A Rare and Unusual Rug - Herat Gallery (Cat. # 328):  

The Ferdows-Baluch:   An Introduction

With a few, tentative exceptions, rugs with the palette and general design features of this rug are labeled ‘Baluch’.

Conventional wisdom holds that they were woven in the Khorasan region of northeast Persia in the vicinity of the village of Ferdows.

A minority view believes they were produced by ‘Baluch’ weavers in the Sistan region.  One would imagine this position is based on the rug’s ‘happy’ palette.

Even today, several decades after their initial appearance on the international market, these ‘Ferdow-Baluch’ are still considered very rare.  This is unusual on a couple of accounts.

Typically, when a ‘rare’ or ‘unusual’ rug-type appears on the market it gradually produces a stream of similar rugs.  Before long, the ‘rare’ becomes rather commonplace.

That has not occurred with these ‘Ferdow-Baluch’.

The design and cotton foundation suggests a village workshop origin.  Village workshop production, in turn, suggests a viable commercial, export market once existed for these rugs. 

Why are there not more of them?  Were only a few produced?  Did only a few survive?

A Personal Opinion: A ‘Baluch’-‘Afshar’ from Northeast Persia

The rug literature is replete with the doxology that the ‘Baluch’ weaver was a ‘copy cat’ weaver; that she adopted or copied designs from other, implicitly more skilled and imaginative, weavers.

I do not believe that premise is correct.  It is not correct because of certain historical realities of tribal life and of rug weaving itself.

Tribal designs were not readily ‘adopted’, one tribe to another.  Rather they evolve, were modified, and frequently reinterpreted, slowly over many generations.

It is historically questionable to suggest that a ‘Baluch’ weaver awoke one morning and decided to weave a rug with a Turkmen design because it was commercially more valuable.

Over centuries, tribal identities were changed, transformed, faded and, on occasion, entirely lost.

This rug is a product of that ancient tribal history and evolution.

World traveler and rug chronologist, A.C. Edwards, states that ethnic Baluch were brought to Khorasan by Nadir Shah in the 18th century.

Edwards claims that these Baluch were considered to be the original Khorasan Baluch.

In reality, some of these tribes were ethnic ‘Baluch’; many, perhaps most, were not.

Over time Kurds, Turkmen, Tajiks, Uzbek, Arabs and nomadic Afshar became part of this ever changing regional tribal mix.

These Afshar were part of the Oghuz-Turkmen migration from Central Asia and were themselves a loosely defined group of numerous Turkic tribes.

After the Afshar chief Nader Quli Khan was crowned Nader Shah Afshar of Persia, many of the diverse tribal groups of the region swore allegiance to Nader Shah and eventually identified themselves as ‘Afshar’.

Years earlier some of these newly minted ‘Afshar’ called themselves ‘Baluch’.

From the perspective of the present, it is impossible to thoroughly and accurately document the complexity and fluidity of tribal relationships of the region.

Once, for example, there were the Kurkeilii-Baluch; some of whom later called themselves Salar Khani-Baluch.

Then, there were the Ali Mirzai-Baluch who at one time were thought to be ethnic Baluch but are now thought to be a Kurdish sub-tribe.

There is much more but you get the picture!

Because of this history, one finds a confusing variety of structural and design differences within the family of ‘Baluch’ pile weaving.

At present, I am of the opinion that this rug is the product of an amalgamation, a blending, of the cultural and weaving heritages of those who at one time called themselves ‘Baluch’ and those who called themselves ‘Afshar’.                          
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In candor, I am open to the possibility that the rug is perhaps more Afshar than Baluch.    

Recently, I had a conversation with a very knowledgeable and respected dealer in Baluch and other tribal weavings.

The gentleman lived in northeast Iran for many years, his family has generations of business experience buying and selling ‘Baluch’ rugs of the region.

Without doubt or hesitation, he identified this rug as Ferdows-Baluch.  When I asked him, ‘why’?