This review first ran on Green Man Review.
Although I have reviewed quite a few books in which carpets from the Middle or Far East figured prominently, Oriental Carpets: A Complete Guide is the first I’ve read or reviewed that focuses on the carpets. And I really did read it, if not word for word, then at least page for page. That was quite an accomplishment. It’s a huge volume, nine and a half inches wide by twelve and a half inches high, with 350+ pages printed on heavy, glossy stock. It’s heavy enough that I had to hold it on my lap or put it on the dining room table while I turned the pages. I don’t think it’s the kind of book you’d want to carry around in your backpack!
This is actually the fourth edition of this book. The senior author saw the first edition published ‘way back in 1973 as a culmination of several years of research, including his initial round of field trips to the countries where the carpets are made and sold. This suggests that he has been cultivating his interest and expertise in this fascinating and complex topic for decades! According to the brief biosketch on the back flyleaf, Murray L. Eiland, Jr. is a practicing psychiatrist who has authored, co-authored, or edited numerous books on Oriental carpets. I wonder if he ever sleeps!
Eiland’s co-author on this edition is his son, who was evidently excited enough by his father’s avocation to pursue it more directly himself. The son has a doctorate in Near Eastern archaeology with special knowledge of textile structures and technologies. The team seems to have made excellent use of their collaboration. The narrative reads smoothly, with each author’s narrative voice occasionally emerging to share a particular insight or opinion. It’s not often that a book of this sort is not just well-written, but really engaging!
The organization of Oriental Carpets makes it especially useful as a reference work. The Eilands provide a nice early history chapter that offers what evidence is available on the origins of both the carpets and some of the design motifs. The following chapters on construction, dyes and design provide considerable detail on these technical aspects of the carpets. These chapters feature photographs of a few carpets, but also include photographs of people working at looms and of the weaving tools themselves, as well as numerous line drawings depicting the various weaves and knotting techniques. While this information is likely to be most useful to a dealer or collector, I found it interesting from a cultural viewpoint and as someone who has done a fair bit of grid-based needlework (e.g., needlepoint, cross-stitch, and latch-hook rug-making).
Following these opening chapters, the rest of the book is organized by geographic region, with extensive chapters devoted to Persia, Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and shorter chapters focused on India and Pakistan, China, Eastern Turkestan (actually China’s Xinjiang Province), Tibet, North Africa and the Balkans. All of the chapters open with attractive colored maps of their respective regions, which prove helpful as the Eilands often refer to specific villages that are known for distinctive patterns or techniques. The longer chapters includes both narrative about the land, the people and their history, as well as discussions about the carpets, taking into account the construction, dyeing and design attributes, which are typically illustrated with color plates of exemplary carpets. As one would expect from a work of scholarship, which this surely is, the book includes detailed endnotes, a magnificent bibliography (although one suspects that many of their references would be very hard to find on the market) and a fine and useful index. The carpet photos have captions that typically tell the origin, the size, the material and the design significance of the piece portrayed. Photo credits are listed on the last page of the book.
I learned from my earlier readings about carpets that a kilim is a carpet that has no pile finish and that a gul is a motif (the word ‘gul’ means ‘flower’ in Persian). From reading this book, I learned that the designs of Persian carpets are VERY different from those of Turkish carpets, that a prayer rug, or mihrab, can be identified by a design that has a directional orientation, that a lot of carpet makers since the early nineteenth century have modified their designs to accommodate Western tastes, and that some of the regions, especially those in Central Asia, are as likely to apply their efforts to making bags and saddle blankets as actual carpets. Since these were nomadic people, that makes a certain amount of sense. I also noted some interesting similarities between the designs of some of the Central Asian and Caucasian tribes and those of the American Southwest Indians. I would not venture to conclude some common origin from this-more likely these similarities reflect the design limitations imposed by grids of a certain size. It’s interesting to note that the Persian rugs with their elaborate medallions, florals and arabesques are typically of a much finer weave that provides correspondingly greater design flexibility.
Not to carry this family saga too far, but a Google search of their last name with the word ‘carpets’ also brings up Emmett Eiland’s Oriental Rug Company, which offers the user an opportunity to create a custom Oriental rug gallery (on-line, of course). The prices on Emmett’s carpets were a reminder to me that I am not likely to become a collector of such items in this lifetime. But I can still enjoy and appreciate them. The next time I walk buy a shop that specializes in Oriental carpets (there’s one on Congress Street in Portsmouth, NH), I think I will walk in and look around!
By the way, the suggested retail price on this magnificent reference is $75, well worth every penny, and a lot less expensive than the carpets. It is, of course, available on-line for considerably less. And you get free shipping, which on a book this large and heavy is nothing to sniff at!
(Bulfinch Press, 1998)
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