TURKMEN MATERIAL CULTURE: PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION FOR CARPET STUDIES

Year 2004, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 253 - 262, 30.06.2004

Murray Lee Eıland

Abstract

Much literature about Turkmen rugs, at least that of previous decades, deals almost exclusively with the woven products of these people and makes only passing reference to other aspects of their material culture. While there may be occasional references to ethnographic information, even carpet and textile scholars who have visited Central Asia usually have little to say about the way people ac- tually live, leaving undisturbed the romantic notions that have grown up around the weavers of Central Asian carpets. There is a growing understanding that the life of a nomad is quite unlike the modern Western mythology (Eiland Jr. 1990, 116-117).

Keywords

TURKMEN, MATERIAL CULTURE, PROBLEMS, CARPET

References

• Andrews, Peter Alford. 1997. Nomad Tent Types in the Middle East, Volume I: Framed Tents, text; Volume II: Framed Tents, illustrations. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichart Verlag.
• Barfield, Thomas Jefferson. 1993. The nomadic alternative. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
• Barth, Fredrik.1961. Nomads of South Persia: the Basseri tribe of the Khamseh Confederacy. Boston: Little Brown.
• Basilov, Vladimir N., Vera P. D=yakonova, Vladimir I. D=yachenko and Vadim P. Kurylëv. 1989. >Household furnishings and untensils=, in Vladimir N. Basilov (ed.) (trans: Mary Fleming) Nomads of Eurasia. 1989. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 126-135.
• Eiland Jr. Murray Lee. 1990. Oriental Rugs from Pacific Collections. San Francisco: San Francisco Bay Area Rug Society.