- Designs & Motifs
In a culture where women are often restricted to their houses,
carpets become a place to express their feelings and dreams. Every motif, handed
down over generations, is carefully woven into the carpets. Part of the joy of
looking at carpets is decoding the heartfelt messages woven into
them.
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- Dyes
One must accept that all dyes, with the possible exception of chrome (chemical) dyes, have a tendency to fade with time and the prevailing ambient conditions.
- The most attractive thing in an Oriental Rugs is the natural colours that
tend to adapt with time, for instance, what seems to be a solid blue at the
first superficial glance will, upon closer and careful scrutiny, reveal many
nuances and shades of blue. This is what gives the rugs its "surface interest"
and makes it come alive. The finest of new carpets with the best chrome dyes can
never achieve this miracle! The colours of the antique rug also have a glow,
called patina, which beggars description! Only the experience of inspecting many
of these antique rugs in person can grant one the necessary appreciation of this
phenomenon!!
- Traditional Dye Process
- There are three main different processes
used to dye wool.
-
Direct Dyeing:
This is the oldest method
of dyeing fibres. Some examples are purple dyeing as carried out on the coast of
Mexico using purple shells and some methods of indigo dyeing.
Mordant Dyeing:
This method was discovered
sometime between 4000 and 3000 BC in Mesopotamia. In this method, the wool is
previously treated with certain salts, so that the dyes would bind to the wool
fibres, resulting in a more-or-less colourfast dye. Some examples of mordents are
alum, iron salts, copper salts, and tin salts. The type of mordant also affects
the intensity of the colours.
Vat Dyeing:
This is the method used with indigo, discovered in the third or
fourth millennium BC. It is debated whether this technique was discovered in
Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt independently. It was also independently
discovered in South America. This method is a combination of a reduction and
oxidation process. The water insoluble blue dye from the indigo plant is
extracted through a fermentation process. Then, it undergoes oxidation,
converting the blue to a water-soluble, yellow dye. This is placed in a vat with
the wools. When the wool is pulled out of the vat, it undergoes oxidation and
again produces the water-insoluble blue indigo. Since the blue indigo dye is not
chemically bound to the fibres, it is not very resistant to abrasion, especially
on cotton.
After the wool is dyed, it is the tradition in Turkey to immerse the freshly
dyed wool into an alkaline ash solution. Generally, this darkens the colours and
adds a gloss to the wool.
Long ago dyers realized that as
more wool was dyed in a single depot, colours became weaker and weaker. Dyers
use this notion of depleted dyes to their advantage. The first dyeing produces
a deep, strong colour. Subsequent dyeing in the same depot produce lighter,
softer colours. Such changes can often be observed in handmade, hand-dyed rugs in
a phenomenon called barrage.
- Red and violet dyes can be obtained from both plants and insects.
- Also others such as Lady’s Bedstraw, Dyers’ Alkanet, Pokeberry
- Red is also often obtained from dye-insects. Some of the most famous textiles in the world contain
this kind of red. For example, the Pazyryk Carpet has a red dye from the Polish
kermes, the Safavid prayer rug from Persian in the Topkapi Museum has a lac red,
Roman textiles from Palmyra has red from the Ararat kermes, and Ottoman sultan
silks and many later Oriental rugs and kilims have a red dye from the cochineal.
- Mediterranean Kermes (Kermes vermilio)
This is a parasite of the kermes oak that is common on the Mediterranean coast
and also probably in the Zagros Mountains of Iran. Females filled with their
unborn larvae are collected, killed in vinegar, and dried. Now, it is mostly
replaced by cochineal. It provides a bright red with a light yellow tinge,
similar to madder red.
- - Ararat Kermes or Armenian Kermes (Porphyrophora hameli)
This is a parasite that lives on the roots of two varieties of grass that grow
in salt marshes on both sides of the Araxas river. On silk, it provides a medium
pink and on wool, it provides a darker red.
-
Yellow and Orange
There are numerous plants that dye yellow, although many of them tend to fade.
- - Dyers’ Weed or Weld (Reseda luteola)
Turkish name: Muhabbet çiçeği
All of the above-ground plant parts, fresh or
dried, gathered shortly before it stops blooming in June is used. It provides an
intensive yellow colour with very good light fastness. The plant is native to
western Asia and the Mediterranean area. It was preferred by the Romans and also
found on the Uşak carpets and 16th-century “Lotto” carpets. This dye plant
stopped being used in Turkey and Europe toward the end of the 19th century due
to the introduction of synthetic dyes. However, since the 1980s, they are being
increasingly used again due to the reintroduction of natural dyes in Turkey.
- Varieties of Chamomile (Just in Turkey at least 50 species are
known)
- Anthemis chia
Turkish name: Beyaz papatya
The flowers are used to obtain a yellow with sufficient
colourfastness. Found in
western and southern Turkey and southern Europe.
- - Barberry (Berberis crataegina)
Turkish name: Karamuk
The fresh or dried roots and bark from this plant has been repeatedly mentioned
in Turkey as a dye plant. However, the yellow obtained from this plant tends to
turn brown with exposure to light. The plant is found throughout south-western
Asia on stony slopes. During WWI, Turkish army tents were dyed with
barberry.
- - Saffron (Crocus sativus)
Turkish name: Safran
The stigmata of the flowers are used and its price is close to that of gold. The
robes of Persian kings were dyed with saffron, which gives a light yellow colour,
but with inadequate light fastness. Saffron is known primarily as a spice,
medicine, and for perfumes. It is believed that the Asia Minor was the original
home of the plant, but has been cultivated for over 3000 years.
- - Inula viscose
Turkish name: Güve otu, Bit otu
The flowers, leaves, and stems, preferably fresh, are used to obtain an
intensive yellow that can change to brown-yellow due to the influence of light.
The plant is found throughout the Mediterranean area and this dye has been
identified in several antique carpets from Bergama.
- - There are also numerous other plants such as Three-leafed sage,
Strawflowers, Chaste Tree or Monks’ Pepper Tree, Yarrow, Thyme, Verbascum,
Foxglove, Daphne oleoides, Sorrel, Dyer’s Sumac, Sicilian Sumac, and
Anatolian Buchthorn.
However, these tend not to be as lightfast as the ones mentioned above.
- Black
Black dyes are possible when tannins combine with iron. However, this causes the
corrosion of the wool. Use of ferrous mud and salts are less harmful. In
addition, a black that is totally free of corrosion can be produced through a
triple dyeing process. First the wool is dyed blue with indigo, followed by
yellow from dyer’s weed, and finally dyed red with madder. Black seen in
classical Persian carpets were made this way.
- - Quercus infectoria
Turkish name: Mazı meşesi
These are gallnuts, a cancer-like growth on trees, produced by gall wasps on
some species of oak.
- - Also other plants have suitable amounts of tannin such as Sicilian sumac
and Mullein (Verbascum)
- Blue
Indigo produces a beautiful blue that is lightfast, has been used for four
thousand years. It has no natural competitors, although now synthetic indigo,
which is virtually indistinguishable by just looking, is made. However, indigo
does not chemically join with the molecules of the fibres. It is only attached
by a mild adhesion to the surface of the wool. This is why it is not resistant
to abrasion. Vat dyeing is the usual method, but direct dyeing is also used in
some areas such as north-eastern India, Laos, Malaysia, and Indonesia (see top of
page for details on various dyeing methods). There are many species of plants
that contain the preliminary stages of indigo, but only a few from the
Indigo era family are used for dyeing.
- - In addition, Dyer’s Woad (Isatis tinctoria), Dyer’s Knotweed
(Polygonum tinctorum), and Marsdenia tinctoria are some other
plants that are used to produce blue dyes.
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