More New Words

I've been reading about rugs and therefore learning all sorts of new words. For example, a yastik is a small rug or bag for designed to be sat upon and therefore serves a different purpose than a mafrash, which is bag for transporting small objects.  Here's a mafrash: 

I have discovered that many of the terms used to describe the patterns of "oriental" carpets are derived from architecture. Moreover, it turns out that many of these words are entirely unfamiliar to me. For example, an ogive is "the roundly tapered end of a object" such as an arch. It's a peculiar word whose etymology is anybody's guess. The adjectival form is "ogival." "Ogival" forms are common on Turkish rugs.

 A merlon on a medieval castle is "the solid part of a parapet." I think a picture is called for here. Merlons: 

 

Such forms, like giant teeth, frequently appear in the borders of rugs. A crenelle is a notch or open space between two merlons. So in the picture above it's merlon, crenelle, merlon, crenelle, etc. Merlon Crenelle sounds like the name of linebacker at Tulane or Louisiana State.  An even odder word is squinch, which doesn't seem as though it could possibly describe a part of a rug, but does. It sounds like a palatalized variant of squint (or Shakespeare's squiny), or some sort of exotic citrus (would you mind passing me a couple of those squinches?), but it is in fact "a piece of construction used for filling in the upper angles of a square room so as to form a proper base to receive an octagonal or spherical dome." It's a filler of sorts, and as such is occasional knotted into a complex carpet, though I rather doubt that the women who wove the rugs thought squinchwise.

A spandrel is a space above an arch -- as illustrated here: 

 
There are four blue spandrels in this fancy silk Heriz carpet:

 

Kufesque is another word used to describe rug patterns, but it derives not from architecture but from writing. Arabic was anciently written in Kufic, an angular, upright script. Illiterate weavers copied and recopied Kufic inscriptions until they became meaningless but still remained beautiful. Many rugs have kufesque borders.

Strange to say, I had recent occasion to employ the word "kufic" in conversation. It was my annual visit to the opthamologist. "Read the next line," I was told. "Looks like Kufic to me." I believe the eye guy understood that I couldn't read the line, but I rather doubt that he fully appreciated my inspired and accurate answer. 

Comments

[CKNC]

I like the embedded images Dr. Metablog. Very 21st century.