Yurt
The yurt ( Turkish Yurt "home") is the traditional tent of the nomads in Central Asia , particularly common in Mongolia , Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan . The German term Horde for wandering (warlike) peoples, such as the Golden Horde, is derived from the yurt and the army camp formed from it .
prehistory
Shepherd nomads in the Eurasian steppe without yurts made of felt are difficult to imagine, so it is assumed that the development of felt and yurts with felt covers is causally related to the emergence of these pastoral societies. The felt consisted of sheep and goat hair and sometimes also camel hair ( Old World camels were only domesticated about two and a half millennia ago ). Evidence for such textile architecture of the pastoral nomads of the Eurasian steppe has existed since the late Bronze Age . Felt covers, however, were never known from pre-colonial Africa including Egypt and never from pre-Columbian America. In Africa and Arabia, the black tent developed from coarsely woven goat hair.
The architect Gottfried Semper is one of the most important connoisseurs of textile architecture since prehistory.
Central Asia
The Asian yurt ( Kazakh киіз үй, kïis uj ; Mongolian гэр, ger ; Kyrgyz бозй, bos uj ) consists of a round wooden frame that is covered with cotton and felt textiles . It can usually be dismantled and rebuilt in less than an hour and can be packed relatively small, so that two camels or a small off-road vehicle are sufficient for transporting a simpler yurt .
Mongolian yurt
The wooden frame of a Mongolian yurt usually consists of several, usually four or five shoulder-high scissor bars for the wall, which are pulled apart, tied to one another and set up in a circle together with the door frame, which always faces south. In the middle, two posts about two to three meters high carry the "crown", a round roof wreath. Straight roof poles are inserted into openings on the edge of the crown and connected to the wall grid. The roof poles usually have an incline of about 30 °. A solid, wooden door is inserted into the door frame instead of the previously common felt curtain. In the past this scaffolding was placed on the steppe floor, today it is often on a round wooden floor. However, the yurt is not anchored to the ground, nor is it attached with tent cords and pegs .
The cover attached over this scaffolding consists of several layers: At the bottom there is a thin, light-colored cotton cloth as a headliner, on top of which is a thick layer of wool felt for thermal insulation, which originally also served as a waterproof cover. In winter, three or even four layers of felt are applied. Today, an impregnated canvas is used as the third layer for sealing . Often, a thin, light-colored cloth is placed over it, mainly for design reasons, sometimes with sewn-on colored patterns. Two or three horizontal ropes are lashed around the yurt, as well as some ropes diagonally across the roof, so that a self-supporting, stable construction is created. The openings in the crown can be completely or partially closed using a long rope with a triangular canvas. The lower edges can be turned up for a pleasant indoor climate in summer. A rope hangs down from the crown, on which a heavy object (e.g. a sack) is hung during a storm in order to stabilize and hold the yurt through its increased weight.
In the middle of the yurt is a small stove (instead of the open fire that was common in the past), the stove pipe protrudes through the crown without touching the fabric cover, and a low dining table. At the edge there are beds that serve as seating during the day and one or two dressers. Recently, there has also been a solar module in front of some yurts . A truck is ordered to transport such a more comfortable yurt.
The sturdy Mongolian yurt with straight roof poles and two center posts is a relatively modern form. The older and lighter design with roof poles bent inwards over the wall is still in use outside of Mongolia (e.g. Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan ). In even older forms, the opening in the middle was not closed by a flat crown, but turned upwards in the shape of a cylinder. The resulting chimney effect helped to dissipate the smoke from the open fireplace.
The interior of the yurt reflects the social and spiritual order of the people living in it. Each family member is precisely assigned their place and area of activity in the yurt. The room layout and equipment are highly optimized to enable cooking, working, living and sleeping in the limited space and sometimes extreme climatic conditions. A large number of rules of conduct must be observed. The simpler ones require that you enter a yurt with your right foot without touching the threshold, that you do not stand inside longer than necessary and that you do not move between the two posts.
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Even today yurts are of great importance in Mongolia; Not only the nomads, but also parts of the urban population live part of the year or all year round in the yurt, which is sometimes warmer than the houses in winter. For event purposes there are occasionally large yurts for thirty or more people and correspondingly more elaborate furnishings, but which follow the same construction principles. Even on hot summer days, you can create a pleasant room climate in these yurts by tying the side walls up without any air conditioning. For tourists there are yurt hotels, in which somewhat larger yurts, e.g. B. are equipped as a twin room and a very large yurt serves as a dining room.
The Mongolian yurt is perfectly adapted to the climatic conditions of the country with the extreme temperature differences. However, it must be taken into account that in a country with little precipitation it is usually located at altitudes above 1000 m with correspondingly thin and mostly dry air and frequent winds.
Several Mongolian yurts are shown on the famous map of China by the cartographer Abraham Ortelius from 1584. This map (facing west) is the first detailed map of China published in the West.
Kazakh yurt
The Kazakh yurt follows the same construction principles, but differs from the modern flat Mongolian yurt in that it has higher side walls and roof poles that are attached to the walls with curved ends and rise more steeply to the crown. This gives the yurt round shoulders and a steeper, higher roof. The outer cover usually consists of a beige or gray fabric. The crown, called Shangrak , is usually divided by several thin rods crossing each other at right angles. The coat of arms of Kazakhstan shows a stylized Shangrak.
Since the Kazakh population was forcibly sedentary in the 1930s, the Kazakh yurt is no longer used as a year-round apartment, but only as accommodation during pasture hikes in summer.
Modern yurts in North America and Europe
In the late 1960s, the Yurt People movement around Bill Coperthwaite emerged in the United States of America , who adopted the construction of traditional yurts but used modern materials. The movement then gave rise to several companies that developed yurts in a modern style, some with full comfort such as a kitchen and bathroom.
In recent years, with the emergence of documentaries from Mongolia, but also the gentle tourism there, the yurt has once again gained popularity, and so a number of yurt builders have also established themselves in Europe who build yurts that can be lived in all year round, which are also located in the European climate with higher rainfall.
Derivatives
Yurt houses
Based on the yurt, solid yurt-like houses have also been developed that use the basic geometry and statics of the yurt, but use a rigid construction: the roof poles are firmly screwed into the wooden yurt and the walls are made of wooden panels, so they do not form a circle, but a polygonal interior.
Yurts in the boy scout and youth movement
Yurts in the scout and youth movement are sold under the collective term black tents of the scout and youth movement . These no longer completely correspond to the original models, but are adapted to the needs accordingly.
See also
Web links
Boy Scout Yurts
- The Schwarzzeltarchiv - Yurts and Kohten in the Boy Scout and Youth Movement
- More information about yurts on Scout-o-Wiki
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Berthold Laufer: The early history of felt. In: American Anthropologist , Vol. 32, No. 1, January-March 1930, pp. 1-18.
- ^ Mary E. Burkett: An early date for the origin of felt . In: Anatolian Studies , Volume 27, 1977, pp. 111-115.
- ↑ Dinara Chochunbaeva: Kyrgyz felt of the 20th and 21st centuries and its relation to the nomadic past. (PDF) In: Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, 2010, Paper 16.
- ^ Terhi Kristiina Kuusisto: Textile in Architecture. Master's thesis, Tampere University of Technology, first introductory sentence.
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↑ G. Semper: The four elements of architecture (PDF 15.9 MB). Braunschweig 1851;
The Four Elements of Architecture and other writings. Cambridge University Press, England 1989.