Iranian Bags, Covers and Bands as Woven and Used in the Nomad Context Lecture by Raoul Tschebull March 25, 2007 Some pictures click on the thumbnail for the full picture. Iranian Bags, Covers and Bands as Woven and Used in the Nomad Context Raoul Tschebull If you consider that rug studies lie along a continuum running from pure art appreciation to an anthropological approach, Raoul Tschebull is at the right-hand end, interested in the whys and the hows of textile construction. He has concluded that Iranian nomads wove almost exclusively flatweaves for their own use, while making pile weavings primarily for sale (See the current HALI for some sober substantiation of this view.) Mr. Tschebull will show digital images of nomad life in Iran, plus examples of the warp and weft-faced textiles they used. He will also present examples of some pile bags and bagfaces, which may have been woven for laying away as capital, for sale to European travelers, or for outright sale. Mr. Tschebull has a special interest in village and nomad weavings of western Iran and the Transcaucasus, which has taken him to Iran and the Caucasus to speak at conferences and to do field research. He has authored articles on Sarab and Heriz weaving in East Azerbaijan and travel in rural Iran for Hali, and is perhaps best known for his seminal 1971 exhibition catalog "Kazak: Carpets of the Caucasus". Most recently, he curated an on-line exhibition of transport and storage bags for the New England Rug Society, viewable at http://www.ne-rugsociety.org/gallery/bags/index.htm, and gave a version of this talk at the Common Ground Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August, 2006, during the Festival of the Arts. return to home page