Carpets of the Beni Hassan
Village Weavers in Southern Iraq

A project to determine the possible bearing of modern ethnographic information, concerning village weavers, on some of the archaeological data was undertaken during the 1970-1971 and 1972-1973 seasons of the excavations at Tell al-Hiba in southern Iraq. The information reported here was collected at that time.

Al-Hiba (ancient Lagash), which is in the district of Nassiriyah, the largest town in the immediate area which serves as the capitol of the district, is located above the juncture of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It stands on the edge of the permanent marsh that lies below Shatra on the Shatt (river) al Gharraf. The Gharraf river flows southwest from the Tigris at Kut in the direction of Nasiriya.

Al-Hiba (ancient Lagash) is located above the Juncture of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Around the ancient mound are contiguous areas of seasonal and temporary marsh. Melting snow in the mountains to the north causes the Gharraf to overflow its banks and flood these areas annually. The inundation reaches its height in May and begins to recede in June. By August the temporary marsh is covered with a growth of sedges and grass ready to welcome the nomadic Bedouin who arrive with their herds of goats, sheep, and camels to take advantage of the pasturage afforded. The waters reach their lowest point in September and October. In November the water level rises slightly, and, with the rainy season in late December or early January, sudden short floods may occur. Weather provides a definite summer and winter with transitions between the two in November-December and March-April. Spring weather can provide brief but violent thunderstorms with high winds. Summers are hot and dry, usually with a northwest wind called shamal, which in crossing the Arabian land mass picks up heat and causes very high local temperatures, over 125 degrees Fahrenheit. When this wind is especially strong it brings with it duststorms that can last for three or four days and nights. Such storms are psychologically trying, and especially enervating for foreigners not used to such continuous,

unchanging, and monotonous disturbances. Occasionally this wind is replaced by a southern one which usually brings high humidity and, combined with the heat, makes human activity of any kind difficult. Long summers here are very hard for those used to a temperate climate. Winter, on the other hand, can be quite chilly with temperatures reaching the freezing point overnight from time to time, and frost occurring fairly regular at night. Winter is also the rainy season, especially from the end of December through March with the heaviest rains in January and February.

The marshes are alive with wild birds, particularly in fall and winter: flocks of ducks, geese, waders, ibises, egrets, pelicans, herons, cranes, eagles, owls, kingfishers, swallows, grouse and quail abound. The commonest fish found in the marsh is the carp. Other denizens of the marsh are not quite so pleasant. Several varieties of poisonous snake make their homes here, and the bites of some are inevitably fatal. Equally dangerous, and perhaps even more feared, are the wild pigs that lurk among the reeds and are as likely to attack as to run if surprised by human beings. Wild boars can grow to 40 inches at the shoulder and sport formidable, razor-sharp tusks. Quite a few local inhabitants bear sizable scars; even more have died of their wounds. The Mi'dan, who harvest fodder for their water buffalo in the marshes, are especially vulnerable. Even when not looking, one can tell when a wild pig crosses the mound. Silence on such occasions is absolute. Birds stop singing and dogs slink into hiding without a sound.

The marshes are a breeding ground for insects. Mosquitoes, in combination with fiercely biting flies, make summer difficult for both man and beast, and the flies maintain their vitality through October. Spring is the time for the appearance of large beetles (about the size of a silver dollar), whose sole purpose seems to be to noisily fly into midair to breed, fall down, and begin to dig into whatever they fall on and plant their eggs. The beetles are followed by hairy hunter spiders the size of a human hand; they run back and forth all night looking for beetles to prey on. Between the beatles and the spiders, which penetrate even the reed and mud roofs of local houses in large numbers and run back and forth over people trying to sleep, spring is not the time of year to take a good night's rest for granted.

The marshes are also a home to freshwater snails that carry the parasites causing bilharzia. Probably no one in the area is free of this disease. Although curable, it can be recaught the very next time one steps into the marsh or canal. In a minute, flatworms penetrate the skin and make their way to the bladder where they multiply and cause considerable bleeding, weakness, and pain.

Excavation have been conducted here since 1968 by an expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University under the direction of Vaughn E. Crawford and Donald P. Hansen. Monuments uncovered include the Ibgal (temple) of Inanna built by the Sumerian king Enannatum I, the Bagara (temple) of Ningirsu, a large secular building with workshops, several private areas, and most recently a temple oval from the Early Dynastic I period.

Communication with the outside world, when the canal was full of water, required a two-and-a-half hour trip aboard a motorized boat to a mud bank docking place near Shatra. Shatra could be reached from there in 15 to 20 minutes by taxi or one to two hours by walking.

People in the villages surrounding al-Hiba were relatively immobile. A trip to Shatra was then a major event reserved for those occasions when one wanted to sell something (carpets, reed mats, wool, produce, an animal for butchering) that could not be sold or traded in the village, wanted to buy some major item (such as a plow, wool dyes, a knife, a gun), or needed to visit the doctor at the hospital. In most families, the doctor or hospital visit was a desperate last chance when other kinds of local treatment had failed and the patient was nearly beyond hope. Villagers believed that sick people who went to the hospital inevitably died, and they often delayed so long in taking a sick person for treatment that their beliefs became self-fulfilling prophesies.

The early years of our excavation were times of unbelievable poverty for the people of al-Hiba. The ongoing removal of the sheikhs had left a void in the management of farmlands. The irrigation system in the area was often in disrepair and inadequately regulated. Money was beginning to replace trade in some commodities, and the people in the villages, (which were very small, consisting of 200 to 250 people at most) who had little opportunity to acquire cash, were at great disadvantage. In those days one could often see women gathering grass and sedge from the edges of the marsh and the canals, not for fodder for their animals, but to be boiled and served as the main dish for their families' dinners.

Three different groups of people inhabited the area around al-Hiba. The tents of the Bedouin dotted the seasonal marshland from late August to late December. Seven villages of the Beni Hassan existed within walking or boating distance of the site. Five small villages of the Mi'dan, or Marsh Arabs, were found on the southern part of the mound, and on a narrow spit of land in the extrmes southeast were three Mi'dan households, each isolated from the others. Other villages of the Beni Hassan were located on the margins of the marshes, and some Mi'dan villages were found in the marshes where they created patches of dried land by alternating layers of mud quarried from the marsh bottom with layers of reed mats. All these settlements could be reached by bitumen covered wooden boats moved through the water with long poles. The Bedouin pitched their tents in the seasonal marshland from late August to the beginning of the rains in December. Each of these three peoples occupied an important ecological niche in the area.

Shepherd with his sheep

Sheep are brought inside one at a time to be sheared on cloth or reed matting placed on the dirt floor to protect the sheep's fleece from dirt. The wool is left intact around the sheep's neck, on the head, on the belly, and on the lower legs. Otherwise, I was told, "the sheep would not look like a sheep" or "it would look ugly rather than beautiful." Inevitably the skin is sometimes nicked with the shears. A compound composed of equal parts of ashes from a tanur and salt is applied to such cuts. While the shearer is at work, the owner and his friends keep their eyes firmly on the sheep searching out ticks (grad, sing. gardeh) which were previously undiscovered, pulling them off when one attracts their attention and squashing them. The shorn sheep is ushered out the door and put in charge of the shepherd. The fleece is stretched out, with leg wool and other fragments placed in the center and then rolled up. Two twists of wool pulled up from the bundle are used to tie the roll together. Before being spun, the wool will be unrolled on mats outside and exposed for three to four days to the hot sun of summer. Wool is salvaged from dead sheep by plucking, but this wool is carefully segregated and never used for rugs or carpets.

Left Man spinning wool into thread. Note that the spindle is notched on both ends so that it can be used by either a man or a woman Right Woman dyeing skeins of yarn.

The spindle (mokhzal, pl. makhazil) consists of a long reed shaft with a whorl made from one or more oblong sections of reed or wood drilled to fit on it. The hole is almost never dead center and the whorl never in perfect balance. If the spindle is to be used only by men, the tip of the short end of the shaft is notched, if only by women, the tip of the long end. Occasionally it is notched at both ends so it can be used interchangeably by either sex.

Men use the "drop and spin" method: twisting the short end of the shaft to the right with the fingers of their right hands, they let the spindles drop, spinning, while they tease out wool with the fingers of their right hands from the wool wrapped around their left wrists, held in their left hands, or stuffed up the sleeves of their dish-dashas (Z spin). After a length is spun, it is wound around the staff, its end caught in the notch, and the process repeated.

Women usually spin in a sitting or crouching position. They rub the spindle against their right thigh with their right hand to start the spindles spinning to the left, again teasing out the wool with the right-hand fingers (S spin). The spinning of wool is a primary task for women but usually not for men. Men and boys are most often seen spinning when shepherding animals at pasture.

The fleece of one sheep spun into wool can be marketed for one dinar (about $3). The single-ply spun thread is used for sewing, making thread covered boxes and decorative amulets, and for spinning into yarn.

Village flat-woven carpets

Preparations for dyeing are seldom elaborate. Pails or large vessels of the required number are set on mud supports over dungpaddy fires. Some women wash each skein in a warm solution of potash immediately before dyeing but most do not. Today all dyes used in the area are industrial dyes, usually imported from Poland or Germany and purchased in the local market towns. Although vegetable dyes were once employed, informants claim that these were also purchased. If true, this probably accounts for the completeness and rapidity of the change to industrial dyes in this area.

The dyes are stirred into boiling water until fully dissolved, and the skein or skeins are then placed in the mixture on the end of a stick. Dyeing takes between five and 10 minutes, during which time the wool is frequently stirred about and lifted from time to time on the end of a stick to judge the color. When the color satisfies the dyer, it is held over the pot on a stick until the excess moisture is drained. When nearly dry, the skeins are rinsed in water, the running water of a canal is always preferred, and hung in the sun to dry thoroughly. All dyes used by the villagers are water-soluble, and they can be classified in two categories:

White, brown and black can all be obtained from the natural colors of the wool, but sometimes wool is dyed black by mixing several of the above dyes together. It is usually nearly impossible to match exactly a color from a previous dyeing. In the shops where the dyes are sold, all colors are measured out with the same implement, introducing particles of alien dyes into each.

Left Woman embroidering. Right Sample of embroidered blanket. The finest collection of Iraqi embroidered blankets was assembled by the wife of Sir Max Mallowan, the excavator of Nimrud and other important northern Iraqi archeological sites. She is better known as Agatha Christie.