A rug, to quote The Big Lebowski, can really tie a room together. The Dude (or El Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) opted for a pretty run-of-the-mill carpet – a classic Persian or Oriental design, if I recall correctly.
Here is an example of an exciting subgenre that is sure to be a conversation piece at your next cocktail party. Or after-bowling get-together. The Afghan War Rug is a modern reinterpretation of an age-old art. Where the regular oriental carpet has an abstract design, these rugs are figurative, including tanks, guns and other weapons, and usually show a map of Afghanistan. They also deal with a very specific subject matter – the troubled recent history of Afghanistan.
Examples include rugs celebrating the defeat of the Soviets, who withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988, to this one. It is similar to the Soviet Exodus mats (note the column of tanks heading north). However, it is dated to the year 2002.
Some of the lettering is in Latin script, the top text is in Farsi, apparently reading “The army of al-Qaeda is leaving Afghanistan”. According to the website www.warrug.com, which specialises in selling modern carpetry of this type, this rug “is a transitional piece between the Soviet story rugs and the War on Terrorism rugs (…) Until the US eliminated the Taliban regime, this style of rug was woven by refugees in Pakistan. After we drove al-Qaeda and the Taliban back to the age of the Cave Man, these weavers were able to return to their native homes and produce these rugs around Mazar I’Sharif and Sherberghan.”
An interesting afterthought: in weaving recent history into mats, these Afghan artisans are unwittingly imitating the tapestry-as-news school of carpetry that had its most famous early example in the Bayeux Tapestry, which detailed William the Conqueror’s usurpation of the English throne.
Since the “army of al-Qaeda” (to the extent that such a thing could be said to exist) didn’t have any tanks and left Afghanistan across the mountains into Pakistan, not northwards, I’m guessing that this is based on a design celebrating the departure of the Soviets. Presumably it was easier to modfiy the text of an existing design than to do a whole new one.
Comment by jfruh — June 25, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
Gotta love the “PArISIAN” label.
Comment by Pugs Malone — June 25, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
Are they available without the lunatic fringe?
Comment by Garibaldi — June 25, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
I know a ton of guys who went to Afghanistan and got these rugs. Strangely, I have seen that exact rug design before. I wonder if the Afghans mass produce them or if they outsource.
Comment by Catholicgauze — June 25, 2009 @ 11:59 pm
@Pugs
Pretty sure that’s “Pakistan”.
Anyone who knows, is that Farsi or Dari? I thought it was the latter that was spoken in Afghanistan?
Comment by Bill — June 26, 2009 @ 1:14 am
What a lovely present for your wife when you get back from Afghanistan. ;)
Comment by Möwenzüchter — June 26, 2009 @ 1:47 am
“After we drove al-Qaeda and the Taliban back to the age of the Cave Man”
Oh, yeah, the Great American war against terrorism. :D
Comment by spam — June 26, 2009 @ 3:12 am
@jfruh:
It says “2002″… the Soviet departure was some time before that. Also, the word “Alqaeda” is very prominent to any Arabic-script reader. It’s there.
Comment by Yuval — June 26, 2009 @ 4:34 am
And “KLASHEINKOб” is supposed to mean “kalashnikov”, right?
Comment by Epaminondas — June 26, 2009 @ 7:50 am
It may be a bit unfair to say William the Conqueror usurped the English throne … if you believe the Norman side of the story, the previous English king, Edward the Confessor, named William his heir. This would have made King Harold the usurper …
Comment by Lake — June 26, 2009 @ 10:35 am
I have to agree with Catholicgauze. What used to be a valuable oddity of design filtering in from the war in the 80’s, these people have now latched onto it and making these motifs by the hundreds and selling them to unsuspecting tourists.
Comment by Etienne — June 26, 2009 @ 11:56 am
I’m unsure whether their would be any tourists,unsuspecting or other wise, in Afghanistan. I’m sure its a lovely country but the threat of being indiscriminately murdered in the name of the Prophet tends to keep the holiday goers away.
Comment by Unlucky Irish — June 26, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
[...] Rugs. [...]
Pingback by Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e73v5 — June 26, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
That rug really ties the room together!
Comment by Joshua — June 26, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
Peed on my fucking rug man.
Comment by Carlos — June 27, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
@Bill (#5)
Dari is Farsi, or, more exactly, “Eastern Farsi”, the dialect of Farsi (aka Persian) that is spoken in Afghanistan.
My Arabic is really rusty, and the lettering is kind of hard to make out, but my best guess at a transliteration would be,
“qawaa al-qa’ida al-mirr afghaanistaan al-marihaat kharooj amt”
which actually almost makes sense in Modern Standard Arabic. It would literally translate to,
“Forces of bitter Al-Qaeda [or bitter forces of Al-Qaeda], exuberant Afghanistan, weak [or crooked] exit.”
That last bit I’m really unsure about – I’m guessing the last word is alif – meem – taa, which would be amt, weakness or crookedness, which doesn’t quite fit grammatically, but I can’t really make out the middle letter. And, of course, even if that’s the correct transliteration, it might have a completely different, unrelated meaning in Dari
Comment by gamedave — June 27, 2009 @ 2:47 pm
pashtoonesque !
Comment by lp — June 27, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
“…these Afghan artisans are unwittingly imitating the tapestry-as-news school of carpetry that had its most famous early example in the Bayeux Tapestry…”
Are you sure it’s unwitting? I think it’s very witting.
Comment by Robin — June 27, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
Here’s another one, depicting the events of September 11th, 2001: http://paulstott.typepad.com/911cultwatch/2008/11/an-early-christmas-present.html
Comment by Neil — June 27, 2009 @ 6:42 pm
Oh, I know they meant “Pakistan”- I just thought the way those threads came off was amusing.
Comment by Pugs Malone — June 28, 2009 @ 1:25 am
I saw an exhibit at the Georgia Museum of art a few years ago. “Woven Jewels from the Black Tents: Baluchi, Aimaq, and Related Tribal Weavings of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan” Very interesting, kind of disturbing… lots of helicopters and Kalashnikovs.
Comment by Claire — June 30, 2009 @ 8:53 pm
Bill’s deciphering was I think an admirable effort. However, in addition to the Arabic being gramatically flawed, I disagree with the deciphering of some letters. However, it is assuredly Persian – not sure if it is Farsi or Dari – rather than Arabic.
The hints are “az Afghaanestaan” means “from Afghanistan” – (al-Afghanistan would not make sense in Arabic…and al-mirr? where do you see that?). The dead giveaway is the “amt” at the end, which is actually “ast”. Persian sentences generally end with the verb, and being an Indo-European language, “ast” is cognate with the Latin/French “est” – he/she/it is.
We should find someone who speaks Persian.
Comment by Jacob — July 8, 2009 @ 6:32 pm
[...] Jump to Comments As Strange Mats points out, a rug can really tie a room [...]
Pingback by Rug Burn « Black Century — July 10, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
@Jacob (#22)
Bill is actually the guy (in comment #5) I was replying to.
“al-mirr? where do you see that?”
Where you see alif-zay (“az”), I thought might have been alif and a stacked lamm-meem-ray (“al-mirr”). As I stated, the lettering is hard to make out, and I’ve seen worse distortions of letter shapes in hand-written Arabic.
“the “amt” at the end, which is actually “ast”.”
Yeah, my first thought was “ast”, but I couldn’t quite see the curves of the seen, and “amt” almost made sense, while “ast” didn’t. Of course, that was assuming an Arabic or Arabic-cognate word.
I was probably fooled by the transliteration version of pareidolia, and thought I was seeing relatively familiar Arabic words, rather than the actual, mostly unfamiliar, Persian words.
Comment by gamedave — July 11, 2009 @ 12:48 am
Nice rugs which covers almost all posiotions is agreat one but should be within affordable o
Comment by DEEP — July 25, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
Fenerbahce Taraftar Site
Comment by TrakyaFB — August 21, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
I bought one of those on ebay about 5/6 years ago. No arabic script, but cyrillic characters on the tanks.
It was described as an Afghan War Rug, it’s about 2′x3′ and cost about $30.It is a conversation piece!
Comment by Becky — September 29, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
I have a rug which is the same design as the top rug but with the date USSR 1989. The weapons and explosions are for the most part identicle.
In the upper right corner, in English the words, “The forces of USSR is coming uot from Afghanistan”
The rug was purchased in Kuwait a couple of years ago. It also contains several labels like Hand Bom, Rooket, Klashenkob.
Comment by Mike Keene — October 5, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
What a lovely present for your wife when you get back from Afghanistan
Comment by topmaxtech — October 13, 2009 @ 11:22 pm
[...] example of one type of rug that you can find in Afghan rug markets these days. My favorite part is the missile [...]
Pingback by Actual example of one type of rug that you can find in Afghan rug markets these days « craigjanis.com — October 31, 2009 @ 5:36 am