tree of the Madder family.  Blue, indifferent shades, is drawn especially from indigo, and from different kind of fungus and from some milled wood essence. Yellow is a colour which comes from saffron that, if it is wild tends to  ruddy, or from the root of the Turmeric (curcuma rotunda) and from a bush called anatto (bixa orellana),and also from the leaves of the vine and of the pomegranate.  Black is seldom used because, excluding some tannin substances (such as those included inside oak's bark) it is not easy to extract, it can be obtained from iron oxide, very less used because in the long run this mineral product dries up and ruins the fibre. 
Among mineral products ochre must be reminded, which was  already used during the Palaeolithic for tatoos and burials.   It is an earthy variety of  haematite (red ochre) or of limonite (yellow ochre). Some colours such as white, grey and brown are wools' natural colours. 
 
Aniline dyes 

In the second half of the 19th century, coming from Europe, the first aniline dyes arrived in Eastern countries. Aniline colours had negative effects on carpets and in 1903 in Persia, their importation and usage were forbidden; nevertheless, after the First World War, this substance beganto be widely used in those countries. 
With technical progress, quality products can be found also among synthetical dyes, but ancient characteristics are typical of natural dyes. After dyeing,the material is hung to dry in the sun. 

Colour as symbol 

In wide areas of the East white symbolize grief; its insertion could then have a meaning beyond the composition value.   Green, within the Islamic world, has a holy meaning: the prophet's cloak was green; it sun considered usage could mean challenge and profanation. In Mongolia, redmeans richness and joy. In China, yellow was the colour of the emperor;orange means devotion and mercy. 

The abrash 

Shade passages of the same colour, which results in horizontal bands,are called "abrash" and, in  commercial jargon, "singeing". If they are spontaneous and not adulterated, they certify the authenticity of nomad manufacture and represents a further value. 
This occurence, due to the change of the ball or skein of wool during the manufacture, depends on different causes; the moment of and the method used for the washing of the wool, artisan spinning which keeps size of threadnot always uniform, the season when the thread has been used as the same skein, in the long run can suffer alterations.   In industrial manufactures, where spinnings and dyeings are made with more advanced technical means and for great amounts of wool, the shade of the colour is more homogeneous.  In these cases the "abrash" is due to  the workman's carelessness in using the right skein.   Sometimes the "abrash" is intentional and it is a part of the drawing and of the colour: if it is correctly inserted,the "abrash" can bestow a particular characteristic upon the carpet bysoftening and attenuating some features in such a way as to increase its value and interest. 

The looms 

The places where the spindle has been created are still unknown as well as the place of origin of the loom. Within nomad world it has not changed that much and also weaving techniques are almost the same as in past times.The loom of the nomads is made of two horizontal and parallel boards supported by stakes fixed in the ground. It is small so to be easy to move. Carpets weaved on it are generally rectangular, long and not vey big. 
The loom of the manufacturies is more specialized, it is vertical and is made of two horizontal girders or calenders (beams), one upon the other,connected by vertical boards. This kind of loom is the rawest, among allfixed ones. More modern is the one where the girders are adjustable in such a a way as to allow weaving of carpets of different lengths. 
The loom type "Tabriz" has, instead of the girders, two rollers, one upon the other, around which all threads of the warp are spread. The knotting starts from the bottom, and as the work goes on, the weaved carpet is pulled downwards and is then rolled from the inside to the outside around thelower roller and so on until it reaches the upper part to roll around the upper beam to move back towards the inside, and this until the carpet is finished: with this kind of loom the carpet can not exceed a certain length. A third kind of loom, rolling beams loom, allows the creation of carpets of the desired length. It is made of an upper rolling beam around whichall threads of the warp are spread and a smaller rolling lower beam around which the already weaved part of the carpet is rolled, until the attainment of the desired length. With this kind of loom carpets of any length can be created; depending on the quantity of warp rolled around the upper beam. 

The manufacture: warp and weft 

The threads spread from the bottom to the top are the warp (or chain) of the manufacture. Through them the threads of the weft run horizontally.The threads of the warp are streched uniformly at a regular distance one from the other. They are usually raw and not coloured while wool (and sometimes silk) is used for knotting. Cotton is used for warp and weft which assure solidity and compactness of the framework; it is cheap and industrially produced. 
Many nomad tribes, still nowadays, use not coloured wool threads also for warp and weft.   In the past, carpets were entirely made of wool. 

The selvage 

The work on the loom starts from the bottom with three or four centimeters of fabric, like a strip of cloth called selvage.   It is madeby rolling tightly the threads of the weft, or other  threads, around the ends of the threads of the warp. Duration and good preservation ofthe carpet depend on the robustness of the selvage, whose colour is usuallywhite when the warp is made of cotton and natural when the warp is made of wool.   Both on the left and on the rigth side some threadof the warp are left free from knots because on them lateral selvages will be consolidated. 

The fringes 

Usually, beyond the first selvage and above the second one, at a certain length, some threads of the warp are left free, which are the fringes of the carpet and have mainly a decorative purpose. 

The knots 

Knotting is made with wool (except for exceptions with silk and cotton together) of the colour which is required within the drawing. After everyrow of knots two or more threads of weft are horizontally left (usually one well tight and the other one released), which are hardly compressed against the knots with a wooden comb or an iron one, so to confer compactness and endurance to the carpet. 
The knots are tied up on the threads of the warp. Once the knot has been made, the hair is pulled downwards in such a way as to give the "direction" to the carpet which will get a different aspect according to the point of view from which it will be observed. 

The ghiordes and the senneh 

The ghiordes - also known as Turkish knot - which takes this name froma well-known centre of production in Turkey, south-east of Smirne, and the senneh (named from a place in Kurdistan), also called Persian knot,are the most used kinds of knots. 

Iuft Umeh or double knot 

A procedure which is called iuft Umeh (double knot), is based on the involvement within the manufacture of four thread at a time instead of two, with a reduction of endurance of the carpet.   The double knot is used to save material and time, and this is openly done with full consciousness of the reducing effects which could be caused to the value. 

The Spanish knot 

Another kind of knot is the so called "Spanish" knot which was used in Spain for a certain period, it was done on a single thread of the warp:it was a sort of slip-knot. 

Tangle or winding knot 

A particular kind of knot  is the tangled knot, which it is nota proper knot but a kind of weaving the effects of which are similar tothose of the knotting. In Nepal, Tibetan refugees still use this technique by winding the locks on a stick with a blade at one end. At the end of every row the stick is pulled and the flock result all cut together. 

Unknotted carpet: the kilim 

The Kilim, the Palas, the Sumak, the Sile, the Verne. They are all made in many different areas, but especially in Turkey, in Persia in Caucasus and come from a particular weaving tecnique without knotting. The Kilim, for example, is soft and refined thanks to its particular weaving: it is less suitable to be trampled on because it is thinner and consequently more perishable than knotted carpet and it is usually used as tent or covering.The drawing does not results from knots but from coloured threads which wrap the threads of the warp just in that point where the drawing mustcatch the eye; its characteristic is that it has two right sides and nota right and a reverse one. 

The so called "Polish weaving" 

It was believed that during the first half of the XVII century a certain amount of carpets had been made in Poland. Later it was verified thet these   carpets were called "Polish" for other reasons. The characteristic of the secarpets was that on the cotton and silk weaving, emerging decorations weremade with Persian knot on a monochrome base worked in brocade with golden and silver threads. In 1900 the production centre in Kashan has begun this kind of manufacture again. 

The tools 

Tools which are used are still few and simple: 

• The blade: a straight or bent knife to cut the threads.
• The comb: can be made of wood, with a wooden handle and iron teeth, orentirely made of iron, used to tighten the weft each time against the knots to give compactecness to the manufacture.
• The scissors: vary for length, are strong, some are flat and some are bent,they are used for shaving.

The shaving 

It can take place after one or more rows of knots or at the end of the day or at the end of the week: sometimes it is done at the end of the whole work. Industrial carpets always receive an ultimate shaving at the end of the work. 
Usually, the higher is the number of knots, the shorter is the shaving (not more than half a centimeter). The hair is usually left long (even more than two centimeter) in less valuable carpets so to cover a less thick and close knotting. 
Factories try to comply with customers' tastes: English customers preferredvery short shaved carpets, American customers prefer long haired carpets. 
The shaving on Chinese carpets is not homogeneous, but it is made in such a way that the drawing, left with long hair, results in relief on the shaved background and gets more prominence. 

The drawing 

The drawing plays an important role in the carpet also for the symbology connected with it. Nowadays, the meaning has been almost forgotten also by those nomad tribes who repeat the motifs only for decorative aims. In modern factories the drawings which must be transfered on the carpet are  prepared on a squared sheet called "card board", on which every square represents a knot.  Nomad tribes, on the contrary, do not follow a scheme, but the weaver knows the compositions which are handed on by ancient traditions. 
In past times, among nomad tribes, the eldest man was entrusted with the knotting, he took the office of "reader".   The knots were"called" with their colours. Nowadays the procedures are still the same. 
Sometimes a model is taken and a small sample carpet, called "Waghireh"and characterized by having a single motif,  is repeated many times in larger carpet. 
In intensive industrially production the scheme of the composition, planned by the calligrapher and by the miniaturist, is copied by the designer on the squared card board which can be coloured or black and white; in the second case the shades to be used are indicated by numbers. When more thanone weaver work at the same time to realize the same drawing, the card board can be cut into strips so that every worker has his own model. 
In house hold tradings exclusively women are in charge of the knotting. The most skilled one occupies the place at the left in front of the loomand acts as the guide. The other workers sit at her left. The parts of the carpet, during the working processing, are not equally divided but they depend on each worker's production. When a worker weaves her partshe meets her neighbour's at a certain point in such a way that on the finished carpets vertical lines form, which show very thin joints.  In some areas there is a specific book, called "Talim", which includes the description of different kind of carpets:  once the manufacture has been chosen, the Talim is commited to a guide who does not need a patterned card board anymore. 
The daily work of the knotters is very hard and they risk to contract a particular pulmunary disease caused by the dust released by wool. 

The washing 

The washing takes at least one day and a lot of water; it is made by men and contributes to enliven the colours.   In the past carpets were not washed.   The refinement of the carpet was made by pedestrians; the carpet was spread out on streets and squares in such a way to be crushed under foot; it was then beated and cleaned with mixtures of water and vinegarand, under the pressure of some weights, it was dragged on grass by draught animals.