Hamadan Rugs

Guide to Touserkan Rugs: "Touserkan Rugs
At the risk of being provocative I have some questions about the origins of Touserkan rugs. Who are these people where do they come from? They appear in the Hamadan region in the 19th century. There is no evidence that they were there earlier. Maybe they were or maybe they moved from somewhere else. I propose that these people may actually be a sub-group of the Lesghian called the Tsakhur of the Derbent/Dagestan region.

I am sure some of you are thinking that is preposterous but let me explain. Peter the Great moved the Don Cossack to the Terek river in the 1720s. In 1735 the Russians made their administrative headquarters at Qidhlar south of the Terek River. In this period other Cossack units were moved south and they applied pressure on the Moslems of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Derbend.

Czarist Russian took Derbent in 1796 and it was formally ceded to the Czar in 1813. This was war, brutal war that uprooted families and entire villages. The Russians were brutal as a weapon to subjugate the region. Add to this that It was a Muslim region and the Russians were Christian. Initially the Russians moved Cossacks south to prey on the villages of the Khanate of Derbend.

So it is historically accepted as fact that many Moslems moved south into Persia. But to where? Not all of the refugees could move to the Mount Sabalan region many must have moved further south. Additionally the Moslem population was not a unified block. Based on the research of Dr. Moshe Gammer we know that in 1830 there was a significant population of Tsakhur in the area of Dagestan in-between Kurakh and Zaqatala, In between 1830 and 1865 this area was in the midst of Shamil's uprising. After that period the Tsakhur were a widely dispersed minority in Dagestan. Suffice it to say they moved south. They are still a prescence in Azerbaijan today.

The rugs of Touserkan and the rugs of the Tabassaran a group closely akin to the Tsakhur hold stylistic affinities. Touserkan rugs are single wefted. I remember one morning at one of his Textile Museum lectures Harold Keshishian showing me a Dagestan rug that was also single wefted. We know that many Moslems of the Caucasus moved south into Iran. Their descendents are somewhere in Iran today. Hamadan is more likely than most."

Rug Structure: What is a weft?: "Rug Structure: What is a weft?
Wefts are the strands that run from side to side on the loom.

The weaver inserts weft after each row of knots. Most rugs have 2 shots of weft after each row of knots but we see one in Hamadan rugs and more in some rugs. "

Rug Structure: What is a warp?: "FAQ of Persian Rugs and Oriental Carpets
Rug Structure: What is a warp?
Warps are the strands that run from top to bottom on the loom.

Here we can see the progression of how a rug is woven. These pictures are of a small pile bag woven by American weaver Mark Traxler. First Mark strings the loom with cotton strands. Then he weaves the rug on the foundation of those strands. They are the warp. As we can see below when the rug is removed from the loom the warps become the fringe. "

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