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Soumak
Soumak (also spelled Soumakh, Sumak, Sumac, or Soumac) is a tapestry technique of weaving sturdy, decorative fabrics used for rugs, domestic bags and bedding, with soumak fabrics used for bedding known as soumak mafrash. Soumak is a type of flat weave, somewhat resembling kilim, but with a stronger and thicker weave, a smooth front face and a ragged back, where kilim is smooth on both sides. Soumak lacks the slits characteristic of kilim, as it is usually woven with supplementary weft threads as continuous supports. The technique involves wrapping coloured weft threads over and under the warp threads, adding strength and embroidery-like pattern. Etymology The name 'soumak' may plausibly derive from the old town of in Azerbaijan, once a major trading centre in the Eastern Caucasus. Other theories include an etymology from Turkish , 'to skip up and down', meaning the process of weaving; or from any of about 35 species of flowering plant in the Anacardiaceae or sumac family, such ...
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Soumak Weave
Soumak (also spelled Soumakh, Sumak, Sumac, or Soumac) is a tapestry technique of weaving sturdy, decorative fabrics used for rugs, domestic bags and bedding, with soumak fabrics used for bedding known as soumak mafrash. Soumak is a type of flat weave, somewhat resembling kilim, but with a stronger and thicker weave, a smooth front face and a ragged back, where kilim is smooth on both sides. Soumak lacks the slits characteristic of kilim, as it is usually woven with supplementary weft threads as continuous supports. The technique involves wrapping coloured weft threads over and under the warp threads, adding strength and embroidery-like pattern. Etymology The name 'soumak' may plausibly derive from the old town of in Azerbaijan, once a major trading centre in the Eastern Caucasus. Other theories include an etymology from Turkish , 'to skip up and down', meaning the process of weaving; or from any of about 35 species of flowering plant in the Anacardiaceae or sumac family, such ...
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Oriental Rug
An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in " Oriental countries" for home use, local sale, and export. Oriental carpets can be pile woven or flat woven without pile, using various materials such as silk, wool, and cotton. Examples range in size from pillows to large, room-sized carpets, and include carrier bags, floor coverings, decorations for animals, Islamic prayer rugs ('Jai'namaz'), Jewish Torah ark covers (''parochet''), and Christian altar covers. Since the High Middle Ages, oriental rugs have been an integral part of their cultures of origin, as well as of the European and, later on, the North American culture. Geographically, oriental rugs are made in an area referred to as the “Rug Belt”, which stretches from Morocco across North Africa, the Middle East, and into Central Asia and northern India. It includes countries such as northern China, Tibet, Turkey, Iran, the Maghreb in the west, the Cauc ...
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Kilim Motifs
Many motifs are used in traditional kilims, handmade flat-woven rugs, each with many variations. In Turkish Anatolia in particular, village women wove themes significant for their lives into their rugs, whether before marriage or during married life. Some motifs represent desires, such as for happiness and children; others, for protection against threats such as wolves (''to the flocks'') and scorpions, or against the evil eye. These motifs were often combined when woven into patterns on kilims. With the fading of tribal and village cultures in the 20th century, the meanings of kilim patterns have also faded. In these tribal societies, women wove kilims at different stages of their lives, choosing themes appropriate to their own circumstances. Some of the motifs used are widespread across Anatolia and sometimes across other regions of West Asia, but patterns vary between tribes and villages, and rugs often expressed personal and social meaning. Context A Turkish kilim is ...
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Carpet
A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester have often been used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term ''carpet'' is often used in a similar context to the term ''rug'', but rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor. Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including insulating a person's feet from a cold tile or concrete floor, making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor (e.g., when playing with children or as a prayer rug), reducing sound from walking (particularly in apartment buildings), and adding decoration or color to a room. Carpets can be made in any color by using differently dyed fibers ...
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Sumac
Sumac ( or ), also spelled sumach, is any of about 35 species of flowering plants in the genus ''Rhus'' and related genera in the cashew family (Anacardiaceae). Sumacs grow in subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world, including East Asia, Africa, and North America. Sumac is used as a spice, as a dye, and in medicine. Description Sumacs are dioecious shrubs and small trees in the family Anacardiaceae that can reach a height of . The leaves are usually pinnately compound, though some species have trifoliate or simple leaves. The flowers are in dense panicles or spikes long, each flower very small, greenish, creamy white or red, with five petals. The fruits are reddish, thin-fleshed drupes covered in varying levels of hairs at maturity and form dense clusters at branch tips, sometimes called sumac bobs. Sumacs propagate both by seed ( spread by birds and other animals through their droppings), and by new shoots from rhizomes, forming large clonal colonies. Taxono ...
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Pack Animal
A pack animal, also known as a sumpter animal or beast of burden, is an individual or type of working animal used by humans as means of transporting materials by attaching them so their weight bears on the animal's back, in contrast to draft animals which pull loads but do not carry them. Traditional pack animals are diverse including camels, goats, yaks, reindeer, water buffaloes, and llamas as well as the more familiar pack animals like dogs, horses, donkeys, and mules. Nomenclature The term ''pack animal'' is traditionally used in contrast to ''draft animal'', which is a working animal that typically pulls a load behind itself (such as a plow, a cart, a sled or a heavy log) rather than carrying cargo directly on its back. For instance, sled dogs pull loads but do not normally carry them, while working elephants have been used for centuries to haul logs out of forests. The term ''pack animal'' can also refer to animals which naturally live and hunt in packs in the wild ...
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Saddle Bag
Saddlebags are bags that are attached to saddles. Horse riding In horse riding, saddlebags sit in various positions, on the back, side, or front of the saddle. Most attach to the saddle by straps and ties. They can be made from various materials. Although leather was the traditional material, it is heavier and requires more maintenance than many modern versions. There are several types: Pommel bags (which sit in front of the saddle), traditional paired saddlebags (which lie on the hips of the horse, on either side of the cantle), and assorted smaller bags such as a cantle bag (a small tube-like bag that sits just behind the saddle), or a single small saddle bag that may be carried on the off-side (right hand side) of an English saddle. Pack animal Pannier-style bags are sometimes fitted over a pack saddle used for packing gear on a horse or other pack animal (often, a mule or donkey) rather than for carrying a rider. In Turkish Anatolia, Iran and Baluchistan, saddlebags are t ...
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Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically been considered as a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Mount Elbrus in Russia, Europe's highest mountain, is situated in the Western Caucasus. On the southern side, the Lesser Caucasus includes the Javakheti Plateau and the Armenian highlands, part of which is in Turkey. The Caucasus is divided into the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, although the Western Caucasus also exists as a distinct geographic space within the North Caucasus. The Greater Caucasus mountain range in the north is mostly shared by Russia and Georgia as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan. The Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south is occupied by several independent states, mostly by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, but ...
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Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the List of countries and dependencies by area, 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an List of ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Iranian ...
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Shirvan
Shirvan (from fa, شروان, translit=Shirvān; az, Şirvan; Tat: ''Şirvan''), also spelled as Sharvān, Shirwan, Shervan, Sherwan and Šervān, is a historical Iranian region in the eastern Caucasus, known by this name in both pre-Islamic Sasanian and Islamic times. Today, the region is an industrially and agriculturally developed part of the Azerbaijan Republic that stretches between the western shores of the Caspian Sea and the Kura River, centered on the Shirvan Plain. History Etymology Vladimir Minorsky believes that names such as Sharvān (Shirwān), Lāyzān and Baylaqān are Iranian names from the Iranian languages of the coast of the Caspian Sea. There are several explanations about this name: * Shirvan or Sharvan are changed forms of the word "Shahrbān" ( fa, شهربان, links=no) which means "the governor". The word "Shahrban" has been used since Achaemenian Dynasty as "Xshathrapawn" (satrap) to refer to different states of the kingdom. * Shervan in Pe ...
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Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Turkish Straits to the northwest, the Black Sea to the north, the Armenian Highlands to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean seas through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the Balkan peninsula of Southeast Europe. The eastern border of Anatolia has been held to be a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea, bounded by the Armenian Highlands to the east and Mesopotamia to the southeast. By this definition Anatolia comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. Today, Anatolia is sometimes considered to be synonymous w ...
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