September 29, 2019 Presentation by DeWitt Mallary Turkmen Carpets: A New Perspective from Juerg Rageth Some pictures click on the thumbnail for the full picture. Juerg Rageth first became interested in radiocarbon dating of textiles to help answer questions about Anatolian kilims. His interest developing eventually into a symposium and exhibition and then a book presenting his findings. After being approached by some European collectors of Turkmen rugs about applying his methods to learning about Central Asian weavings, he devoted the next fifteen-plus years to an ever-expanding inter-disciplinary study of Turkmen weavings. His magnum opus, the two-volume Turkmen Carpets: A New Perspective, was published at the end of 2015. It combines radiocarbon dating results, dye analyses, information about the ways dyes were used in groups of weavings, historical data, and art historical information and theory to arrive at some new conclusions about certain types of Turkmen pile weavings. DeWitt Mallary, who edited the English version of the book, will present an overview of the project and some selected examples of the data and theories from the book. DeWitt Mallary began collecting Baluch and Turkmen rugs in the 1980s. He has written for HALI and prepared presentations on a variety of topics for ACOR, ICOC, and rug club meetings around the US and Europe. In 2009, he became a full-time dealer in a wide variety of collectible antique rugs and textiles. In 2012, he agreed to work on editing the English translation of Juerg Rageth's book about Turkmen rugs. More than three years after the beginning of the six-month project, the two-volume book was published. Rageth made an electronic copy of these two volumes available worldwide without cost. You can find them here return to home page