The spectacular format of this book allows the reader to view the magnificent sweep of the arts of Islam in a unique and accessible way. Diverse developments throughout the Islamic world can be compared simultaneously across time and place, and specific objects and buildings seen in the light of key events in Muslim history. Dates are presented according to both the Western and Islamic calendars. Following the Timeline are fourteen illustrated chapters devoted to Calligraphy, Qur’ans, Miniature painting, Bookbinding, Lacquer, Pottery and ceramics, Glass and rock crystal, Metalwork, Scientific instruments, Arms and armour, Jewellery, Carpets and textiles, Coins and Architecture. Further pages provide the histories of the major dynasties of the Islamic world, while a four-page colour fold-out map gives locations of historical and cultural sites. The main text is supplemented by a glossary of key Islamic and art-historical terms; a list of the major collections of Islamic art throughout the world; suggestions for further reading; and a comprehensive index.

RUGBOOKS.COM

Oriental Rug and Ethnographic Textile Books

New Title: Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania Published by Stefano Ionescu

Dennis and Wesley Marquand P.O. Box 1187 Culver City, CA 90232-1187 USA Phone: 310-313-0177 Fax: 310-915-9922 dennis@rugbooks.com

ORIENTAL RUG BOOKS BUY • SELL • TRADE

All HALI magazines (new & used)

George F Gilmore

2150 NEWPORT BLVD • COSTA MESA CA 92626 949 646 7847

Professor Nasser D. Khalili, KSS, KCFO, is a scholar, collector and benefactor of international standing. Since 1970 he has assembled, under the auspices of The Khalili Family Trust, a number of impressive art collections in a broad range of fields.

Books are £30 per copy inclusive of postage for all UK addresses. Please send cheque with order to: Rupert Webb, Worth Press Ltd, The Manse, 34 South End, Bassingbourn, Hertfordshire SG8 5NJ. Overseas customers please telephone 01763 248 075.

OVER 800 COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS

48 I HALI 144
achieved outstanding results given the limited access allowed to foreigners in the Chin areas of all three countries.Although they carried out research in India and Bangladesh, they ended up choosing to make Myanmar the main focus of the book, because that was where they found the richest variety of textiles. Mantles of Meritbegins with a brief history of the Chin, describing some of the main groups and the effect that outsiders have had on their culture. The authorsprovide a useful reference chart of the Chin groups studied by foreign scholars in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They go on to describe Chin architecture,social and family structures, and the customs associated with marriage and death. There are interesting references to hunting and hunting rituals and descriptions of hill and valley farming methods. With the scene set, the focus is on textile production. The clarity with which the Frasers describe raw materials, the processing of fibres, the preparation of warp and weft, the looms and the weaving methods,supported by excellent diagramsand appropriate photographs, make the book an important contribution to textile scholarship. Earlier studies of the Chin did not do justice to the creative skills of Chin women and this book goes some way to redress earlier omissions. There is an analysis of cloth structure, of weaving patterns and other techniques employed including embroidery, knotting, braiding and binding. The variety of stitches used to join lengths of cloth along the selvedge, is carefully illustrated. This detailed analysis is applied throughout the book. As Chin textiles are almost never tailored, they selected the term ‘mantle’ in their title as “something that enfolds, enwraps and encloses”. The following chapters focus on the textiles of the main Chin groups, juxtaposing archival photographs with textiles from museum collections and contemporary samples. The Chin divide themselves into groups based on oral history and creation myths, while European and American scholars separated them according to geographical

location, language and social structures. As in other areas of Southeast Asia, local dialect terms for ‘savage’ or ‘stranger’, used by one group to describe another, were often mistakenly adopted by foreigners as the correct terminology. The authors have tried to avoid this confusion by using what they describe as “the analysis of textile cultures” to differentiate groups when they judge that other factors are not definitive. The Northern Chin, the Southern Chin, the Khumi, Khami and Mro, and finally the Ashö feature in separate chapters. The authors identify ceremonial blankets as the most important textile and many fine examples are illustrated with corresponding archival material to demonstrate how and when they were worn. These blankets are a perfect way of demonstrating the extensive range of patterns, dyes and weaving techniques used by the Chin. The book also includes samples of headbands, shoulder cloths, tunics and loincloths worn by men, many of them worked in complex continuous and discontinuous supplementary weft patterns. Women’s dress fares equally well. There are headbands and breast cloths worked in silk and cotton, knee and ankle length tunics, shawls and tubular skirts and belts. Household textiles include mattress covers and mosquito nets and tobacco leaf bags. Particularly interesting is a photograph of a grass rain cape and, with the attention to detail shown throughout the book, a diagram of its construction. Some unusual festival hangings in the chapter on the Khumi, Khami and Mro are estimated to be over two hundred years old. The authors conclude with a brief analysis of the sources of Chin textile traditions, tracing the early use of certain textile techniques including twill weave, weft twining and supplementary yarn patterning structures. Their approach adapts past linguistic and anthropological studies to add a new dimension to the study of Chin groups and subgroups. Although they come to no firm conclusions, the authors argue correctly that the analysis of textile structures is an important tool in understanding

the history and culture of the Chin people. Susan Conway Research Associate, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

Marokko/Morocco Mon Amour Kurt Rainer Kurt Rainer, Graz 2004 German and English text, 184pp., 100 colour illustrations, 2 maps, bibliography, notes, glossary ISBN 3200002093 Hardbound €64

In 1999, Kurt Rainer published his groundbreaking Tasnacht, which focused primarily on the weaving tribes in the Aït Ouaouzguite and Zenaga areas of the High Atlas region of Morocco. The text and colour plates dealt in detail with carpets, flatweaves and tribal clothing as well as the history and culture of the local population. Morocco Mon Amourexpands this format dramatically. Tribal history and culture, weaving techniques and the use of vegetable and chemical dyes are investigated in great detail which, while sometimes difficult to absorb, nevertheless provides important and valuable new information. As in Tasnacht, there is a wealth of colour photographs of the landscape, the people and the weavings. The High Atlas region is revisited with some new data, in particular illustrations of flatweaves and clothing. Reference to the broad selection of knotted pile carpets in Tasnachtis valuable when reviewing this section. Other informative parts of the book include a chapter on the Anti-Atlas region,where Rainer concentrates on henna

BOOKS

painted women’s headscarves, which have only comeon to the market in recent years. His chapters on the Haouz (the Plains of Marrakesh) and Boujad offer excellent photographs of representative weavings. I hope that he will expand his fine research capabilities at some point to include the Amar and Chiadma tribes, as well as the spectacular large ‘city-like’ carpetsof the Bou Sbaa and Chinnane. Moving north, he examines the Middle Atlas region with particular emphasison the carpets of the Beni Ouarain, Beni Mguild, and severalflatwoven examples of the Aït Youssi tribes. The Zemmour Confederation enjoys a separate chapter with attention to a variety of excellent flatwoven examples, the great strength of those weavers. The section entitled ‘Handira and Haik’ is especially interesting in that it deals entirely with examples produced in no less than five weaving areas in Morocco. Two chapters document groups of carpets for the first time, at least to my knowledge. The first focues on Azilal rugs woven south of Fez, more or less on the road to Marrakesh, which have surfaced in large quantities on the market in recentyears. These resemble white-ground Beni Ouarain weavings,but with more abstract designs. The second, ‘Morocco’sForgotten East’ looks at the carpets of the Aït Seghrouchen and Beni Snassen, woven east and north of Fez towards the Algerian border, which were not ‘discovered’ until the mid-1990s. Finally, the text includes three excellent chapters by Angelika Tunis of the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin on ‘Jews and Teutons in the Maghreb al Aqsa’, ‘Woven Luxury: Silken Textiles of Moors and Arabs’ and ‘Berber Jewelry: Between Magic and Baraka’, followed by Rainer’s informative ‘Rabat: Magnificent Carpets, Imperial Splendour’. Morocco Mon Amourbelongs on every book shelf of Moroccan titles alongside Tasnacht. Let’s hope that Kurt Rainer will keep up the good work. William Russell Pickering President, Near Eastern Art Research Center, Washington DC

HALI144 I 49