Clay Stewart Collection of Türkmen Textiles

10 x 15 = 150 asymmetrical kpsi, pulled open to the left, leaving a width/height ratio of 1:1.5, resulting in a medium handle. Asymmetrical knot warps are even when viewed from the back. Mixed wefting with a nearly invisible single weft shoot of un-dyed blonde wool throughout the field seen from the back. The top 4 inches shows two shoots of the same wool with one sinuous, and one straight, also with occasional use of dark blue silk. All wool foundation and knots. This could have been a tor:ba sized bag originally but no backing now remains. I believe these were never used as bags. It is extremely rare to see a pair of Ak Suw to:rbas like these in perfect condition. The top and bottom flat woven ends of plain blonde wool wefting are folded over and sewn under.

Ceremonial animal trapping, tent decoration. Apotropaic. Unknown.

The Ak Suw motif, where the white area is a reverse negative of the red and blue Ak Suw tor:ba gül and this detail is what is said to resemble a Chinese cloud band motif. The central field is composed of a repeating diagonal ak suw gül in a lattice of gochanak orbs with gurbaghe features. The top end has a single minor gyak horizontal border to collect and channel star energy. The main field shows a repeated diamond pattern border called khamtoz, flanked on either side by ala ja stripes. There is town in Chinese Turkestan called Ak Suw and it is the possible origin of the name. There is a bridge in the town where water flowing underneath it produces turgid white water, therefore ak suw or ‘white water’, in the Türkmen language. Very little is known about the meaning of the Ak Suw primary güls in these pieces. A white background indicates a new house or wedding, and is of sacred special significance. S. Azadi attributes the Eagle Gül Group -1 tor:bas to the Imreli. Others, to the Gökleng. As of this writing no one really knows which tribe wove these tor:bas however, it seems a priori that they were woven by a tribe close to the Caspian southeast corridor and were most certainly woven by a Yomūt group from that area. The work of attributing these Eagle pieces to a Caspian Turkpoman weaver remains to be done but I believe it will happen soon. Still the true meanings of these designs are lost forever in the sands of the great Gara Gum desert.

The northern Persian Steppe (Turkoman Sahra) is located on the southeast coastal corridor of the Caspian Sea, in the Gurgan Valley, the ancient Yomūt quartering grounds of the 19th century Jafarbai and Atabai Yomūt Turkoman. (Note: The Ak Suw gül is woven by many of the Türkmen tribes as well as non-Türkmen, Turkomanized groups of the Persian Steppe including the Göklēng, Imreli, Ýomut Türkmen and the Saryk Türkmen.