6'5" X 3' Ersari Fragment [SH-374]

This piece is an early, important Turkmen Ersari tribal main carpet fragment. When originally woven in the Middle Amu Darya, its field design would have shown 2–3 gols horizontally and 6 vertically. The fragment here shows almost four vertical.

To gauge how majestic the carpet was when woven, the bottom-right corner reveals a glowing coppery-red shade of madder indigo blue/green. It has simple, early border stripes and partial original Kilim ends that are blue striped.

Among the Ersari main carpets, woven with the Omurga/Temerchin Gol for study, two field motifs not previously published are found. Within the octagonal Gol, five tribal motifs are previously described in the literature as a rib cage or pine cone motif. Here, we clearly see a paired bird-head/dragon tree. Depending on the dye's color variation, a second large head appears with a hooked tongue. Published examples depicted these motifs in each segment of the gol, and here we see five with the center being filled. 

The second are large curvaceous star-filled diamond-shaped secondary guls with the four corners terminating into arrowhead pendants, the centers are star-filled with tiny checkered squares. The tiny box sprouts along the concave sides of the secondary gul as a plant form? Between the secondary pendants, a tertiary of four large ivory tips forms a cluster. No analogies are known. A true tribal gem that gives a glimpse into the distant past of the Ersari. The tribal motifs that held meaning to the Ersari, which their people understood, and we strive to understand today.