CARPET DOCTORS

Text and photography: Akgün Akova

In Sultanhani, a district of Aksaray in central Anatolia, every morning thousands of young men pick up their bikes from the basements or from behind the doors where they keep them at night and start on their daily journey.

In ten or fifteen minutes the pedals stop turning in front of the carpet repair shops. These masters get off their bikes and start "healing" the wounds of the carpets from where they left off the day before. Once again they scrutinise the coloured threads.

Every day this is how people start work in Sultanhani trying to repair thousands of carpets; half burnt carpets, carpets which suffered damage from the water that dripped from flower pots placed on them, carpets which have become threadbare from over use, and carpets where one corner is torn off.
While they continue to work, more newly wounded and sick carpets from all over the world are brought to town. Most of these are specially packaged and sent from abroad.
Some come from famous museums, others from the hall of a majestic Middle Age Castle, and still others from the warehouses of prominent carpet dealers. World famous interior designers, carpet merchants and collectors have no scruples in trusting their most valuable and antique carpets into the hands of carpet repairers of Sultanhani. They know for a fact that once these carpet doctors have treated their precious carpets that make up the best of the carpets in carpet history, the carpets that have been sent to Sultanhani will start life from fresh. The carpet repairers of Sultanhani came to fame at the early 90's, however, the town itself since it was situated on the Silk Route was known as a link in cultural and commercial history of Anatolia. The stateliest caravanserai of all Sultanhani has succeeded to survive on one end of the line of caravanserais from Agzikarahan-Tepsidelik Han and Akhan. The inn from which the town takes its name was built by the Seljuk sultan Alaettin Keykubat I in 1229. One morning after much rain, whilst trying hard to adapt my gaze to the sunlight that reflected from the portal of the inn suddenly the hands of the masons who erected this fantastic monument came to my mind.

Forbearing fingers...
Their skilful hands are long gone but the portal that the architect Muhammed Bin-Havlan-e Dimeski measured and calculated with his assistants and created was right in front of me. And it said, "Enter! Where you enter is a place beyond and above a simple door." When I left the inn and was strolling through the back quarters of the city full of sun-dried brick houses, the sentence kept repeating itself in my head, "Enter! What you shall see is more than just a gate!" So, I found myself in the quarter where the carpet repair shops were. I greeted the people who were sitting next to carpets that carried motifs of thousands of years of Anatolian history, and they greeted me. Days later, as I was leaving and bidding farewell to the town, I stopped once again by the portal of Sultanhani. It was at that moment' that I realised the hands that created the form of this splendid portal in fact gave it the form of a carpet. Science and art were united in this effort... An immense patience was involved.
A master who has been repairing carpets for the past 15 years says: "Patience is necessary not only when you weave but also when you repair a carpet." Then he goes on to explain, "The worn-out parts of the carpets and the kilims are repaired by old or new threads, depending on the age of the carpet. Closer attention is given to old carpets that have rare colour combinations and motifs.
These carpets should be treated gently. The aim of this process is to repair the carpet so that the new section should look just like the rest of the carpet. That is why we use unravelled strings to repair antique carpets. This material is obtained from carpets that are too ruined to be used by unravelling their strings which are dyed with natural root dyes. This kind of repair lasts longer; in fact, we could call it some kind of "transplantation." A kilim which is about to die or go into extinction gives new life to a silk carpet by its threads.

The first step is to wash the carpet gently and get rid of any dust it may have accumulated. The washing process is most important. That is how the quality of the original colours becomes apparent. A successful repair must show a 90 % colour match.
At times a small area is chosen to test if colour choice will work in this repair. Once the right choice of threads is found, the carpet is stretched on the wooden loom and is framed. The warps and the wefts that have been detached in the area that is spoiled are fitted to needles to mat and thus a new main body for the carpet is created.

To match the colours...
If the carpet is thin and the part that is to be repaired is large, the repairing may take weeks. Then, the detached knots are fitted into the model by forming a pile with crochet needles.
Now it is time for the final adjustments and revisions. The pile in the repaired area is going to be cut to a uniform height with scissors and then wet cloth will be spread over it and it will be ironed. Attention! All is not yet finished! There will be a final wash given to the carpet using soft brushes and light shampoos so that the new woo used in repair will match the original wool elsewhere in the carpet"

This is the photo of the sick carpet after it recovered, with a smile on its face. It took a long period of effort and dedicated work before this picture was taken. The carpet was dried and wrapped up to reach its owner wherever that person may be in this wide world. In the meantime the fingers of carpet doctors are already feeling on another newly arrived carpet.

Carpets waiting in line....
In Sultanhani there are more than 150 workshops and more than 2000 workers and masters work in them. In the Turkish language, the proverb goes, "One that has swallowed carpet dust cannot give up on this profession." The "carpet doctors" go through a long period of apprenticeship. A respectable master gains this title in 6 to 10 year's time. In Anatolia, in general it is women who weave the carpet but those who repair them are all men. The reason is simple.
Young girls who weave carpets when they reach a certain age get married and have children and consequently stop practising their profession. I must note that to qualify as a master the person must devote him for a long and uninterrupted period of time. The higher in the ranks as a master carpet weaver the more valuable carpets will come by his way to repair.
The firms that deal with carpet repairing use not only traditional methods but also contemporary technology. At the internet they give their customers on the screen how to go about solving the problems of their carpets. They give life to carpets from Usak to Bunyan, thus giving life to all carpets all over Anatolia. They are also excellent in repairing carpets from as far as Iran, Caucasus, China and India. "Carpet doctors" do not come from Sultanhisar only. There are very many masters who are among high ranking carpet repairers in Istanbul, Izmir, and Konya. 1990's with the collapse of the Soviet Union many old carpets from the Caucasus' and the Turkic Republics were offered to the world markets through Istanbul. Among them the "wounded" carpets ended in Sultanhisar.

If you yourself end up in Sultanhisar one day do not be surprised if you meet a carpet collecter from Amsterdam of a carpet dealer from London. One evening you may be admiring the portal of Sultanhani and then you will see cyclists passing by. They are the "carpet doctors" who are finished for the day and are going home. At night time they will dream of a Seljuk door motif, half of which is still intact on the Anatolian carpet it is embroidered on. They will hear a whisper from within "Enter! What is waiting for you is more than a mere carpet!"