Apricot Scented Carpets

In Malatya where fruit trees pop out of all ranges

and yards, the shadow of flowering

apricot trees fall upon carpet-weaving looms.

Until they came down to Malatya, apricot trees had already settled their roots in many places. They grew in Turkistan, the Middle East, Western China, and then following the Silk Road, travelled down to Iran and Anatolia along with the carpets, fabrics, and jewels. Not stopping here, they reached farther over to Europe and Africa, too. But the apricot left the best, the most tasteful and the most delicious specimens of its fruits in the lands of Malatya. The combination of water, earth and humidity in this place was so fertile that apricot trees always grew taller and lived longer here. In time, fifty percent of the demand for apricots in the whole country came to be supplied by the Malatya region. There is no telling if Evliya Çelebi, the famous traveling narrator who passed through Malatya in 1655, had any apricot flowers drying between the pages of Seyahatname -his book consisting of his written accounts of history-, but he had certainly taken a note in there about everyone in Malatya possessing some apricot orchard in their yards.

Spring comes to Malatya with apricot flowers blooming out of practically everywhere. They are watered and medicated freely to avoid spotting. The fruits ripen when the season gets warmer. Some of them turn yellow all the way while others have pink shades prevailing over the yellow. Some are placed fresh on dining tables and others await to be dried for prolonged storage. They find their way into folk songs on a lover’s tongue who sings of his beloved as “apricot scented”, and into a carpet loom as a motif made of wool. Festivals are held in their name where folk dances are performed accompanied by bands consisting of drums, zurna pipes, flageolets, lutes. Clarinet tunes resound from the district of Arapkir. In Hekimhan, Arguvan, Arapkir, and Akçadag girls wear baggy trousers and serges fresh out of the looms in their houses. They put on three layers of skirts, don aprons called “bernavil”, and wear woollen socks with decorative patterns on their feet. When tired of jumping for the folk dance of “halay”, they just lie on their backs on a carpet and start singing another folk song: “Malatya Malatya you have no equals / Your moon and sun exults all hearts.”

The girls have made the pillows and woven the carpets they rest upon either on the looms at home, or in a workshop that they have been to. In Ören, Kürecik, and Dirican, and over there in Parçikan, Basören and Sinanköy, the girls tie one knot after another to create the carpets and kilims upon which they also weave the songs, dreams, and the loving longings in their hearts. In Ören, Meryem weaves a medallion in the middle of her carpet, placing the ram’s horn and the claw of the dragon along the borders to summon fertility on her home. She adds flowers, sprouting young shoots. She stretches the warps out of cotton, coloring them into red, white, black, not forgetting to sprinkle some blue. When Zeynep prepares a carpet, she spreads it either upon the floor or over the divan. Sometimes she hangs it on the wall, or turns it into a worshipping rug, or stuffs it to make a pillow. Just the way these are also done in Sinanköy and Arapkir. Both of these were among the richest, the most aristocratic towns in the 19th century. The silver and golden threads and the usage of different shades of the same color we encounter in the weavings of those times are also reflections of this wealth. That is what leads to so many varieties of patterns coming out of a single region.

The kilims woven in Dirican are called the white-eye Dirican kilims, the “sinan” kilims, the “sandıklı” kilims and the kilims of “seven mountains”. The long and thin Sinanköy kilims have quadrangle-shaped border motifs along their lengths. The main motif on the kilims is that of the rose. Those woven with motifs that look like a row of trunks placed side by side are the Sandıklı (=trunked) kilims. The number of the trunks increase with the overall size of the kilim. The Seven Mountains kilims are adorned with concentric quadrangles filled with flower motifs. These are used generally as covers and wall-hangers. Camel’s neck, scorpion’s foot, and the ram’s horn are widely used as motifs. The scorpion’s foot keeps the scorpions away from the house while the ram’s horn calls into the house fertility, heroism, and power. Contrasting colors are mostly seen on the Arapkir carpets, setting them apart from the customarily dark-colored Malatya carpets. Light green, turquoise, and a shade of the color of wine called “kosnil” are widely used. The weavings with horizontal passes of indigo are fabricated with superior regularity.

In the houses of the Malatya region, there is abundant production of divan-covering carpets, worshipping rugs, “namazlık” rugs, pillows and saddle-bag fabrics. Plant shapes and geometrical motifs are created knot by knot inside square frames. Some have dragon figures placed on top of each other. As legendary guardians of large treasures, the dragons have always protected traders in Seljukian caravanserais and fountain sites. They sat on doorknobs guarding homes, bringing together longed-for lovers. Then they came to settle down into the motifs on carpets and kilims, representing long lasting and eternal life.

As in many places in the region of Middle Anatolia, the “yolluk” carpets (=runner) and the “namazlık” rugs of worship are also used as mediums of invitation in Malatya. The bride-to-be prepares them to invite the relatives of her beloved for their wedding. It is also an indication that she feels affection for those relatives as well. She sends a runner to provide a path that brings them to the wedding. On the other side, the “namazlık” invitations are never left devoid of altar motifs. 

The “cicim” weavings are prepared either to be spread over stacks of folded mattresses or over beds as second blankets.

The cross-breeding of carpets

In the 17th century, people of the inlands of Anatolia used to lead pretty introverted lives, unaffected by the outside and mostly depraved of many abundancies. The nomads would hardly wander away from their own mountains. The Ottoman Emperor of the era initiated an obligatory immigration to improve and expand commerce, forcing the nomads of the east to go to the west and sending those of the west to the east. The Turkmens coming from the Middle Asia passed through Iran and came down to Iraq, and then to Turkey. With this motion, the introverted local cultures started to intermingle and taxes could then be collected from the regions that prospered with trade. Malatya was also affected by this tide. The interactions of people and the consequent hybridization between their carpets and kilims came to pass at the beginning of the 19th century. Strong effects of the weavings in the close neighborhoods of Sivas, Maras, Gaziantep, Elazıg, Diyarbakır, and Hatay are evident on the products of this region. Traces from even the works of farther places like Konya, Kırsehir, Kayseri, Nigde, Aksaray can well be perceived. This hybridization can be explained with the exchange of brides between the regions and unions between villages as well as the aforementioned interactions. A bride from Reyhanlı would utilize the opportunity to mix the motifs and colors she had seen from her mother into a Malatya carpet she’s weaving at home, just the way others from Gaziantep or Aksaray also would. It is thus possible to see the same type of mixtures and the same tones in Malatya carpets as well as in those of Hatay’s Reyhanlı, or of Gaziantep.

Preserved values

Some of the varieties of carpet fabric that used to be widespread in the villages of Malatya in the past have lost their importance today. On the other hand, cloth and fabric printings made with wooden block patterns and the craft of the preparation of artifacts like curtains, tablespreads, and kerchiefs have been preserved until recently in the city and especially in the district of Arapgir.

Cauldrons, large round trays, bowls,plates, and ewers of copper adorned with motifs of stylized flowers, deers, roes, and birds, and covered with Seljukian or Ottoman ornaments have always been produced.

Copperware is still processed in limited amounts in their bazaar today, but other branches like wood carving, carriage building, pack-saddle and yemeni-making have disappeared. Kilim and cicim

weaving, though not as lively as it used to be, still prevails and the runner and “sofralık” pieces of Malatya, breathtaking with their colorful beauties, are still woven on the looms squeezed into a chamber of the houses.

The number of houses with courtyards inside the city decreases day by day, but all the ranges, yards and hills of Malatya are filling up with apricot trees. The number of the domestic looms is also considerably lower than it used to be. Still, there are people in Malatya who work hard to keep the craft of carpet-weaving alive. Knots upon knots are added together in the workshops of carpetry established in the villages b  carpet lovers who have their hearts in this, as well as in the Public Training Center operating with support from the state. Mr. Selim Yamancan, the owner of Kilim Ticaret, is trying to keep active the workshops the number of which used to exceed hundreds in Akçadag, Hekimhan, Dogansehir, Yazıhan, Gözele. In these workshops, Ebru, Sevim, Fadile, Hülya, Ümran, Sonay, and many many others realize the importance of every knot they tie, every color they add, and every pattern that they pull out of their hearts... And they believe that their daughters will one day carry the treasure of their hearts which they had taken over from their own mothers, sending them to travel all around the world with the carpets that they weave.

A speck of history

Many civilizations occupied and lived in the region since the earliest era, a fact precipitated by Malatya's being located right on the way between Anatolia and Mezopotamia. We have traces from the Hittite, Assyrian, Meddish, Persian, Roman, Arabic, Byzantian, Seljukian and Ottoman civilizations written all over the stones, earth, tumuli, schoolyards of theology, fountains, bridges, churches, mosques. Among the tens of tumuli, the most significant one has hosted every culture from the Neolithic age (8000 BC) to the Roman era. Approximately 27 different cultures have been stacked together in this region of old settlements where even the ruins of the first council of the world can be found. As excavations to bring the buried ruins into daylight proceed, traces from the Bronze era are discovered upon the wall surfaces. The patterns on the walls are just like those on embroideries, or on the kilims. The artifacts discovered during the excavations are exhibited in the Malatya Museum and in the Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.

The mosque of Ulu Camii in the Old Malatya, known as Battalgazi today, is the first mosque to have ever been built in Anatolia by the Arabs in the 7th century. It was rebuilt in 1224 by the Seljukians and restored during the periods of Memluks and Ottomans. The mosque still stands erect today and the people of Malatya perform their worshipping “namaz” rituals upon the carpets woven on the looms of the city workshops. In the old Malatya houses where wood is widely used for construction, the Greeting chambers entertain guests while the carpets and kilims hanging on the walls preserve the memories of the times among their knots. When the proximity of Nemrut where the remnants of the kingdom of Kommagenne lie is added in the mixture, Malatya comes forward as place to be seen with its historical merits as well.