As to the origin of this type or the question, what may have prompted this integration, nothing has been heard or published (see further down for a discussion).

(4) Rugs of this type (plate 19) are also uncommon I believe, the one presented by Austin Doyle at the Keshishians's party and introduced to us by John Howe on Turkotek in January this year is the only one I have seen so far. The Ark seems to have been left out along with the tablets, only iconographic representations of human figures remain (see type 2). Only if one knows what one is looking for, in between individual figures the shape of the ark can be made out.


Here are a few hypotheses that may prompt further research and discussion:

1. Jewish converts to Islam may have kept the symbol of the ark as a token of  their ancestry. It may or may have not lost its religious significance over the centuries. According to some (www.wikipedia.org), the Tat may have been Jewish altogether before the majority (were) converted to Islam at the time of the Mongol rule. The so-called 'Mountain-Jews" in the Kuba and Daghestan areas speak a Judeo-Tat language related to Tat language of the Muslim Tat (www.wikipedia.org). According to Felton, A., 1997, "Jewish Carpets", the language of the "Mountain-Jews" is "basically Persian written in Hebrew characters"(p. 27). There is some saying that the Mountain Jews are descendants of the Babylonian captives, led away at the time of the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem and the loss of the Ark.
   
   There were later incursions and persecutions by Christian-Orthodox powers before and after the "Russification" of the region that may have prompted Jews to look for shelter under the umbrella of Islam. An old formula of survival in the Diaspora comes to my mind: "Where you can't get over something, you may always try to get under" (Singer, I.B., 1977, A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. Penguin, Harmondsworth, England).
   
   
2. Besides the Ark, all four groups of rugs share design and technical characteristics of other rugs in the Shirvan-Kuba-Daghestan and Karabagh regions. This seems to coincide with the (earlier) distribution of the Jewish population. Also, quite a few Kurdish communities exist, Kyurdamir in the Shirvan area (Marasali not being far off) being a district capital. The Kurds, being amongst the most prolific weavers wherever they settle, may be responsible for these rugs; some of them may be or may have been Jewish at the time those rugs were made, or long before. In any case, there is a lively Jewish community in Kyurdamir.
   
   According to a dealer from Tabris in Iran, there, rugs of the type as shown in plate 09 he claims, are called "Kurd Kasak". It makes one wonder.
   
   
3. We have all learned at some time or other that "more sophisticated" designs were handed down from court to village and tribe; an assumption that may be right as often as it is wrong. However, if one wants to look out for a court that could be given the credit, there was the Khanate of Khazar. The Khazar settled from around 600 AD on north of the Black Sea and the Caspian, later expanding and becoming the major force in the area, a buffer state between Christian Orthodox powers and expanding Islam, collecting tributes from most of the Caucasus. Those people were Turks, they were Jews and had put up an oasis of civilisation. One of their rulers, Joseph, was in correspondence with an high ranking Jewish official at the Moorish throne in Spain, serving two subsequent califs, Abd-al-Rahman III (912-961) and his son Hakam II (961-976). The correspondence survived: The Letter of Rabbi Hasdai, Son of Isaac Ibn Shaprut, to the King of the Khazars (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/khazars1.html).
   
   We do not know which exact route the letter went. But most likely it would have travelled on the ancient route that has seen much traffic in the course of the millennium before, the northern branch of the silk-route, crossing the Caucasus at the Pass of Dariel - Pompey once left a garrison there (Stark, F., 1966, Rome on the Euphrates, John Murray, London) - reaching for the Pontic at Trapezunt. Where letters could travel, there may also have been space for gifts, for rugs and perhaps drafts or blueprints of designs in decorative arts?
   
   Eventually, the Khanate was overrun by Djinghis Khan, and its people dispersed over a wide area. According to Fenton, A., 1997, Jewish Carpets, some settled in the western Trans-Caucasus. The way down along the Caspian shore and across the Albanian or Derbend Pass (Albania was the name of this country at the times of the Romans) to the eastern Trans-Caucasus would have been easier. Anyway, once across the pass, below the Khazar refugees would have spread the valleys of the Phasis and the Cyrus rivers, linking the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In Roman times it would have been a four days journey on a paved road, according to Freya Stark. If they travelled east via Tiflis, as some undoubtedly would have done, down the Cyrus (Kura) and Araxes (Aras) rivers, they probably would have met others Jews already settling there, and still others to arrive at a later time.
   
   The gathering and cohabitation of those groups, some of them Kurdish, Armenia just behind the next range of mountains, would have created - and indeed it has created - an ideal breeding ground for rug production, a kind of "Silicon Valley" for rug technology. All requirements needed were at hand, good sheep, water, plants and minerals for dyes, famous already in Roman times.
   
   
4. When the Spanish Jews (and Muslims) were forced to exit Spain by Royal Decree in 1492, many took up the Sultan's offer to choose Ottoman Turkey as a safe haven. Others settled in Kashan, Persia, where they inspired arts, philosophy, science and medicine (Azadi, S., by word of mouth). Whilst the Caucasus at this time was not exactly part of the Ottoman empire, the Ottomans were the most influential if not controlling power in the eastern Trans-Caucasus. Jews had already been settling in that area for centuries and it seems likely, that some of the Sephardim refugees should have joint them there, bringing with them their own skill and knowledge.
   
   
5. In view of those hypotheses it seems likely, that the rugs were not actually made by just one group. A fair amount of exchange must have existed, this including Muslim neighbours, with whom relations were by and large on the relaxed side, sometimes even cordial. Is it thinkable, that Jews have adopted the idea of prayer rugs from their neighbours, the Ark under the gable oriented towards Jerusalem?
   

Sometimes rugs with the ark come from somewhat further afar.  Lot 164 at a Nagel auction on 16th May 1981 may be counted among those - a Fachralo Kasak:



The Eder/Bennett book includes several prayer rugs of the kind in group three from the Karabagh region (plates 106, 109,110):


Another rug from somewhat further afield would be plate 58 in Jewish Carpets - a dated Jewish Sarab Runner. Looking very carefully at the content of the white medallions, most apparent in the lower half of the third medallion from bottom, the shape of the ark appears in yet a different form but clearly related to what we have looked at before.



 Earlier this year in Istanbul I had a look into a rug dealer's library whilst visiting his shop. Having to deflect his enticements aimed at making me buy a silk-wefted Shasavan cicim, I was somewhat distracted and forgot the title of an old book that I thought interesting. In it was the picture of a rug with the Ark as the main motive in the style of a Sarköy kelim with curvilinear wefts. It was attributed to "Bessarabia".

We are coming to the end. Not all is lost, the woven Ark has been restored to memory. Some riddles remain, but we know better now what we are dealing with, field-research seems desirable.

Somewhat disturbing news reach my ear, of nuclear ambitions of a neighbour state, of military build-up and strategic airfield expansion in Kjurdamir, on the Aspheron peninsula and elsewhere, Azerbaidjan, the old buffer-state in the thick of it, anxious to define its role. It is not an easy time for the region. Was it ever?
 
The Kingston Trio is seldom heard on the radio these days. I might as well turn it off here and hope, it is going to be another good year, after all.