.     Adam and David

                           

                         

  Tekke Turkmen Engsi or

Door Rug from Central Asia

      Circa 1860-1880

The presence of the natural insect dye Cochineal is an important indicatior when dating Turkmen carpets. The presence of a corrosive Cochineal dye (Cochineal I, Whiting, from the T.M's "Turkmen") indicates an earlier date, while the presence of "hard" or non corrosive Cochineal dyed wool, indicates a mid 19th century or later date. The Cochineal in this engsi is used as a special material, limited to highlighting in the cross bar and some of the adjacent Ashik devices.

Tekke Turkmen Engsi

Ivory Wool Warps

Natural Brown Wool Wefts

45" x 64"

h. 9 Kpsi, v. 15 Kpi = 135 Kpi, Assym Right

9 Colors

Orange Red

Ivory

Navy

Natural Brown

Mid blue

MidGreen

Dk Blue/Green

Peach

Cochineal Magenta

While there is both a strong similarity to(scroll near end of page)and a history of their being regarded as prayer rugs, the Turkmen Engsi is at present concensus a yurt "door" rug or curtain,which was most probably used during special occasions or displayed inside the yurt as a votive.

The Turkmen made large numbers of these engsi, and especially the Tekke Turkmen, of which the engsi above is an example. That so many examples exist render it relatively easy to date tekke engsi, and the lack of synthetic dyes ( per R. Pinner in "The Rickmers Collection") dates this example to before 1880.

Upper end - traditional flat weave folded over and stitched closed

Side finishes - Overcast in Navy, all but about 12" from the upper right missing

Lower end - missing 

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