Kuba Rugs

Kuba Rugs: The area between Shirvan and Daghestan in the eastern Caucasus is Kuba. This area, with its surrounding villages, is the most prolific and justly celebrated source of Caucasus weaving. These days, tourists come to Kuba to see hundreds of apple orchards, which in the spring, fills the air with the scent of apple blossoms. The variety and richness of design and color is so varied and extraordinary that no generalized statement can be made about Kuba weaving.

Kuba was a Khanate of Persia (a Khanate is equivalent to a state or region in the old Persian system). Historians date the transfer of Kuba to the Czarist Russians to 1806. How old then is the city of Kuba? Several different sources state that Kuba did not exist until circa 1750. The United States Embassy, on the other hand, confirms the existence of a majestic 16th-century fortress that dominates the city of Kuba. Nevertheless, this area has been settled for centuries; in nearby Khanalyg, there is a 9th century A.D. Zoroastrian temple.

Many of the dragon rugs and floral designs possibly originated from the Kuba region, which probably have the longest weaving history in the Caucacus. Both of these designs have been attributed by some scholars to a Persian inspiration, while others have suggested a closer link with early Seljuk weaving. The majority of Kuba rugs of the 19th century display crowded floral motifs, either free standing, combined with large geometric motifs, or retained within an allover lattice.

 

History of Kuba Rugs

Kuba rugs represent one of the more interesting and sophisticated types from the Caucasian rugs produced in the nineteenth century. Always well woven in a tight technique with first-rate drawing, Konaghends tend to have "Kufic" borders and a field design of allover arabesque tendrils transformed into a highly geometric repeating network. The tendrils generally form or approximate small medallions that recur across the field in superimposed horizontal rows. (Shirvan Kuba Rug No. 2738) from Nazmiyal, shows an excellent example of this type. The main border follows a long tradition that adapted the stylized

geometric Kufic script of the early Islamic period to carpet designs.

At first glance, another Konaghend, no. 2613 from Nazmiyal, simply appears to be a more stylized or simplified version of the standard design of this type. Here the oblong shield-like medallions in the field seem to take precedence as an allover tessellated design, while the tendrils have been reduced to small curling bits in the intervening spaces. But a closer look reveals that this example reflects the impact of another design tradition. It goes back to the allover tessellated medallion designs of Timurid rugs from the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, which have rarely been preserved, in the original; they are known mostly from representations in Islamic manuscript painting. This unique and outstanding carpet clearly reflects such Timurid precedent, although it is unclear how and when such tradition reached the Caucasus. It provides a rare glimpse into the factors or influences behind Caucasian rug design, whose history before the nineteenth century is very obscure.