FLAT-WOVEN TEXTILES OF ANATOLIA

For centuries, Anatolia, a crucible of creativity in weaving has acquired renown for its flat-woven textiles (the most characteristic types being kilim, cicim/djidjim. zili, and sumak). These traditional textiles, which nowadays serve to brighten the decor of urban dwellers, represent the entire array of soft furnishings of transhumants who undertake seasonal migration to graze their flocks: the large sacks with particolored motifs serve as the wardrobes for their wearing apparel, as the storage cupboards where their grain is stored, the pillows and seating cushions woven in a variety of techniques as their furniture, and the lightweight spreads (cicim/djidjim) as their meal tables.

The most well-known type of Anatolian kilim is called the slit, or interrupted weft, kilim. Generally speaking, this type of kilim is produced wherever weaving is conducted in Anatolia. It may appear in the form of a large floor covering, a prayer cloth, a saddle bag, a storage sack, a pillow, or a seating cushion. But in the village of Karapinar in the province of Konya and the environs of Manisa, Aydin, and Denizli, kilims are woven without vertical slits.

By contrast, in the locales of Mesudiye in the province of Konya, and in the area of Nuzumla, the village of Egret in the province of Afyon, Dazkiri, and Mut, in addition to the slit kilim, a twillweave kilim can be found. The technique of picking out motifs with an embossed contour stitching in yarn is common to all kilim-weaving areas, the most representative type in Turkey is the cicim/djidjim. whose design is widely scattered. Lightweight specimens are typical of Konya, Kayseri, Nigde. Gaziantep, Adana, and Malatya Around Sivrihisar in the province of Eskisehir, a small floor covering of this kind called göllü, about the size of a prayer rug, is typical. Another type of cicim/djidiim, characterized by a raised weft and dense motifs, is produced in the vicinity of the cities of Malatya. Sivas, Gaziantep, Maras, and Kayseri, Another flat-woven textile is the zili, of which the plain flat type is woven in areas settled by Turkoman, especially in Adana, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Nigde, Konya, the Taurus Mountains area and Western Anatolia, The less dense zili is woven by Turkomen who dwell between Antalya and Silifke in the Taurus Mountains. The contoured zili (zili-verne) is more frequently encountered in Western Anatolia. Very ancient remnants of the sumak-type of kilim, which is sometimes claimed to have originated in the Caucasus, have been recovered in Anatolia. This type is woven in Western and Central Anatolia, the Taurus Mountains, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, and Malatya.