SELJUK CARPETS

The art of carpet making was brought to Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks, and was furthest developed in the thirteenth century in the cities of Konya, Kayseri and Sivas. Well known expert on carpets the German Art Historian Prof. Kurt Erdmann claims that the first knotted carpets were woven during the Seljuk period in Konya. The Seijuk Turks came to Anatolia, founded cities in which they constructed mosques, palaces and mansions, and furnished these buildings with colorful carpets woven by Turkish craftsmen in Anatolia. The Oguz clans of Anatolia, who mainly lived a nomadic life, wove kilims and furnished their tents with them, but they also valued the carpets made in the cities.

Travelers of the thirteenth century said that the carpets produced in Anatolia were the most beautiful in the world, and that they were exported to other countries. Marco Polo and his uncle who traveled to China in 1271 - 1272 said that the carpets made in the larger cities of the Seljuk States were the most beautiful in the world. And they must have been beautiful to impress a traveler who had seen every country from Europe to China. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Ibni Batuta travelled to Anatolia and recorded that carpets were being exported to several Islamic countries.

Only a few examples of these early Seljuk carpets and kilims have survived up to the present day. There are eight in the Istanbul Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, three in the Tomb of Mevlana in Konya and seven in the Stockholm National Museum. Of these eighteen carpets three of them are complete and of the others only pieces remain.

Those in the Istanbul Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art were taken from the Aladdin Mosque in Konya in 1914. The Seljuk Sultan Aladdin Keykubad I had this mosque built in 1221, and the sultans which followed him filled it with lamps, candlesticks, and lecterns and had carpets woven especially for this mosque. In the 750 years which have passed since then these carpets have been worn out and thrown away leaving only three complete and five in pieces.

Those in Konya Mevlana Museum were brought from the Beysehir Esrefoglu Mosque in 1930. Seyfeddin Suleyman Bey who founded the Esrefoglu Beylik in 1297 had a mosque built in his name in Beysehir and filled it with carpets. Only pieces of them remain.

The Seljuk carpets in the Stockholm National Museum were taken from Cairo in 1936, and have been established by experts as examples of those which were exported from Anatolia.

The motifs of Seljuk carpets were usually geometrical, among the most common patterns being crossing lines, symmetric hooks, and eight pointed stars. Some of the carpets are decorated with Cufic writing around the borders. Some of them have stylized flower motifs. They were made with thick, hard thread and Gordes knots. The colors, obtained from vegetable dyes, are attractive and eye-catching.

The Seljuk carpets in the Istanbul Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art and in the Konya Mevlana Museum are famous as the most valuable carpets in the world. On one occasion it was requested that some of these Seljuk carpets be exhibited abroad. To send them required that they be insured, but their value could not be estimated and the idea of putting a symbolic price on them had certain drawbacks. In the end it was decided not to send them.

The Ottoman art of carpet making followed on from that of the Seljuks, creating a 700 year old traditional art of carpet weaving in Turkey. After the Seljuks the Anatolian cities of Gordes, Kula, Ladik, Sivas, Kayseri and Kirsehir became famous centers of carpet making. For the Ottoman palaces carpets were woven from silk.

The first knotted carpet was woven in Anatolia during the Seljuk period, and the art developed here. These masterpieces made by Turkish craftsmen are displayed in museums all over the world.