The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-12-08
Turkey Carpets.

Turkey Carpets.
Most of our readers are in some wa
familiar with the appearance of Turkel
carpet or rug, yet no doubt few compar
atively have distinctidea of the process
or the precise locality of the manufact
ure of these specimens of human in
genuity and patience existing among al
all but barbarous people, who, since the
turbulent times when they first settled il
Asia Minor, have carried on unchanged
this art, which had been handed down tC
the former dominant races from the re-
mote period of antiquity, when the
Phyrgians of Homeric fame were the
rulers of the country. Three small
towns-Oushak, Koula and Ghiordess
within the boundaries of the Greater
Phyrgia-have preserved to the present
day the carpet manufacture, one of the
few remaining branches of modern
Turkish industry; and it is rather an in
teresting point to note that this manu-.
facture has not much changed its local..
ty from time immemorial.
An intending visitor to the seat of
manufacture can now proceed by rail from
Smyrna to Philadelphia, one of the seven
churches of the Apocalypse, the train on
its way passing by the site of ancient
Sardis, where the steam whistle sounds
strangely in such close vicinity to the
crumbling ruins of the city of Cresus.
Six hours ride from Philadelphia over a
dangerous mountain pass brings one to
koula, at the foot of an extinct volcano,
in the very midst of the devastated re-
gions of the Catacecaumen, and stu
ated about midway between and about
fifteen hours ride from Oushak and
Ghiordess.
Oushak, the largest of the three towns
above mentioned, is situated on an ele-
waited plateau between 1000 and 5000
feet above the level of the sea. 1t has a
population of over Is, 900 inhabitants, of
which only about third are Christians.
The houses are built of sun-dried bricks
in the usual style of modern Turkish
towns, and plastered over inside and out
with sort of dark clay, which gives the
place somber appearance perfectly in
keeping with the character of its people.
Quaint old fountains and wells, mosques
and minarets, overhanging latticed bal
comics, and dark, narrow, crooked and
dirty streets characterize the place even
more than other towns nearer the sea-
board. Wool in every stage of progress
sion, from the moment it is clipped from
the sheep to its final dyed and spun state,
fit for the hands of the manufacturers,
meets the eye in every direction, and in
dictates the peculiar occupation of the in
habitants of this busy little town, which,
but for this industry, would in all proba-
bility have shared the decaying tendency
of other AnatOlian places.
Almost every household of any i'm
portance carries on the carpet manufact-
ure. The mechanism employed is of
the simplest and rudest description. A
vertical frame supports two horizontal
rollers about five feet apart. The warp
of any required length, consisting of an
upper and lower thread, is wound around
the upper roller, and the ends fastened
to the lower one, from which the work
is commenced by the women and girls,
who kneel and sit cross-legged in row
before the frame. Each workwoman has
a certain width of work allotted to her,
and proceeds to knot the tufts which
form the pile i'll rows, using different
colors to form the pattern. Each tuft is
knotted independently of the others to
an upper and lower thread of the warp,
When row is thus tied the weft is
passed with the hand between the warp
and then beaten down with u heavy
wooden comb. The pile is now clipped
smooth with a large shears, and the next
row above the first commenced with.
AS the work proceeds upward it is rolled
over the under roller, and a correspond
ing length of warp unrolled from the
upper one, until the required length of
carpet is made. The tying on of the tufts
and the picking out of the various colored
woods which hang in balls over the frame
is carried on with the most surprising
rapidity, the pattern being meanwhile
worked from memory, unless some new
design is to be made. Forty-four rows
of pile are thus knotted in the course of
the day, and for this amount of labor
each workwoman is paid from six to
twelve cents daily. 1t will thus be seen
that the women are the sole manufactur-
ers, that no mechanism or instruments
beyond a frame, shears and comb are
used, and that the design is worked from
memory. Yet, with such limited means
at their disposal, these skilled workers
contrive to produce the most harmonious
ly colored and certainly the most durable
carpets in the world.
We have so far spoken only of the
women; the mems share of the industry
is to collect and dye The wool for the
manufacturers, and manage the sale of
the carpets when completed-tasks light
enough when compared to the irksome
labor of the females, but quite consistent
with the Oriental notion of mans superi.
GRITTY over the less-favored SEX The
dyes, which, by their permanency, have
given much of the celebrity to the Tur.
key carpet, are mostly produced in the
neighborhood. Madden roots for the
reds and yellow berries for the yellow
and orange are grown in the surround.
ing districts, and indigo for the blue is
imported from abroad. The carpets and
rugs of Ghiordess and Koula, the Other
two manufacturing towns, are made on
precisely the same principle and in the