c800. Medium Afghan Uzbek Kilim, Maimana - $95.00

Oriental Rug Review Antiques and Tribal Rugs is pleased to offer a smaller Afghan kilim (flatweave) rug, 3'5"x6'2". Maimana is a carpet center located in Northwest Afghanistan. It is the capitol of Faryab Province, once a great Uzbek Khanate. The area's kilim production historically and today is carried on by Uzbeks. Warp and weft are wool. The wefts carry the design.

The overall look is quite primitive and very tribal. Many collectors notice the similarity of the designs on these kilims to American Southwestern Indian weavings, particularly those of the Navajo. Some trading post operators showed Indian weavers catalogs published by Oriental rug dealers, as well as actual oriental rugs, among them, Afghan Uzbek kilims. We love these rugs and recommend them highly as wonderful examples of ethnographic folk art. They represent a great tribal weaving tradition.

On the red grounded field are two concentric diamond medallions, formed of smaller stepped diamonds centered by cruciforms. The main border bears reciprocal sultans' heads. A reciprocating design is a two-part interlocking and repeating design, each part exactly complementary and congruent. There is a playful quality to them, a sort of now-you-see-it-now-you-don't as the eye goes back and forth over the positive and negative space. This lovely example of ethnographic weaving is priced at $95.00.

Color change is achieved by slit weave and interlocking weave. Materials are wool weft and warp (lighter and darker brown warps terminate in knotted fringe), with weft patterning.

There are lighter and darker areas on the field of this rug. This is abrash. Abrash (Arabic for "dappled," "piebald") is a variegated color effect achieved by using yarns from different dye batches of the same color. Done well, it can be a very pleasing effect, such as on this rug.

Buyers contacting us by e-mail, please include your full mailing address so that we can calculate shipping charges. Also, please reference the item number. This package will weigh 8 lbs.

Much of the Afghan material, utilitarian bags and animal trappings, Afghan Baluch rugs, and Uzbek flatweaves that we offer here date back nearly 50 years and more, yet many are in new, unused condition. Therein hangs a tale. We have a very good Afghan friend whose uncle is the head of a large extended Afghan family. The family was very prominent in the rug business in Western Afghanistan. The Uncle, as early as the mid 1970's "didn't like the smell of things" (politics, factionalism and other conditions and forces that led to the ghastly Afghan/Soviet War, 1979-1989), and, over time, moved the family and the family's rugs to what was then West Germany. The rugs were stored in warehouses in the Zollfreilager (tax free zone) in Hamburg. We were privileged to accompany our friend on a tour of one of the warehouses while in Hamburg for an international rug conference in the early '90s. At that time we committed to a sizable group of these rugs of which we receive incremental shipments, under very favorable terms, for which we thank our friend and his family.