The Goradis Spring

An ongoing research about the relation between Eastern Asian and Islamic art  has led to investigate the possibility of adoption and adaptation of Eastern Asian designs in the wide family of carpets. Incitement was the necessity of shedding light on some designs.

The historical background shaping these interactions will be dealt with at a later time. Also, a reason will be given  why an Eastern influence is favoured for some designs rather than other artistic traditions although closer to the Islamic context. The 'Interwoven Globe' term, coined by the groundbreaking exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum, 2013 (Interwoven Globe: the Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800), verifies, in fact, to be consistent also with many centuries earlier circumstances. We would like to expand it into a term forged in the 1970s, 'Intercultural Style'. Referred to some Bronze Age artistic expressions in South-West Asia, it conveys the interesting concept that different civilisations either for porous borders or any necessity of status representation embraced a few commons designs in different media (see Softstones in Arabia&Iran, A specialist workshop organised by The British Museum & the Society for Arabian Studies; The Intercultural Style Revisited, Intercultural Interaction in South-West Asia during the Mid-Third Millennium, by  Klaas Zevenhek, Amsterdam 2013)

Such behaviours are obvious and well researched in later periods, as in the case of Chinese art influence in the Western lands during the Mongol and Ilkhanid Era. Far less studied are the reciprocal interactions between Eastern  Asia and Western areas before the creation of the early Turk Islamic kingdoms in around the year 1000.  The participation of Turko-Mongol nomadic polities in shaping new forms to be spread along the trade routes complicates the events.

Split Leaf Arabesque in a Safavid silk carpet, 'Polonaise', early 17th.

While time unfolds, eye sharpens and information grows. Parallels not always proved, yet reasonable.

There are in the ruggy world several design names which may be misleading on their true source. They have been forged for multiple reasons. Myth, lore, trade needs and fantasy often interlaced, contributed to a  basic 'dictionary' not necessarily to be discarded, but to be verified and clarified.

Ethnographic research on the field not always offers safe results. Often, weavers have long lost memory of the original name and source of designs harking back centuries before. Impossible, altogether, to distinguish and claim an ancient foreign influence. This may explain the discrepancy between the name of a design and what conversely the eye can detect in it. The difficulty should be all in the long and complex process of stylisation provided by time and multiple transliterations, not in a fancy and captivating terminology. The rug world is enough imbued with exotic and fabulous stories to need other riddles.


A Caucasian Rug 

Ian Bennett wrote regarding designs' terminology in Caucasian rugs - names 'appear out of nowhere and often do not stand up for scrutiny' .
The popular nomenclature for Caucasian rugs was established by the German dealer and connoisseur Ulrich Schurmann  mostly based on Latif Kerimov work (Latif Kerimov was an Azerbaijani designer and collector of and writer on Caucasian rugs).
In particular, Kerimov seems to have recognised and termed a specific pattern used in a group of rugs whose provenance is allegedly reported as Goradis' vicinity, an area on the Iran-Azerbaijan border half way from the Caspian Sea and Armenia. The unmistakable design offers a slanted tapered shape at whose larger pointed top two curved element opens as reclining leaves.
Obviously, many variations are offered with more or less stylised design, more or less floral or even zoo-morphic (the curved elements may be read as crab pincers).

Goradis carpet, fragment, 18th, Azerbaijan, published U. Schurmann, Teppiche aus dem Orient, dated 1115 AH= 1700 AD 

Goradis carpet, detail, Azerbaijan, 19th, published S. Azadi, Azerbaijani Caucasian Rugs.

Caucasian rugs do often present decorative schemes characterised by bold and large designs. Often single designs of complex patterns, they were favoured either because better impressed in the weavers' memory, or more suitable to their decorative sensibility. Not necessarily a complete classic pattern was apt to a rural context. As well, memory can keep alive only some parts of it.
Since the Safavid rule vanished in the mid 18th and, afterwards, the Russian conquest disrupted a long cultural unity, a change may have occurred in these lands, and carpets usually were a very sensitive reflecting ground.
As to now no source for this pattern has been seriously ascertained, unless a Western influence from the French taste is claimed. Specifically, there exists a family of carpets echoing the Rococò and Neoclassical style. They usually come from the Karabak district. In the case of the Goradis Buynuz (ram's horns), the Bizarre silk patterns may offer interesting parallels.

Bizarre silk panel, France or Italy, 17th-18th, courtesy of Sarajo

Bizarre silk, Europe, 18th

Similar results of contamination appear also in Eastern Europe as in piled rug from Ukraine, 19th, pictured below
Said Western influences may carry some weight given the historical situation of the Caucasus in the 19th century. In 1864 the last Caucasian regions lost their autonomy and were forced to enter the Russian empire partly imbibed with French taste.

Floral design carpet, Ukraine, 18th, photo courtesy Hadi Maktabi

But a traditional Eastern source can't be excluded. After all, Latif Kerimov termed the design 'Buynuz', that is Horn. And, horns, meant like ram's horns, are largely  distributed in almost all the nomadic traditions, the ram been variously worshipped and revered in the whole of Eurasia.

Silk samite, rows of rams, Iran, Afghanistan or China, 5th-8th, Metropolitan Museum

Stucco plaque, Royal Farnah, Sassanian culture, 5th-6th, The Field Museum of Natural History Chicago

Ritual vessel, Ram shape, late Shang, China, 13th-11th BC, formerly Fujiita Museum Osaka

In  this perspective one may also infer the slanted tapered shape to represent the ram's head and horns. It is one established habit to depict only a part of a design, the whole to be deduced.
Moreover, another evidence of  Turkic art is to 'embellish' designs with appendages. They may be in the form of latchook, bird-head, trefoil. Ram's horns, called also kotchak,  are among the most used in Anatolian, Caucasian and Central Asian rugs. Usually though, they receive a quite different depiction.
The Anatolian village rug below offers the iconic form.

'Flayed Skin' carpet, Anatolia, 18th, published Hali 112

One should then look at the Goradis/Buynuz motif imagining as if the original zoomorphism had been remolded  into an unrecognisable point. All is possible in carpets, is it?

Things are never ever easy, that's fun.
One parallel to the Goradis pattern has recently surfaced to my mind, the easiest and closest for obvious historical reasons, perhaps. A fool not to recognise it before.

The Caucasian regions received multiple influences during the centuries, not to mention the multifaceted ethnic mélange that characterised its population ever since. Turkomans, Armenians, Azeris and Kurds gave the main contributions, among others. A group of carpets (so called 'Golden Triangle' carpets) testify to this sometimes uncertain identity oscillating between Turkish, Persian and 'Caucasian' types. And indeed the Turkish/Anatolian and the Persian/Safavid played a big role in the whole Caucasian output, often intermingled as Serare Yetkin suggested in her seminal work on early Caucasian carpets (S. Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey).

In the case of the Goradis it is unavoidable to put it into the Safavid mainstream of the split leaf design. Having a long life in Safavid art, and Islamic well before, the Split Leaf appeared in the early decorated cursive kufic script. It was also appropriated in the vegetal allover decoration developed thence in Islamic art, punctuating the infinite revolving racemes (arabesque/islimi).

Floriated cursive script, Iran or Uzbekistan, 900-1000, V&A

The Tabriz frontispiece painted in 1478 verifies the diffusion of an International Style (imbued with a strong Chinese influence) featuring the split leaf arabesque as usual grammar. The Tabriz court in the 15th was in the firm hands of Turkoman dominion which extended also to the Karabak area whence the Goradis design appeared in the 19th. It would be interesting to find forerunners in the region so as to exclude an abrupt birth for this late split leaf guise.

Frontispiece, Tabriz 1478, the Khalili collection

It populated the decoration in any form of visual art, and carpets too, in conventional background and building design as well. Often it also is enriched with a bulging flower head in the centre. The Safavid carpet output had the lion's  share.

'Kirman' carpet, 16th/17th century

Arabesque with yellow split leaf in border and field. Kirman carpet, 18th, Rothschild collection

It mostly sports a slanted form with asymmetrical tapered petals.

'Kirman' lattice carpet fragment, late 16th (?), published Five Centuries of Rugs from Kirman, T. Sabahi

Also the 'Polonaise' silk carpets were infected by the virus.

'Polonaise' silk carpet, 17th, formerly Getty collection, rugtracker.com photo cs.

King Umberto's 'Polonaise' silk carpet, detail 17th, Hali photo cs.

The Safavid solar system built on a rich combination of trajectories and  celestial bodies (racemes and flowers).....

Palmette and Arabesque carpet, Safavid 17th, the Metropolitan Museum

Arabesque field, Safavid carpet patchwork 16th , Bardini Museum

left the slanting split leaf lonely. A larger and courtly choreography turned into a bold impressive folk dance. A symphony into a solo.

Other times the design is termed 'scorpion'.

Goradis carpet, 19th the Metropolitan Museum, azerbaijanrugs.com photo credits

M. Eiland (Afshan. A Study of Design Development, Hali 1999) identified the split leaf in the Caucasian language where it is commonly termed 'Afshan' and where it achieved an extremely geometricised version in the 'Karagashli' type. Yet, the Goradis was not identified, although the parallel with Safavid designs is illuminating.
Whether a split leaf was still in the weaver's mind or mistaken for horns and scorpions is a riddle we can't solve so far. Afterall, designs survived to or surfaced in different epochs serving new functions and meanings.

In the vast universe of possibilities a similar shaped design appears in a class of 'Beshir' rugs variously interpreted by the cognoscenti - cloudband, tulip, serpent.



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The 'Scorpion' rugs, allegedly from the Ushak region small center of Selendi, presents a different design construction - an ogival device with serrated profile and lateral asymmetrical vines. Most probably it relates to period Ottoman floral patterns re-elaborated into the knotted technique by village weavers. Serpentine design often characterises them in an almost realistic vein. Cut versions are common in embroidery.

'Scorpion' carpet, Selendi Ushak, 17th, Budapest Museum of Applied Arts rugrabbit photo cs.

Ottoman court kaftan, 16th Topkapi Museum

Ottoman court kaftan, 16th detail.

Silk embroidered cotton, 17th century, Hali ph.credits

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Bibliography


U. Schurmann, Caucasian Rugs 1974

L. Kerimov, Azerbaijan Carpets, Baku 1961, vol.II, III, 1983,

L. Kerimov, Rugs and carpets from the Caucasus, 1984,

L. Kerimov and S. Azadi, Azerbaijani-Caucasian Rugs, 2001

U. Schurmann, Teppiche aus dem Orient, 1976

S. Azadi, Azerbaijani Caucasian Rugs, 2001E.

S. Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, 1977

I. Bennet, Caucasian Village Rugs, Hali, winter 2007

M. Eiland, Afshan. A Study of Design Development, Hali 1999

I. Gans-Ruedin,  Caucasian Carpets 1986

K. Erdmann, Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets 1970

M. Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia with Special Reference to Rugs of Kirman 1976

T. Sabahi, Five Centuries of Carpets from Kerman  2012

Inscrutable Isfahans, rugtracker.com

R. B. Sargeant, Islamic Textiles. Material for a History up to the Mongol Conquest, Beirut 1972

Abd al-Rahman Mahmud al-Cailani, The Origins of Islamic Art and the Role of China, Edinburgh 1973

R. Craig Nation, Russia and the Caucasus 2015

http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00126/cloudband.htm?fbclid=IwAR3aSc9_w7pQYRYkGnDWWTcjwE1agnaAb7VeufMe9ZSxpAcmUDv9M-fNuKQ

A. Levi,  Renewal&Innovation, Hali August-September 1993

http://richardewright.com/0908_bukhara.html

The Pulo and the Deer

Some of the oldest known knotted carpet fragments have been found in East Turkestan.Although a major stop-over on the Silk Road,it now seems likely that many items were produced locally.The later entry of Alexander into Central Asia,and the art of Gandhara,introduced Greek light into the area.Our knowledge of carpet producing areas derives chiefly from the work of Hans Bidder,whose sources were Chinese carpet dealers.Their veracity cannot be confirmed,but as is customary in the literature on the subject,when geographic terms are understood as branding, sense can be made of the whole.Thus Khotan defines a rustic,Kashgar a floral,and Yarkand an aristocratic style.Until otherwise proven,and as there is little evidence for production elsewhere,we can presume that the majority of carpets were woven in diverse manufacturies and at differing levels of accomplishment in the sprawling Khotan Oasis.

The three groups can also be divided by technical aspects,with the Khotan carpets loosely woven in a woolen Vase-Carpet style with three wefts of white and coloured wool on a cotton warp(although woolen warp is not unknown)a prevalence of silk carpets from the Kashgar area;and a frequently blue-wefted hard-beaten depressed warp structure from Yarkand.The placenames have no basis in fact and simply function as an orientation vis-a-vis structure and style.A large group of carpets attributed to the Gansu corridor in Western China will not be considered here,except as in such instances where an attribution is possible to E.Turkestan.The complex subject of silk rugs from the area may be taken up at a later date.

Khotan carpet fragment with Pu-Lau design,published Munich 1985.The word Pu-lau(or pholo)is Tibetan and means either "Ball",or "ballgame"It has also been translated as the expression for a wooden ball made out of willow.Hence its employment to describe the game of "Polo"

Tie-dyed fabric from Tibet, horse blanket 19th, internet source

"Pulo
A tie-dying technique used in Tibet that produces a pattern of small dots, crosses, or small concentric circles in a wool fabric called nambu. Gansu rugs of China of the 12th to 14th century with this field repeat are described as pulo design rugs, as are a few similarly designed 20th-century Tibetan and Chinese rugs" (p.225 Oriental Rugs by Peter F. Stone)

"The tie-dyeing technique in Chinese chronicle is called jiaoxie or popularly zaran. textiles that were tied and then dyed with color . and therefore might be predecessors of jiaoxie, have been excavated from Han sites in Dunhuang, Gansu". (Chinese Silks, D. Kuhn)

Tie-dyed tabby silk with spot pattern, Northern and Southern dynasties, excavated in Turfan, Urumqi Institute, fig. 4.9 p. 181 Chinese Silks

Other chronicles state that it "began in the Qin and Han dynasties, but in the Chien and Lang dynasties, both rich and poor all wore clothes made that way".  Archeological discoveries of confirmed jiaoxie textiles, however, date from the third century......This kind of design, like stars scattered over the surface or like the white flecks on the back of a young deer, has been called "deer's pelt" pattern (lutai).

Jin fabric bag, detail, spotted  deer, excavated in Niya, Hetian City Museum, dated 84C.E. Fig. 3.41, p. 153, Chinese Silks

A mythological story tells of a beautiful woman wearing a purple tie-dyed garment which is actually the transformed spirit of a deer. The  author describes the headdress made of deerskin as 'the image of falling stars crossing, scattered dots of linked pearls' (in Later records of Searching for Spirits, Shangai 1999)

One particular type of lutai is called 'drunken eye tie-dyeing' perhaps because its patterns are blurry washes of color, the kind of beautiful but indistict image seen by an intoxicated viewer.
In Report of a Dream over a Bowl of Millet Gruel (Mengliang Lu) of 1334, lutai fabrics are detailed described

Difficult not to parallel this 'drunken' pattern with a carpet  woven in the Middle Amu Darya region, a far but not too far area from Gansu. The Middle Amu Darya region in Central Asia is, in fact, included in the Silk Roads connecting the Far East to the West.
Ersari weavers are considered to be very versatile and easy to grasp and absorb designs out of a strict tribal tradition. Whether she knew of the deer transformed into a woman and of the stars encrusted in her skin, we do not know. But the blurry sight is curiously rendered in the dots arrangement.

Ersari carpet, Pulo design, MAD, 19th, Marc Feldmann

The Sino-Tibetan textile tradition presents the same tie-dyed technique in the nambu textiles both dyed and knotted.

Nambu textile, bench cover, Central Tibet circa 1900, T. Wild

Nambu design sitting rug, Tibet, early 1900, in Patterns of Life, coll. R. L. Baylis

That is why some Tibetan carpets' design may be interpreted as the knotted version of a pulo-nambu, although the leopard pelt pattern is also a plausible reading.

Tibetan carpet, about 1880, Alberto Levi

Tibet had ever since relations with the Han empire and was bordering Gansu. In 832 most of the Tibetan empire territories were attributed to the Tang empire. During the Tang period the tie-dyed technique was continued with similar decorative results.

A Song vase testifies to the continuous apreciation of the pattern after the turn of the first millennium. "In Report of a Dream over a Bowl of Millet Gruel (Mengliang Lu) of 1334, lutai fabrics are properly described.....annualy" a significant bolts of this type of patterned fabric were produced. Also the Liao and Jin dynasties  contributed a lot to the output of coloured patterned deer's pelt textiles.
From Song accounts we come to know that the allover pattern was embellshed with golden (sewn thread) clouds and phoenixes on black ground

Spotted jizou vase, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), Sotheby's photo credits

However, more striking is the presence of the spot/dot design in 18th and 19th century carpets from Gansu.
Gansu was a cradle of 'Chinese' civilisation - motherland of important Neolithic cultures as the Majiayao and Nijia and of the first state-founding tribe, the Qin. Historical place also of the Han and archeological reference for the excavation of jiaoxie textiles, in Gansu the looms seem to reflect the ancient jiaoxie or deerskin's spot in dramatically coloured allover carpets or punctuated with elegant medallions.

Gansu Pulo carpet, 1800 circa, Moshe Tabibnia

Gansu Pulo carpet, 18th II half , Moshe Tabibnia

The oasis of Khotan in the Tarim basin reputedly wove the Pulo pattern as well.

Khotan Pulo carpet, Tarim Basin, 19th, Moshe Tabibnia

Khotan (?) Pulo carpet, Tarim Basin, 18th, Ben Banayan photo credits

Here an excellent link to a Pulo Show https://www.flickr.com/photos/rugbam/albums/72157666620284446
from where these three source, the last in the window format.

Pulo carpets,  19th, Tarim Basin, rugtracker.com photo credits

Whether the Deer is still alive or not, usually a field pattern of old memory crosses the Time weaves thanks to its auspicious meaning, that in China parallels  longevity and in Tibet good omen.
In the case one doesn't like deers, the pattern might be called from the technique originating it, the tie-dyeing or resist dye found in northwestern China excavations starting from the 3th-5th AD. In Chinese the fabric is termed xie/jiaoxie.

Bibliography

P. Stone, Oriental Rugs
D. Kuhn, Chinese Silks
I. Alimov, Concerning "Records of Searching for Spirits" of Gao Bao
G. O'Bannon, Rugs of Eastern Turkestan Khotan, Yarkand or Kashgar?
H. Bidder, Carpets from Eastern Turkestan
M. Eiland,  Chinese and Exotic Rugs
E. Gans-Ruedin, Chinese Carpets
L. Larsson, Carpets from China, Xinjian and Tibet
Sphuler, Konig, Volkmann, Old Eastern Carpets
T. Cole in Hand-Knotted Carpets from Nepal
T. Cole, Dream Weavers: Textile Art from the Tibetan Plateau
T. Cole, Patterns of Life: The Art of Tibetan Carpets
C. Bausback, Alte Teppiche Aus Tibet
D. Miller, Auspicious Carpets: Tibetan Rugs and Textiles
Intrecci Cinesi, Moshe Tabibnia
H. Konig, Gansu Carpets, Hali 2005
Konig and Franses, Glanz der Himmelsshoene . Kaiserliche Teppiche Aus China 1400-1750
Uighur Carpets from Altishahr in rugtracker.com
Xie, a Technical Term for Resist Dye in China: Analysis Based on the Burial Inventory from Tomb 26, Bijiashan, Huahai, Gansu Le Wang, Donghua University, Shanghai Feng Zhao, China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou.

The Keyhole and the Wall

" The Prophet took me by the hand and led me into the Hateem...Perform salah here if you wish to enter the Ka’bah"

Apse in a 'Bellini' carpet, Anatolia 16th/17th, The Metropolitan Museum

El Hateem wall, Ka'bah

"When I (Aisha) expressed the wish to perform salah within the Ka’bah, the Prophet took me by the hand and led me into the Hijr (Hateem) where he said, ‘Perform salah here if you wish to enter the Ka’bah because this is part of the Baytullah."

The Hateem is a low semi-circular wall part of the Ka'bah. The Ka'bah complex seen from above has this design.

2-Ka'bah and Hateem plan

It is hard not to parallel it to a rare carpet design woven in the Caucasian area. It is suggestive of the squared building of the Ka'bah connected to the Hateem.

3-Caucasian carpet

Memory goes back more so to an illustrious rug motif, the so called 'Bellini' or keyhole/re-entrant, where a similar design (usually octagonal) appears indented in the bottom line of a niche drawing.

4-'Bellini' prayer rug, Anatolia, circa 1500, Museum of Islamic Art Berlin

The niche is usually thought to depict a mihrab, the carved space in the qibla wall oriented to the Great Mosque of Mecca.
The origin of the niche/mihrab in Muslim religious architecture has been thoroughly researched revealing a multifarious nature (J. Spurr: the arch-mihrab-gate form acted as a multivalent master symbol in Islamic culture that could be represented with a variable specific iconography and could be inflected in particular ways depending upon immediate context).
All considered, the connection with the Ka'bah is very likely one prominent feature to the point that  the mihrab has been also taken as a vertical representation of the holy building itself (J. Natan 2013).

Primarily, the niche carved in the wall is the space reserved for prayers and sermons repeating the prophet's acts in Medina and then Mecca. The mihrab was probably created (from the ubiquitous niche) to innovate a real Muslim liturgy based on the prophet's guidance (E. Whelan).


In architecture it was soon typified by a volume carved in the wall taking the name of mihrab mujawwaf different from a flat mihrab.

5-Khan Tulun madrassa (built 1224), mihrab, Aleppo, V&A photo credits

This volume was signified also in neighbour cultures representations.

6-Biblia Hebraica, folio from the Leningrad Codex, 1008, The National Library of Russia

Islamic art soon devised a unique spatial notion diverging from the scientific achievements Muslim science had reached on optics and vision to the point that scientists used to complain the poor precision of artists.
Quite remote from a realistic vision, spatial rendition refuses perspective. Perspective, in fact, offers the  priority range of human eye not giving justice to the more complex content Muslim ideology adds to the image.

Islamic painting adopts "overlapping and diagonally projecting parallel lines" to signify the space between foreground and background (and not converging lines to a vanishing point like in European Renaissance art). Parallel lines introduce a flattened and layered spatial vision.

The seduction of Putiphar, Behzad 1488

Architecture in turn avoids a realistic perspective by means of disproportionate elements, absence of converging lines and multiplied parallel layers moving backwards. The eye is not invited to experience the interior space which is conveniently flattened .
Depht is implied not explicitly rendered.
On the contrary, European visual art works with proportionate elements in a moving grid converging to a point  creating a volumetric experience (Latif and Haider).

                                                  7-Miri Arab madrassa, Bukhara 16th

The use of an allover decoration helps diminishing the volumetric experience.

8-Wooden mihrab, Damsaköy Taşkınpaşa mosque Ankara Museum

9-Tile mihrab, Ulu mosque, Birgi, Izmirn region, 1313-1314

Obviously, moving from architecture to a two-dimensional image as that of textiles, space rendition can  become extreme: flat and unrealistic/abstract.
In carpets, specifically, the axis does not move backwards, everything happens in the foreground axis. The real shape of the floor within the niche, without changing axis and converging lines, should then appear as if vertically drawn on the same level as the niche design.
No smooth transition and no perception of front and back wall. On the other hand, disproportionate scale applied to the flat woolen surface becomes unrealistic. The floor inside the niche appears small, very small; vertical and not horizontal. Arguably, as congenial to the Islamic sensibility as not to the western.

10-'Bellini' prayer rug, last quarter of the 15th, Anatolia, Topkapi Saray

Some exemplars propose only the entrance to the niche.

11-Multiple niche carpet, fragment, Anatolia, 14th, TIEM

12-Niche carpet, Anatolia, 19th ?, Alexander collection

Keyhole or re-entrant design characterises a group of Anatolian niche rugs dated from the late 15th to the 16th, and a small number of 'Damaschino' or 'Para-Mamluke' rugs. This type appears in Italian painting between 1470 and 1562.
One single existent Mamluke is a stunning masterwork.

Mamluk carpet, circa 1500, Museum for Islamic Art Berlin

Ahmed I, Sultan and supreme Caliph of the Islamic world, 1610, issued an edict forbidding from depicting mihrab or Ka'bahin carpets traded to infidels. Was he referring to the niche with the indented space? Indeed the numerous carpets destined to the European market in the 17th century, mainly the so-called Transylvanian, lack of this unique detail (Ionescu 2006).

In turn, very rare are surviving carpets with a realistic depiction of the holy building in Mecca. 

14-Ka'bah carpet, Anatolia 16th? Istanbul

On the other hand, Near Eastern niche rugs likely contain typical elements of the Holy Place - stylised minbars - as if allusion to it. Logic would interpret the medallions as metaphor for the sacred presence both of god and the prophet (who first prayed at the Ka'bah)

15-The Ballard Bellini carpet, Anatolia 16th/17th, The Metropolitan Museum. Paired mimbars below the floating medallion

In the 17th century production of tile panels representing the Masjid al Haram bloomed feasibly balancing the lesser output of  Mihrab/Ka'bah carpets according to the Sultan's edict.

16-Masjid al Haram tile, Iznik 17th Aga Khan Museum

The Ahmed I edict seems curiously to refer to the mihrab and Ka'bah image. It is a point of fact that in 17th century European painting keyhole prayer rugs do not appear anymore.
Is the keyhole design that qualifies the niche as a mihrab mujawwaf (niche carved in the qibla)?
Is the keyhole similarity to the Hateem that identifies the niche pattern as the Ka'bah?
It seems indeed an attractive inference.

An apse protruding from or indented in a precinct  was likely a different pattern. Its arrangement in a double mirroring design is still mysterious. Love for symmetry? A group of early Anatolian carpets found in the Divrigi mosque represents the former type. Balpinar-Hirsch 1988 suppose it was the depiction of a basin.
A fertile progeny populate the Caucasus in the 18th and 19th century, misnamed 'shield' carpets.

17-Anatolian carpet 16th/17th, the Vakiflar Museum

In the same way, the latter type with double inward apses appears in the Anatolian repertoire of mirrored motifs.The minbar motifs encircling the central medallion hint at an architectural and religious discourse, again, and, at the 'Bellini' type.

18-The Parsons Todd double Re-entrant carpet, Anatolia, 17th/18th ?, The Macculloch Hall Museum photocredits azerbaijanrugs.com

Scholarly interpretations of the re-entry vary from the primeval mound and an ablutional fountain to the entrance of the niche.

The primeval mound is an image of creational myths in most ancient religions from China, India and Egypt to the Pelasgians. Often compared with the cosmic egg, it arises from the original sea as place of divine creation.

.

In Chinese/Buddhist tradition the mound on top of the primeval sea took also the shape of a stupa (temple) in memory of those built by disciples to honour Buddha's ashes.

19-RKO type rug, Gansu late 18th,  Eskenazi, photo credits Hali 2000

The ablution basin in Anatolian religious architecture was soon moved out of the interior space where it was usually placed under the dome's oculus to signify the world axis in pre-Islamic traditions. Few buildings in Anatolia preserve it inside. Usually, it is placed in the fronting porched courtyard.

20- Divrigi hospital

Otherwise, miniature works show similar water pools gracing palaces' gardens, a different discourse from ritual prayer. At other times, a ritual water jug (ibrik) is associated to the mihrab pattern signifying ablution, but not in early times.

21-Garden pool and fountain, Tabriz folio 1530-40, Chinese and Greek painting competition, the Bruschettini collection detail

Purification rites from pre-Islamic time survive in Iran.
Probably derived from the Mithraic use of a basin filled with water, then adapted to host the Zoroastrian fire, it appears as a reserve carved in the floor facing or inside the mihrab. But nothing similar exists in Anatolia.

22-Olijetu Ilkhanid room, Isfahan early 14th

23-Jameh mosque, Yazd 14th

The multifarious nature of the Muslim world is a fact, more so in early times. Hard to disentangle and attribute diverse elements composing the prisma. The weavers' necessity for diverse patterns conforming to traditions yet flexible to innovate did not make things easier to understand. But let recall the keyhole design to be most relevant in the Anatolian Ottoman culture likely for the adherence to Sunni prescriptions, besides the indisputable karstic heterodox presences.
Formalism and puritanicalism imbued also the arts, more so those connected to ritual observance. Architecture and linear geometry provided the advocated abstract/unrealistic representation-flat and frontal- best represented in textiles.

24-Anatolian prayer rug, 16th, The Metropolitan Museum

25-Anatolian carpet, 16th, Vakiflar Museum

A small rural mosque, dated to the 7th to 8th centuries C.E. in the area north of Be'er Sheva, Israel.

The image shows the original indentation of the mihrab wherein the preacher was intended to pray.

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Appendix

In Turkmen weavings a uniquely shaped rug exists that seems to properly fit the indented floor to pray on inside the mihrab.
It has been interpreted as funeral rug to be put over the coffin, a prayer rug for a child, a cradle and a horse trapping (see W. Swan http://turkotek.com/salon_00002/messages/89.html).
E. Tsareva,  leading authority on Turkmen weavings, understands the unusual shape of the upper border to fit a funerary context and  calls it ayatlyk (Carpets of Central Asian Nomads, 1993)

A group of turkmen shaped rugs called salanchak

Obviously, if the rug was a private object to bring along in the mosque it should not be strictly shaped and scaled; if a mosque property, it should. The niche shape can vary from a curved to a polygonal and a stepped, and rugs follow.

The Medina mihrab, The Israel Museum Jerusalem 

Rustem Pasha mosque, Istanbul

Poikalyan Mosque, Bukhara and a 'salanchak' shaped felt

Stepped mihrab mujawwaf, Shir Kebir mosque, Dekhistan 10th-11th

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