Pazyryk carpet

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The Pasyryk carpet, which has been well preserved but not completely preserved over thousands of years
Schematic representation of Kurgans 5 with grave robber shaft and ice lens

The Pasyryk carpet or Pazyryk carpet (also: Gorny Altai carpet ) is considered to be the oldest surviving carpet in the world that is made using the knotting technique . The carpet was made in the 5th or 4th century BC. Chr. Manufactured and is in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg issued.

history

The Pasyryk carpet was found in 1947 by Russian archaeologists working with researcher Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in the Altai Mountains ( southern Siberia ) on the border with Outer Mongolia . Rudenko dealt with various Kurgan areas in the region, including "Tuekta" and "Basadar" as well as "Pasyryk", who also gave the carpet its name. The name of the work of art is based on its place of discovery in the Pasyryk-Hochtrockental. Here the carpet was found as part of the inventory (grave goods) of a burial chamber, Kurgans 5 (“Burial Mound 5”), a prince of the Pasyryk level of the Scythians . In addition to other finds, including felt carpets, from the grave, which allowed a rough estimate of the dating, the carpet could ultimately be traced back to the 5th or 4th century BC by means of a 14 C dating investigation . To be dated.

The carpet shows a high technical fineness. 360,000 symmetrical double knots (so-called “Turkish knots” in today's terminology ) are distributed over one square meter. The original overall size was 183 x 198 cm, so that the carpet originally had over 1.3 million knots. Scientists suspect that the highly sophisticated knotting technology must have been the result of many years of experience and established tradition at that time. The material of the carpet is new wool. The warp and weft are also made of pure new wool with a low pile.

The carpet lay next to a large number of other finds in a Scythian princely grave, which the Russian scientists had opened. It has been proven that grave robbers broke into the Kurgan in ancient times. They had taken many valuable grave goods with them, but not the Pazyryk carpet. Due to the forcible access, groundwater flowed into the grave, which froze into a huge lens of ice. This ice lens enclosed the remains in the grave in a conserving layer of ice, which is why the carpet is in very good condition.

origin

There are different theories about the origin of the carpet. Volkmar Gantzhorn suspects a Phrygian - Armenian origin. From today's point of view, the following hypothesis is favored: After the dissolution of the Urartian Kingdom (according to Boris Borissowitsch Piotrowski this was around 590 or 585 BC or, according to most researchers, as early as the 6th century), scattered tribes mixed with the Scythians, which resulted the nation of Armenians resulted. It is assumed that the carpet was knotted in the homeland of the Saks (archeology sees the Saks as Central Asian representatives of the Scythian culture); this from local Armenians.

Scientific classification

Carpet fragment, 3rd – 4th centuries Century, from Loulan, now the British Museum, London

Until the Pasyryk carpet was found, the vast majority of scientists assumed that the first knotted carpets were dated to the time around the birth of Christ , because finds were older than those of Aurel Stein and the 4th German Turfan Expedition under the direction Nomadic carpet fragments from the period between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD discovered by Albert von Le Coq were not known. The first signs of the art of knotting were found in the ruins of the oasis towns of Loulan ( Bayingolin ) and Niya on the southern edge of the Tarim basin . There is an enormous time gap of more than 600 years between these and the oldest carpets from the Near East.

It was therefore tried to use literary sources. However, the analysis did not provide a more complete picture. Arab and Persian authors from the 8th to 14th centuries gave little information about the design and appearance of the carpet cultures. Greek sources, on the other hand, described the "soft carpets" of the Babylonians and Persians more often , but neither did they shed light on the background to the development of the art of carpet weaving .

Today it is assumed that the art of knotting developed out of weaving technology. The nomads were guided by the model of fur-like textile structures and used their knowledge of the art of knotting to ward off adverse weather conditions such as permafrost and cold. It is also assumed that there must have been a development period of several hundred years in order to achieve the high standard of Pasyryk, which would mean that the art of carpet knotting possibly dates back to the Bronze Age .

Carpet display

Detail from the border

The center (middle field) of the Pasyryk carpet shows a checkerboard-like, twenty-four square so-called “field pattern” (in Persia these squares are called “Ghab-ghabi” (frame within a frame)). In Germany, such carpets are usually referred to as garden carpets, which is due to the fact that the pattern is reminiscent of a (lush) overgrown garden with geometrically structured and individually bordered beds. Even though the individual cassettes regularly have different motifs, they still follow strictly symmetrical shapes. These can vary and are square, rectangular or rhombic in nature.

The quartering of some garden carpets is also reminiscent of the Islamic tradition of the "cartographic" representation of paradise divided by four rivers .

The Pasyryk carpet is an almost square carpet. Its pattern structure is divided into a large inner field and the surrounding borders. The inner field in turn is divided horizontally into six and vertically into four square rows. All squares are decorated with a "finial " (a stylized cross, similar to a Gilgen cross , with four petals; in Persian also called "gol / gul" pattern). The first narrow border delimits the inner field from the outside and in turn consists of (small) squares with griffin-like figures. According to Milhofer, the style, format, choice of materials, technology and structure of the carpet show a high degree of correspondence with modern knots of the trans-Caspian Turkmen .

The carpet also has a wide border that is decorated with several patterned stripes and surrounds two friezes. It is a moose - and an equestrian frieze in the Persian - Achaemenid style, which is why it is assumed that the carpet is the oldest evidence of the "Persian" knotting craft.

Twenty-four moose in the first frieze run repetitively around the carpet in a clockwise direction. The next border consists again of the finial motif, which is distributed over the squares in the large inner field. In the outermost border a procession of twenty-eight horses appears with their riders. They run in the opposite direction to the moose. Human representations can be seen several times on the carpet by the riders. In science, this is considered to be rather unusual for Scythian art. They are moustached riders with cloaks and “goryt” (quiver of arrows and bow container) on a horse with a braided tail and clipped mane. The performance is strikingly polychrome .

See also

literature

  • Ignaz Schlosser, The beautiful carpet in Orient and Occident, Keysersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Heidelberg, 1960.
  • Hermann Parzinger : The early peoples of Eurasia. From the Neolithic to the Middle Ages. Historical Library of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Volume 1. Beck, Munich, 2006, pp. 588 ff. Fig. 194–198. ISBN 978-3-406-54961-8
  • Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko : Kultura naselenija Gornogo Altaja w skifskoje wremja. Moscow / Leningrad, 1953.
  • Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko: The second Kurgan of Pasyryk. Publishing house for culture and progress, Berlin 1951.
  • C. Parham, How Altaic / Nomadic Is the Pazyryk Carpet? In: Oriental Rug Review 13/5, June-July 1993, pp. 34-39.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Stefan Mecheels, Herbert Vogler, Josef Kurz: Culture & Industrial History of Textiles, Wachter, 2009, p. 113 .
  2. ↑ a b Mahmoud Rashad, Dumont Art Travel Guide Iran, p. 120 .
  3. ↑ Wilfried Menghin, In the sign of the golden griffin: Royal tombs of the Skythen , Prestel, 2007, p. 126: " It was tied with symmetrical double knots (so-called Turkish knots). [...] The carpet has a very dense texture and is a rare specimen of the Near Eastern and Central Asian knotting art of that time. "
  4. ↑ knot density
  5. ^ Volkmar Gantzhorn: Oriental carpets . Benedikt Taschen, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-8228-0397-9 , pp. 50 f .
  6. ↑ derivation from Jer 51.27  LUT Jeremiah 51, 27, in the Ararat (Urartu) next Minni and Ashkenaz (usually as Scythians interpreted) against Babylon draws on field
  7. ^ Adam T. Smith: The Making of an Urartian Landscape in Southern Transcaucasia: A Study of Political Architectonics . In: American Journal of Archeology 103, 1999, p. 50.
  8. ↑ a b c d Amir Pakzad, Origin of the Art of Carpet Knotting
  9. ^ Karl Schlamminger, Peter Lamborn Wilson : Weaver of Tales. Persian Picture Rugs / Persian tapestries. Linked myths. Callwey, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0532-6 , pp. 141-144, 148-151 and more often.
  10. ↑ SA Milhofer, Orient-Teppiche, Fackelträger-Verlag 1966, p. 152.
  11. ↑ Rudenko 1970, p. 289.
  12. ↑ Hermann Parzinger, Die Skythen, pp. 53–54.