Astral Lights

Achaemenid rosette, 500-400 BC, Tehran

Islamic architectural art during the early Abbasid period presents an adult, rich and conscious language full of consequences for the centuries to come.
Seljuk art in Anatolia, Iran and partly Central Asia sum up and codify many features of it and offers
a safe reference so far for the history of carpet designs, once pointed to its complex origin.
And commonly, Seljuk decorative heritage is to be seen in Anatolian carpets centuries later.

The 'rosette' woven in the niche spandrels is the case at point here.
The generic term does not refer to a realistically depicted flower yet to a device stressing a specific point in a pattern. Weavers were usually able to depict flowers although stylised. In some cases they wove geometrically inspired motifs, instead.
Architecture looks like to be a major source of inspiration. Mihrabs and doorways of important royal buildings (mosque, caravanseray, school, mausoleum) in all the Islam-influenced regions sport the use of two discs flanking the arch vault from the Mediterranean shores to the Indian area.

How this feature found its way into Islamic architecture is not clear.

Al Walid I, the sixth Umayyad caliph reigning 705-715, is reputed for the powerful insight of architecture as a cultural propaganda means. He is credited to have initiated the Great Mosque of Damask, the Al Aqsa in Jerusalem and the Prophet's in Medina. But witness of the two discs in a mihrab are found only somewhat later in two marble panels: one in the Great Mosque of Qairouan, Aghlabid period 9th, the second in the cave of the Al Aqsa mosque, 9th (Whelan).
Probably a late classic use of spandrel bosses instilled the usage as in a Tulunid example in Egypt, and obviously in Aghia Sophia in Istanbul.

The marble panel flanking the mihrab in Qairouan is reputedly dated 862-875 as well as the upper mihrab vault decoration where again miniature mihrab and rosette are matched.

Qairouan mosque, 9th marble panel aside the mihrab

Qairouan detail

Marble mihrab, Al Aqsa's cave, 9th

Aghia Sophia, marble bosses within arches, Istanbul

Ibn Tulun mosque, 9th/10th Cairo, round bosses 

Further east in the Samanid mausoleum of Bukhara, 892-943.

🍀Seljuk architecture developed them with its proper geometric interlacements.

Beyekhim mosque mihrab, Konya circa 1270 , Museum of Islamic Art Berlin

Esrefoglu mosque, mihrab, Beyshehir Anatolia 13th

Gok Medrese, Amasya, Anatolia, 13th 2nd half

Seljuk Iran, Moya Carey's Instagram photocredits

In addition, a single such element stands over the mihrab or shines amids inscriptions, nearly a sacred, superimposing presence. Floral interlacements are soon introduced.

Mihrab in Sultan Hassan mosque, mid 14th, Cairo

Arslanhane mosque (1290-1330), mihrab Ankara

🍀The two discs have been interpreted as the moon and the sun.

There are actually some lines in the Quran that seemingly confirm this interpretation.

sura 25, verse 61:
"Blessed is the One Who placed the constellations in heaven and placed therein a lamp and a moon giving light."--
sura 71, 15-16:
"Did you see how God created seven heavens one above an other and made the moon a light therein and made the sun a lamp". 
Quran 6:97
"And it is He who ordained the stars for you that you may be guided thereby in the darkness of the land and the sea"

The two discs might be the sun and moon, but also the stars (curiously they are often inscribed with a star). The stars are reflections of the glory of the creator, the organising principle of all the stellar and planetary systems.

Allah is the true light of the heavens and the earth. This supreme light is also called the Light of the Prophet since he is the created being who received the major quantity of it to the point that Allah calls him in the Qur’ān “an illuminating lamp”. Consequently, a single disc/rosette in preeminent place may refer to both, Allah or Muhammad.

Interestingly, rosettes are depicted also in sacred scripts to help the reader (and guide him throughout the deep darkness of the divine words)

Quran's folio, 13th-14th c. Spain, the Metropolitan Museum

Not only an Islamic usage

Leningrad Codex, 1008 

Stars in fact are lamps in the night sky. From Cairo comes the meme of a star  replacing the light of the lamp. Depictions of interlaced stars (medallions) within a niche will be common in early Anatolian carpets

Mihrab, pre-Fatimid Ibn Tulun mosque, Cairo

Saph carpet, Anatolia, 15th, TIEM

And Stars seem indeed to be interchangeable with the Sun and Moon motif in the architectural language.

Gok medresse, Sivas, 1271

A subliminal reference to the person of the Prophet via the rosettes is pointed out by Whelan in her analysis of the designs in the Jeruslamen cave mihrab. The spear-like forms upsidedown  supposedly represent the aznah, the spear that Muhammad used to have planted on the ground to indicate the qiblah and to serve as a boundary for his praying space (E. Whelan, The Origins of the Mihrab Mujawwaf, p. 214,215).

The unadorned Jerusalem rosette foresees way later examples created by the weaver's unfettered imagination (Ralph Kaffel, Hali autumn 2008).

Niche carpet, Central anatolia, circa 1800, published Alberto Levi Textile Art 1, 2000

🍀The carpet tradition more attached to this architectural element looks like to be that of the Anatolian prayer rug. In Mamluk Egypt there exists only one now residing in Berlin, dated to circa 1500. The spandrels incrusted with an allover tracery present two octagonal star medallions of the so called 'Crivelli' type.
No trace of the device in Iranian/Safavid creations so far.

Niche carpet, Mamluk Egypt, circa 1500 Museum for Islamic Art Berlin

Ottoman exemplars do not sport it in favour of a floral decoration which can vary from arabesque to diverse floral arrangements following decorative patterns on fashion in the period.

Cairene-Ottoman niche carpet, second half 16th, MAK Vienna

Real rosette was indeed one of the main beloved botanical species.

Iznik tile niche panel, III quarter of the 16th, the David Collection

                                 

🍀Quite curiously, rosettes appear primarily in a unique family of antique Anatolian rugs, the so called Transylvanian. And, mainly in one subgroup: the double-niche type  (S. Ionescu, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania, 2006).
Matched with a serrated leaf on the vault apex the rosette creates a formulaic pattern. Rarely, it occurs in other formats (idem cat 148). It does not in the single stepped niche type where favoured is the carnation and serrated motif.
The distribution and combination of decorative sets in Transylvanian rugs do apply rules created for the carpets while instilled by the diverse decoration of real mihrabs (not always the two discs are represented). Safely it can be said that as weavers wanted to knot flowers they were able to do. O the other hand the rosettes geometrically depicted strongly recall those above addressed to.

The famed 1610 edict by Sultan Ahmed forbidding religious designs in carpets destined to unbeliever commissioners would not relate to them nor to lamp and arch as they are motifs shared with other cultures.

Along the 17th century the 'rosette' appears as an octagon with a leafy irregular frame, inscribed with a geometric layout, while architectural mihrabs persevered to depict them undisturbed.

Double niche Transylvanian carpet,  Anatolia 17th 2nd half, Sibiu, Hali photocredits

Double niche Transylvanian carpet with medallion, Anatolia, 17th 2nd half, Ambassador Berry collection

Single niche Transylvanian carpet, Anatolia 17th 1st half, Madrid Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan

In the meantime realistic floral spandrels do abound in Transylvanian carpets .

Niche Transylvanian carpet, 17th Anatolia, Sothebys photocredits

Niche Transylvanian carpet, 17th/18th, Hali archive

Iznik tile panel, Rustem Pasha mosque Istanbul

The astral discs heritage enjoyed a long karstic life in genuine Anatolian village rugs moving for the  loyalty to ancient traditions. The outer border of the carpet below is again a Seljuk design.

Anatolian niche carpet with re-entry, Sothebys photocredits via rugtracker.com

Torumtay mausoleum, 1271, Amasya

Bibliography
A. J. Lee, 'Islamic Star Patterns'. Muqarnas 4, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1987
Tony Lee & Ayman Soliman,  Geometric Rosette : analysis of an Islamic decorative motif, August/September, 2014
E. Whelan, The Origins of the Mihrab Mujawwaf: A Reinterpretation, Cambridge University Press 1986.
E. Baer, The Mihrab in the Cave of the Dome of the Rock, Muqarnas 1985
A. Fotheringham, A Warrior's Magic Shirt, V&A blog
O. Felek, Fears Hopes and Dreams: The Talismanic Shirts of Muhrad III, Brill 2017
S. Ionescu, Antque Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania 2006
R. Ettinghausen, The Early History, Use and Iconography of the Prayer Rug 1984
R. Kaffel, Unusually Anatolian, Hali Autumn 2008

The Crown Door of Keyqubad the Great

Niche rug, Central Anatolia 17th, Alaeddin mosque - Konya found, TIEM

An extraordinary rug with an extraordinary niche shape.
The carpet was found in the properties of the venerated old Alaeddin mosque in Konya. Expertly comments faintly mention the very long niche.

The eye should also point to the vault profile only superficially bizarre. It is hard not to detect the attempt of the weaver to render a difficult design. In fact, with the exception of the first fold on the right side, the drawing appears well mirrored in both sides as if actually an interpretation of a definite image.

The medieval Seljuk architecture in Konya curiously offers several examples of similarly drawn arches in crown doors, or portals, and mihrabs. The livery of the city's most important buildings is due to the most renowned of the Seljuk Sultans, Alaeddin Keyqubad I (r. 1220-1237). Although not an innovator he was a sensible interpret of his time and, specifically, architecture. A family affair indeed,  if also one of his wives, the Greek Mahperi Hatun, used her influence, wealth, and creative intelligence to commission an important series of monuments after the death of her husband.

Mahperi Hatun mosque, crown door, 1238, Kayseri

Keyqubad I the Great signed the  apogee of the Seljuk power and cultural influence in Anatolia leaving a momentous legacy of culture and architecture gracing tows and deserted plains. Apart from reconstructing towns and fortresses, he made built many mosques, medreses, caravanserais, bridges, and hospitals. Konya, Kayseri, Sivas, Alanya, Erzurum, Van, Ahlat bear his cultural marks . Besides completing the royal palace in Konya, he also erected the Kubadabad on the shore of Lake Beysehir and a winter palace in Kayseri.

A unique stylistic mark of this legacy appears in the crown doors, or portals, and mihrabs. The indented vault profile presents the alternating sections of the muqarnas decorating its carved surface. In the stone or stucco works the profile can follow the curved and angular sections giving a sense of nearly cluttered drawing from a distance, because of the variety of the muqarnas' vault shape. The tile mihrabs, otherwise, simplify the design using only a type of section, the angular, because mostly the muqarnas have not a curve vault themselves. Finally, the mihrabs render a stepped profile more or less sharp, the doors a lobed.

Dundar Bey medrese, 1238  Igidir lake

Seljuk medrese, Kayseri (winter station of Keyqubad I)

Sahip Ata mosque, tile mihrab, 1258-1283, Konya

Beyhekim mosque in Konya, mihrab, 1270, Museum of Islamic Art Berlin

One specific mark appears in the carpet design, the exceedingly tall vault and the relatively short sides.

Long vaults are not unusual though.

Esrefoglu mosque, Beyshehir 

The triangle connecting vault and side in the carpet appears in tune with the tile mihrab where a diamond functions as reduced capitel as well as the column pedestal is. But even stone crown doors present the same feature.

Beyhekim mosque detail

Agzikarahan caravanseray portal, Cappadocia

This styled niche enjoyed a long life during the Ottoman period.

In the 15th century

Hasbey-Darul-Huffazi mihrab, Konya, 1421

Ibrahim Bey Imaret in Karaman, 1432

In the 16th century

Suleymaniye mosque, Istanbul 1550-1557

Just a handful of decades separates these last examples from the carpet at issue.

Should be remembered also that Keyqubad's fame survived over the centuries: streets, squares, and important buildings were entitled to him.
Even deserted plains bear his landmark in the caravanserais he commissioned where again the vault drawing reverberates his name.

Sultan Keyqubad I han, Sultanhani Aksaray province

The fact that the carpet resided in the Konya mosque shows irresistible evidence of it being inspired by the Sultan's Crown Door type or mihrab.

This short overview of Anatolian Ottoman vaults suggests explaining other Anatolian Ottoman niche carpets dated to the 17th century.

Loosely inspired by the Keyqubad-type vault some niches in the 'Transylvanian family too. 

But there are some exemplars where the niche profile seems quite swaying echoing the celebrated mihrab in the Damascus Umayyad Mosque showing a geometric-like swaying to follow the cross section of the interior muqarnas work.

Detail of the Umayyad mosque mihrab in Damascus

Hali photocredits

Columns may be also hinted at.

Transylvanian plain niche carpet, Anatolia, 17th, Germanisches National Museum Nurember, S. Ionescu photocredits 

Strictly inspired by a diminished typical vault is this 'Transylvanian' stepped niche type

Stepped niche, Anatolian Ottoman carpet 17th

Cifte minareli medrese, detail of the crown door, Erzurum

Many are the epigones in the diverse provinces of Anatolia in the 18th and 19th centuries such as the reader can discover them at his leisure not neglecting the kilim area.

Niche kilim, Ghiordes, dated 1774, the Metropolitan Museum

One for all the renowned Ladik stepped niche carpets

Stepped niche carpet, Ladik - Konya region, circa 1800, Saint Louis Museum

Note
After the publication of this entry, I came across a note by Ralph Kaffel on the carpet at issue published in Hali, Autumn 2008 p. 87



Bibliography
Arık, R., Kubad Abad, Istanbul, 2000.
Aslanapa, O., Anadolu'da Türk çini ve Keramik Sanatı (Turkish Art of Tile and Pottery in Anatolia), Ankara, 1965.
Oral, Z., “Kubad Abad çinileri (Kubad Abad Tiles)”, Belleten, Vol. XVII, Issue: 66, Ankara, 1959, pp.209–22.
Önder, M., “Selçuklu Devri Kubad Abad Sarayı çini Süslemeleri (The Seljuq Period Tile Decoration of Kubad Abad Palace)”, Türkiyemiz6 (1972), pp.15-18.
Öney, G., Turkish Tile Art, Istanbul, 1976.
Roxburgh, D. J. (ed), Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600–1600, London, 2005

Saljuq_buildings_-the_introduction_of_an_Iranian_decorative_technique_into_the_architecture_of_Anatolia, McClary 2013

S. Ionescu, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania, 2006

Shared Language

This entry sources from a facebook post where I've been requested to expand upon a comment I made.
The post regards a specific and rather unique pattern in an Anatolian kilim owned by a Turkish kilim collector. The related picture is accompanied by a similar kilim on sale in an Internet renowned site for textiles. Below the two.

North eastern Anatolian kilim, 19th, private collection

North eastern Anatolian kilim, 19th

Here I refer the valuable opinion of the kilim expert Michael Bischof on the attribution of this item:
" There are two suspects for the provenance: the area north of Sebinkarahisar towards Ordu (Avsar something...) or NE Anatolia, but not Erzurum, the region around Kagızman. - A Turkoman adaption of a non-tribal design".

The only part on which I feel to be apt to judge and agree with, because of enexperience of so sharp geographical and ethnographic questions, is the non-tribal nature of this pattern. Turkoman tribes are widely scattered all over the Anatolian territory, not all of them leading a full nomadic life, but rather, clinging more or less to their traditions.

Generically,  semi nomadic tribes can be said more often than not to have come in contact with urban settings, that is market, mosque and caravanserai.

Eberardt Herrmann owned one such type of kilim and parallelled its design to the typical Turkoman Chodor gul pattern. Below two exemplars.

photo credits Hali Autumn 1982

Chodor main carpet, early 19th, Central Asia, published Wie Blumen in der Wuste 1993

Chodor main carpet fragment, Central Asia, Hoffmeister collection, photo courtesy tcoletribalrugs.com

Yet, the idea of finding a closer reference brought to mind a unique Ottoman Anatolian fragment of a village kilim likely inspired to Ottoman court/urban design.

Ottoman Anatolian kilim fragment, late 17th, western Anatolia, from Rupea formerly Transylvania, published Ionescu 2006

Definitely, there is a commonality of pattern between the Central Asian Chodor design and the Anatolian kilim staggered motif. Details may vary, namely the medallion shape, its appendages, the inscribed decoration.

The shape of the medallion may change from elongate to flattened form, the profile from lobed to stepped.

And in fact, an earlier pattern may be submitted to find a connection between the Ottoman court designs, the Anatolian kilim and the Central Asian Chodor format. Such pattern belongs with the Timurid art developed during the late 14th throughout the 15th century. It originated at the court of Tamerlane in Samarkanda, Central Asia, and spread to all the cultured world of the period. The artistic language elaborated by the main karkhaneh (royal laboratories) took advantage from the best artists and artisans recruited by Timur and his descendants from all the vast conquered empire creating a real International Style to be adopted and adapted by various courts in a strenuous challenge for artistic primacy (Timur: The Princely Vision).

One specific Timurid exemplar, probably woven in Greater Iran, seems a fitting source for the Chodor design.

Timurid damask (khema), 15th, Greater Iran, LACMA

As to the stepped profile, like the one in the kilim, it may be a final stage of a geometrical rendition of the lobed shape. Otherwise, a different model may be submitted for the Anatolian, although admittedly farther.
The ragged florons encrusted with elegant Karamemi silhouettes woven in urban laboratories diffused also in period embroideries and kilims with a sort of stylised profile.

Ottoman silk and metal thread velvet panel, 17th

Ottoman silk on linen embroidery, 17th, the McCoy Jones collection

Ottoman kilim, 16th-17th, the Vakiflar Museum Istanbul

Florons and medallions can easily superimpose to one another in a distant weaving mind.

As to appendages, the upper and lower medallion apex may or may not be graced by a sprouting device. In the urban context it usually adheres to the typical medallion finial, a trilobite form variously called lotus flower, palmette, bud  In villagy weavings it roughly resembles two ram's horns or an arrow-head.

The stunning detail of the Foy-Casper 'Karapinar' carpet well illustrates this original design.

The Foy-Casper 'Karapinar' carpet, 16th, Zaleski Collection

This carpet held in the Vakiflar shows the arrow-head attached to a hooked octagon.

Anatolian carpet, 16th-17th, Vakiflar Museum Istanbul

The bud type is, instead,  typically seen in the diverse Holbein patterns punctuating the exterior medallion profile like in this early exemplar.

Small Pattern Holbein carpet, fragment, 15th-16th, West Anatalia, Mevlana Konya Ethnographic Museum, photocredits azerbaijanrugs.com

Not strange if in successive simplifications the bud lost the central gem, two leaflets its reduction. What more similar to the two horns of the ram, a mythical animal not only for the Turkic stock but for many ancient mythologies in the Near East and Asia? This unique Karaman carpet seemingly verifies the appropriation.

Medallion carpet, Karaman, 17th-18th, TIEM Museum Istanbul

As to the inscribed decoration of the kilim at issue, some parallels leads to suggest the parallel with  the courtly Karamemi Four-Flowers Style.

Developed at the Istanbul royal nakkashaneh (laboratory), it was inspired to a realistic and elegant floral iconography to which also Italian Renaissance style contributed. Let us recall the tight relations 15th century Ottoman polities had with Venice and other Italian centres. Giovanni Bellini was hosted for a while at the Osmali court.

Karamemi painted folio with the Four Flowers  style, mid 16th, Top Kapi.

Although the Karamemi Style was soon mixed with another popular style of the period, the Saz Style, the typical four flowers are often well recognisable: carnation, hyacinth, tulip and rose.
These flowers appear in court silk velvets, urban and provincial embroideries and carpets.

The Cairene-Ottoman prayer rug fragment in the Cleveland Museum shows a mixed use of Saz and Karamemi Style in the border ornamentation.

The Cleveland Cairene-Ottoman fragment, II half 16th

Whereas court patterns inspired a large family of Anatolian carpets, the so called Transylvanian, only some of them display the Karamemi lyric. Below carnation, hyacinth and rosette dramatically contribute to the central floron/medallion in the actual court tradition

Double niche carpet, western Anatolia 17th, Moshe Tabibnia photocredits

Karamemi flowers were in a certain favour in Central Anatolia, namely in the so called 'Karapinar' family. Otherwise, in greater part of  Ottoman Anatolian carpets the medallion is inscribed with an  quadripartite device sourcing from a 15th/16th  closed palmette arabesque, the centre governed by a four directional motif.

A 'Karapinar' 17th century pattern displays a type of decoration not so far from the one in the kilim at issue. The pomegranate shows as a delicious addition.

'Karapinar' fragmented carpet, 16th/17th, Vakiflar Museum Istanbul

'Karapinar' carpet, 17th, the Wher Collection

Curiously enough, a Baluch carpet surfaced in the meantime with a very similar pattern. It appears to have a multiracial genetics. The four appendages recall Turkmen guls, the staggered medallion pattern echoes the Anatolian/Central Asian format, the ragged profile the kilim version of an Ottoman florons., a floral decoration points to a  universal feature. All these characteristics are in the author's eye, obviously.
Is it by chance that they appear in a Baluch rug, as the Baluch formats are famed for a most inclusive nature, hosting designs from nearly all the provenaces in the Rug Belt?
So the question arises, is there hidden a shared language?
Without entering the useless technical distinctions between pure linguistics and a visual 'language', there seem to exist two expressive tools in this pattern: a medallion and a format. Single details typify it: the profile course, the appendage form, the inscribed decoration. In the three cases (Anatolian kilim, Chodor carpet and Baluch) said details create as many unique types.
How design and details are composed in the space and how they relate with one another evokes the syntactical mode of a language; both have the same goal to express content. No syntax no meaning. Design and colour the way of carpets.

Baluch medallion carpet, 19th, Bell collection