Flatweaves of Kerman Province

Figure 1. Small bag from the Jamal Barez mountains. Weft float plain weave. The structure, pattern, and colors all remind us that this is the Afshar area closest to Baluchistan.

Figure 2. Jamal Barez kilim. This 140x269 cm Afshar weaving has the same structure as Figure 1.

I cannot attempt to distinguish, as Parviz does, between the genuine products of the Turkish-speaking Afshars and those of the Persian-speaking tribeswomen and settled villagers who clearly outnumber them. The Afshars entered Iran with other Oghuz tribes from Central Asia nearly a thousand years ago. They were settled in Azerbaijan and Eastern Anatolia until the 16th century, when they were dispersed after a series of rebellions. The largest part of the tribe was ordered into Kerman Province; some have continued a tribal life, but many have intermarried with the local Persian population, to the point where Jenny Housego suggests we should avoid the name Afshar entirely. In fact I am not too concerned about this nicety of attribution, being content to accept the traditional label "Afshar" for the village and nomad products of the province, even if it is sometimes inaccurate. There seems little doubt that it is the Afshar tribes who have given Kerman Province rugs their typical stamp, and for the present that is enough for me. The Afshar connection, to me, is superbly documented in Figures 1 through 3, rugs which not long ago were generally called Baluch.The bulk of the flatweaves of the Afshar group fall into several relatively well defined types, as follows:

1. the kilims of Zar Kuh;
2. the weft-wrapped products of the Afshar capital, Sirjan, and its immediate vicinity;
3. the kilims of the Qoraba tribe;
4. the interlocked tapestries of the Baft area;
5. the pieces woven in weft-substitution in the Jamal Barez mountains;
6. the kilims from Manujan and the Jiruft valley.

Figure 3. Small Afshar bag from the Kalat district northeast of Mashhad. The use of the same weaving technique and the same patterns as are found in Afshar pieces from the Jamal Barez, over 1,000 miles to the south, is an astonishing documentation of the persistence of traditional patterns in Iranian flatweaves, since it is almost 400 years since these two sections of the tribe lived in the same place.

Figure 4. Shireki from the village of Pariz. The word shireki means single-sided. But the term is generally used for a particular type of brocaded cover. The most common shirekis are made by the Khamseh Arab tribe and are marketed in Bowanat. Usually they are woven in two halves and sewn down the middle. Shirekis are also made by some Bakhtiyari weavers, often in a twill weave, and by Afshars, as in this example. Most shirekis of all origins are about 5'x8' and patterned with some kind of diamond lattice.

Beyond these distinctive types there are many which I cannot localize. There are, for example, rugs which seem so convincingly Afshar in feeling but which have physical features of weave and color which seem to place them rather in the sphere of the Arab tribes of the Khamseh Confederation to the northwest. There are also many types which one can recognize as Afshar but which occur only as isolated examples, such as Figures 4 and 5. Figure 4 illustrates a piece from the village of Pariz, between Sirjan and Rafsinjan; and Figure 5 shows a salt bag from the environs of Sirjan, fascinating in its use of a pattern found in all Turkic weavings in Iran, from the Qashqa'i to the Shahsavan to the Caucasus. A distinctive feature of some of these "oneoff" examples of Afshar work is the use of double-interlocked tapestry weave. In Iran this weave is common among the Bakhtiars, sometimes used by the Afshars and is otherwise almost totally unknown.

Figure 5. Salt bag, Sirjan(?) Area. Figure 6. Zar Kuh kilim. The elaborate end finishes and the small size, 3'x4'6", are appealing features of this rug.

Left Figure 7. Weft-wrapped Sirjan area rug, Osturi type. Many flatweaves of the Sirjan region use the same designs as the local pile rugs (see Figure 8), but this example has more of the traditional Afshar flatweave style. Again a popular size for western markets, 5'2"x8'4". Above Figure 8. Weft-wrapped tubreh, Sirjan area. Vast numbers of bags of all types from both the Sirjan and the Jamal Barez weaving areas point to a continuous tradition of nomadic life.

The Sirjan Area

In the recent past (since 1983) a highly successful production of outstandingly fine weft-wrapped rugs has come into being, drawing on a tradition of much coarser village product which are sometimes very attractive. The older rugs have a thick, light red, ground weft. The wrapping wefts are finer, with the result that the ground weft shows through. To the untutored eye this may make the rug look threadbare, but in fact the thick ground weft gives the rugs much body and stability.

The Osturi and Buchakhchi are nomads, but the weft-wrapped rugs have little or no nomadic flavor to them. They are made in user friendly rug sizes, most in the designs often found in pile rugs from the same region, with plenty of birds and little animals scattered over the field. There is a village of Ostur not far from Sirjan and it could be that many Osturi pieces come from that area.

Map of Kerman Province, 1891 (detail)

Figure 9. Qoraba kilim, 2'9"x4'5". This rug has the same appealing features as Figure 6 but Qoraba work has its own very distinctive color style, in which medium-to-dark blue and red predominate, while white is noticeable by its absence.

Figure 10. Dasht Ab kilim, Baft area.

The 30- to 50-year-old pieces readily found on the market are all on cotton warps, with a fine weave using a single or double interlocked structure supplemented by elements of weft substitution. This mixture of techniques is attractive but often makes the rugs bubbly on the surface, and I suspect they may not always wear well. The colors are sometimes marred by a sharp orange, but the best pieces have deep, rich colors, including some very nice greens and mauve or brown reds. Nearly all the pieces are five to six feet wide and seven to eight feet long, so they are probably village rather than nomad products and may well not be genuine Afshar work at all. But they illustrate rather well the point about genuine Afshar pieces which I made earlier: they are obviously part of the Afshar cultural corpus and, if the villagers who weave them have lost their specific Afshar identity, the inspiration for the production is certainly part of the Afshar tradition.

In the last couple of years, the quality has taken a nosedive in Dasht Ab; as older pieces have become scarce, new pieces with poor dyestuffs have been subjected to sunfading en masse. The results are depressingly drab. The sparkle of the older pieces has been entirely lost. This may mean the imminent demise of the Dasht Ab kilim, since I cannot see why anyone would want to part with hard-earned money for such miserable looking objects.

My friends, the Samadis, attribute quite a lot of different types to this rather large district. If they are right, there are probably a number of weaving centers which it would be interesting to try to identify more precisely. Figures 1, 2, 11, 12, and 13 illustrate some of the types. The resemblance to Baluch work in both design and structure is obvious, although the colors are rather different. The proximity of the Jamal Barez to Baluchistan would seem to be the key, and Parviz Tanavoli has stated that the region was populated by Baluchis before the arrival of the Afshars.

(Left) Figure 11. Square sofreh and ru korsi , Jamal Barez area, 4'x4'.

(Center) Figure 12. Jamal Barez bag, 9"x1'6". This type of bag, which at first sight reminds one of the Baluch type torbas from Afghanistan, is found in large numbers in the Jamal Barez. A square format is woven in a heavy weft-float plain weave. This is then folded in half and sewn down one side and across the bottom. The result is a container of almost indestructable quality.

(Right) Figure 13. Jamal Barez salt bag.

I have bought two types of apparently Afshar rugs which are attributed to Manujan, a large village a good way south of the Jiruft Valley, off the road which leads down to the port of Hormuz. They seem to have a stylistic affinity to the Kuhi pile rugs, but I cannot document the connection. Many of the pieces I have seen are in the 20 to 30 foot square size range, but I have encountered quite a number of carpet sizes, too, up to about 10 feet square.

They are quite expensive - the same sort of price as Sennehs of comparable age. Some of them are very old and exquisitely made. They are all woven in dovetailed tapestry weave on woolen warps, often with the elaborately braided end finishes which are such a delightful feature of many Afshar flatweaves. The "classical" Manujan design is shown in Figure 14. The kilims I have found in a second design have a less elegant look to them and are probably from yet another undefined source.

Figure 14. Kilim of the "Kuhi" type. Attributed by bazaar dealers to Manujan, south of the Jiruft Valley. This very distinctive design is made in all sizes up to about 7'x11'. Figure 15. Afshar rakkat, 2'3"x4'5". The rakkat is a bedding bag, the Afshar equivalent of the Shahsavan mafrashes, but it does not have the box-like shape of those weavings. It must also be used for other purposes, since many examples, although woven as one unit, are stitched down the middle to give a two-compartment bag. This rakkat is from the Sirjan area.

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