Alfred J. Andrea (Ph.D. Cornell University, 1969) is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Vermont, where he has served on faculty since 1967. A specialist on the transit of religions across Afro-Eurasia from antiquity to the early modern era, he served as president of the World History Association from 2010 through 2012. Among his honors are Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Louisville, acknowledgement as a Pioneer of World History by the World History Association, and Distinguished Professor at the University of the Peloponnese, Greece. His current work focuses on Western Europe’s entry onto the overland Silk Road in the Age of the Mongol Empire and its later entry into the Maritime Silk Road in the early modern era.

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The article deals with issues related to the tradition of carpet production on the territory of Kazakhstan, where for the most part tribes engaged in nomadic cattle breeding lived. Analyzing the technological component of this traditional craft, the author focuses on the main factor that influenced carpet weaving and arts and crafts - the nomadic method of production of the Kazakhs. The study of the ideological component that accompanies the process of making various types of carpets allows us to conclude that it has a deep sacred meaning and subordination to ritual. At the mythological level, the process of making carpets, like any other creative activity among the nomads, personified the process of the creation of the world, the marriage between Heaven and Earth, the creation of the Cosmos from Chaos. The process of carpet weaving, as well as the process of making felt, symbolized the act of creation, the marriage of Heaven and Earth, male and female principles. The study of various types of ornaments that Kazakhs and their ancestors used to decorate carpets allows us to conclude that the ornament applied to carpet products was the bearer of the most valuable information about the mythological worldview of peoples. Carpets in their structure reproduced the structure of the Universe, which has a binary, ternary, quarter system. The ornament has turned into a kind of coded text, reflecting ideas about the cosmogonic structure of the Universe, awareness of the harmony of the world. The location of Kazakhstan on the northern routes of the Great Silk Road allowed the spread of various ideas, due to which carpet weaving was influenced by other peoples in technical and stylistic design. Keywords: Kazakh traditional carpets, felt, Kazakh national ornament, nomadic culture, the Great Silk Road

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Aigul Ageleuova, Ph.D., specialist in social philosophy, culture and religion studies. The theme of her dissertation research was related to civilizational processes in the territory of Kazakhstan. The scope of scientific interests also includes, in particular, the topic of interaction and mutual influence of cultures on the Great Silk Road.
Currently, she works as the Dean of the Faculty of Tourism of the Kazakh Academy of Sports and Tourism in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Faculty of Tourism is working on a project to promote the cultural heritage of the Kazakh people in the context of the development of domestic tourism.

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The main purpose of this article is to reveal the history of Mongolian carpet weaving, usage and development based on archaeological findings. It also highlights ancient traditions in current industrial design. We have used archeological findings related to the Xiongnu dynasty carpet artifacts in museum exhibits, and papers by researchers who studied them. The paper focuses on the illustrations, meanings, and traditions of felt rugs found in the tombs of aristocrats of the Xiongnu (BCE 209 - CE 48). The article is about: 1.Materials for Mongolian carpets, manufacturing process, traditional methods of making carpets, types and usages; 2.Carpet sizes, shapes and pattern designs; 3.Development of modern Mongolian carpet patterns and designs. It is obvious that Xiongnu carpet patterns are widely used in modern Mongolian carpets. This is due to the influence of current socio-cultural factors. Keywords: tomb, quilting, felt craft, felt carpet, Universe Tree, Shaman.

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Dr. Munkhtsetseg Bayanzul worked for 25 years at the Mongolian National University of Culture and Arts and the Mongolian Culture and Art Research Institute since 1996. She is now working Head of the Restoration Department of Mongolian National Center for Cultural Heritage since 2022.
The field of her research encompasses clothing of ancient Mongolian nomads. Holds a Ph.D in “Study related to the types of Hunnu clothing”. In recent years working on study of the history, fashion and technology of national clothing, restoration and reconstruction of archaeological textile artifacts.
Мember of “The Korea and China of Fashion Industry-Academy” since 2008, “The Korean Society of Costume” and “The Korean Society of Fashion Business” since 2015. Co-authored 7 professional and research books and edited 5 art books.

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This study analyzes the traces of East-West cultural exchange focusing on the palmette pattern expressed on the Sassanid Persian and Silla carpets. The results of the study are as follows. palmette, which originated in ancient Egypt, is an imaginary flower made up of the transformation of a lotus, which combined with the Mesopotamian quaternary idea and expanded to 4-leaf palmette, and further to 8-leaf palmette by applying the octagonal idea. Palmette, which was brought to Assyria, Achaemenid Persia, Parthia, Greece and Rome, can be seen lavishly decorated with plant motifs characteristic of the region. The Sassanid Persia inherited the tradition of the palmette pattern, which applied the quaternary and octagonal ideology seen in several previous dynasties. On the one hand, it has evolved more splendidly by combining the 20-21 leaf palmette and the traditional performance pattern decoration of Sassanid Persia. These Sassanid Persian palmette patterns can be found through the palmette patterns depicted on the ceiling of the Dunhwang Grottoes located on the Silk Road. The palmette pattern of the Dunhuang Grottoes was expressed in the form of a fusion of Persian Zoroastrianism, Indian Buddhism, and indigenous religions. In the Tang dynasty, it shows the typical palmette pattern of 4 and 8 leaves in the medallion composition, which were mainly seen in Persian palmette. The palmette pattern handed down to Silla can be found on the Shilla carpet, estimated to be around the 8th century, in the collection of Shoso-in(正倉院), Japan. It can be seen that the Shilla carpet has evolved into a unique Silla-style carpet using motifs such as peonies and young monks, which were popular in Silla, while following the overall design of the Persian medallion. Keywords: Sassanid Persia, Silla, carpet, palmette pattern, cultural exchange, medallion composition

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He received his Ph.D. in the history of costume from Sungkyunkwan University. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Fashion Marketing at Keimyung University and worked as a writer for the Central Asian Silk Road research dictionary at the National Institute of Cultural Heritage. His research interests are on cultural products based on the history of costume, and related papers are as follows. 『Development of armor design for children's experience using Gaya armor』, 『The Costume of Ritual dance in Mongolian and Korean Buddhism』, 『A study on the restoration of armor from the Unified Silla period excavated from Jaemaejeong in Gyeongju』, 『A Study on the Convergence of East and West Religious Costume Culture Depicted in Tunhuang cave paintings of the Northern Dynasty period』, etc.

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Both in popular perception and specialized literature, the Achaemenid Empire, for over two centuries the most important player from the Aegean to the Indus, is rarely evoked in correlation with the complex of socio-cultural dynamics charactering the spaces of what has become known as the Silk Road(s). Building on the case study of the famous Pazyryk carpet, one of the most spectacular witnesses of the contacts between the Iranian world and the Eurasian steppes, this paper explores the rich and complex nature of the commercial networks that flourished across Central Asia under the aegis of Achaemenid Great Kings. Both archaeological and literary evidence (especially the Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria) shall be discussed. If taken together and read against the grain, such material is significant for the following reasons. First, it suggests the existence - and the scale - of commercial activities directly fostered or indirectly promoted by the imperial administration in Central Asia, an area of crucial importance within the Achaemenid domains, but for which our evidence is rather scanty and difficult to assess. Second, it shows how the Achaemenid «Imperial Paradigm» affected the social and economic landscape of Central Asia even after the demise of the Empire itself, thus considerably shaping the world of the Silk Road(s) century before the Ancient Sogdian Letters or Zhāng Quiān’s famous report. Keywords: Achaemenid Persian Empire, Bactria, Eurasian Steppes, Pazyryk, Sakā, Sogdiana, Chorasmia

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Marco Ferrario studied Ancient History and Classics at the Universities of Trento (Italy), Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), and Innsbruck (Austria). After obtaining his MA in 2018 from the University of Trento he worked for two years as research assistant of Prof. Sitta von Reden (Freiburg), principal investigator of the ERC funded Project Beyond the Silk Road (BaSaR). Since November 2020 he is a Ph.D. student at the University of Trento and Augsburg (Germany), working on a dissertation on Achaemenid Baktria. In September 2022 he was elected junior board member of the Melammu Project.

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This paper aims to analyze the depicted features of the carpets in the eyes of trans-continent travellers. Whilst the initial use of carpet was a practical tool for nomads protecting against coldness, humidity, and vermins, later usage gradually expanded, including praying on it by nomads and settlers. Notably, the Islamic culture contributed to proliferating the utilization of carpets over diverse regions owing to its peculiar ritual of praying on a sijjad (a prayer mat for Muslims in Arabic). Each rug absorbs the features of the culture and nature that belonged to it. Travellers came from far away, regardless of believing in the same or different religion of the mats they are observing, scrutinized distinctive carpets and described them since it delivers the condensed norms of nature and society associated with them. The paper investigates several medieval travelogues from three religious backgrounds, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims, and then seeks what they perceived in the mats. In the end, the paper compares the descriptions with the status quo of the time's society not only for knowing the precision of their knowledge and observation but also for assuming their attitude toward the encountering culture. Keywords: Silk Road, Carpet, Travelogue, Intercultural, Silk Route.

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Jin Han Jeong is a Korean scholar studying world civilizational exchanges in broad and Islamic history and geography in narrow. He was awarded an MA in History at the University of Jordan and a PhD in History at SOAS, University of London. Currently, Jeong is lecturing classes on Islamic History and Islamic Thoughts at Seoul National University and Hankook University of Foreign Studies. And he is researching at the Korea Institute of Civilizational Exchanges and bi-monthly issuing his column for the “Professor Newspaper”. Jeong is a research director of the Korean Association of Islamic Studies. He co-authored “Silla and the Silk Road” and other books and published “The Pro-Israeli Public Diplomacy of the UAE by Using a Private Museum: Focusing on the Crossroad of Civilizations Museum” and other papers.

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Throughout history, the carpet has characterized each epoch, demonstrating sustainable forms of development on the one hand and the era’s artistic, emotional, spiritual, and ideological concepts on the other. The local ancestors of today's Azerbaijanis traditionally engaged in carpet weaving, like other Turkic peoples, and brought originality, exquisite taste, and unique handwriting to this art. The cattlemen’s way of life left its mark on carpet ornamentation in many areas of Azerbaijan. Today, we can point to specific stamps woven into a carpet’s ornamentation that indicate its origins within a particular tribe. We can also trace the connection between images of real and mythological animals and birds on carpets with tribal totems. By the Middle Ages, the well-deserved fame of Azerbaijani carpets progressively increased due to the Great Silk Road passing through the South Caucasus. This road brought the best Azerbaijani carpets, exquisite in ornament and rich in material, to Europe. In the 16th century, artists created carpets with gold and silver thread in the weft, depicting scenes from miniature paintings. They also wove garden and hunting carpets incomparable in beauty and almost as valuable as gold. Like any part of a culture, Azerbaijani carpet weaving has experienced ups and downs caused by political and economic events. A giant step in the protection and development of Azerbaijani carpet weaving was the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum’s founding in 1967 in Baku. It was the first museum of its kind in the world and transpired from the outstanding scientist and artist Latif Karimov’s initiative. Keywords: carpet art, museum, sustainable forms, tradition, weaving techniques

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Assoc. Prof. Shirin Melikova, Director of the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum, Chair of ICOM Azerbaijan National Committee The protection and popularization of the historical heritage of Azerbaijan are at the forefront of all her activities. She has given rise to many innovative museum projects, including reviving ancient weaving techniques, designed the strategy for the development of museum sector in the country: educational programs, attracting an audience, educating personnel, volunteering. Dr. Melikova developed and curated the first inclusive programs in the country and built new strategies for maintaining the museum’s development in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She also adapted a strategy plan to enrich the ANCM’s all 7 museum collections, and for the first time in the country's museum practice, arranged the purchase of objects from world auctions.
Shirin Melikova is an art expert and curator of many major art exhibitions and festivals. She regularly gives lectures in leading textile museums around the world, universities, international symposiums, and conferences. Dr. Melikova is the author of more than 20 books and many scientific publications.
In 2018, Shirin Melikova was awarded the title Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In 2022, Dr Melikova was awarded the Knight of the Order of the Arts and the Letters of France (Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres).

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Traditional Kurdish weavings are among the world's most ancient living textile traditions. One of the largest ethnic and linguistic groups, Kurds have inhabited a significant part of Western Asia for millennia. Historically, Kurdish territories were crisscrossed with important and oldest trade routes, including the Silk Roads. This led to the formation of some of the most significant Kurdish artistic and cultural traditions, including textiles, which influenced and were being influenced by those of other non-Kurdish ethnic groups from Caucasia to Central Asia and beyond. One example of Kurdish carpet traditions born in the eighteenth century at the cross-sections of the Safavid (150-1736) urban carpets workshops and centuries-old indigenous Kurdish tribal/rural weaves is senneh gelim or sojaee. A finely flatwoven carpet that was being exchanged regionally and internationally as a diplomatic gift and a highly prized commodity. Although in decline, senneh gelims continue to be made by Kurdish women weavers in its original birthplace Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Iranian Kurdistan to date. This study adopts an inter-disciplinary approach to present an image of senneh gelim and women gelim weavers, tracing the developmental trajectories of the craft from the eighteenth century to the present time by drawing on extant art-historical and social studies and primary ethnographic data collected by the author during her fieldwork in Iranian Kurdistan (2018-2019). It investigates the craft tradition's historical origin, various aspects such as techniques, materials, aesthetics, functions, and meanings, and how these transformed over time. Additionally, the paper looks at the social contexts of production, focusing on women carpet weavers and how their socioeconomic and cultural situation has formed the senneh carpet production in the past and present and the implications for long-term preservation. Keywords: senneh gelim/kilim, sojaee, traditional flatwoven carpets, Iranian Kurdish textile craft heritage, Near Eastern/Western Asia textiles, women carpet weavers

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Reyhane Mirabootalebi is an objects and textiles conservator. She has a PhD in Preservation Studies from the University of Delaware, USA (2021) and an M.A. in Cultural Materials Conservation from the University of Melbourne, Australia (2011). She has broad experience relating to conservation and preservation of cultural heritage, and worked with several national and international institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, the Oriental Institute Chicago University at the National Museum of Kabul Afghanistan, the Heritage Conservation Centre Singapore, and the National Museum of Australia. Her research interest focuses on Middle Eastern textile traditions, women weavers, and the politics of carpets making in Iranian societies.

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Carpets, as a traditional Pakistani craft, have a rich history in terms of hand-knotted weaving, design motifs, vibrant colours, and compositions. The elements and principles of design play a vital role in conveying the subjectivity of the objectives. Different linear dimensions, colour contrasts and harmony create strong compositions that reflect the artisans’ inventiveness. It is a visual language in the form of representation of self-expression and the display of innovative themes with symmetrical designs, which directly belong to the brain's ability to execute inventive thinking and planning on the surface. Mughal’s traditional design patterns, flora and fauna on carpet designs were continued by later manufactured carpets and realistic forms became stylized and simplified with adding strong design composition. The master pieces made by Mughals had unique appearance with Iranian Influences, which were totally different from other contemporary world of art of carpet making. These carpets have their own quality regarding material and designs. Presentation of nature, variety of vegetation, trellis and arabesque designs, cartouches, medallions, blossoms, flowery foliage, birds and animals, arabesque designs, complicated patterns with variety of flower species and hunting scenes are making strong compositions. These compositions are different from each other and every composition is giving a different appearance of flora and fauna with geometrical designs. After studying literature, it is apparent that numerous scholars, critics and authors have commented on the carpets of Subcontinent in general. However, none shed light on the symmetrical design patterns, motifs, vegetative compositions, vibrant harmonized and contrast colours of Mughal carpets in detail. Similarly, the influence of Mughal carpets on contemporary hand-knotted craft of Pakistan are still awaited to be studied. Qualitative research methodology will be adopted in Chicago manual style of citations. The aim and objectives of the present research are to explore and highlight, different foreign and regional influences on Mughal carpets and to trace its richly-pattered traditional palmette motifs, symmetrical designs on later manufactured modern carpets of Pakistan. It will be presented that how traditional cultural designs were continued on contemporary carpets with the addition of ingenious ideas and stylization of the natural forms in curvilinear and rectilinear designs which will be helpful for scholars to know about current trends to preserve and promote cultural heritage of Pakistan. Key Words: Hand-knotted Weaving, Mughal, Arabesque Designs, Vegetative Compositions

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Prof. Dr. Samina Nasim is Gold Medalist and seasoned academician, designated as Chairperson/Head, Department of Fine Arts, College of Art and Design, University of the Punjab Lahore. She has twenty-four years of experience in teaching profession. She did her Ph.D. in Fine Arts Art History in 2009. Her area of specialization is Fine Arts, Art History and Studio Practice. She has fourteen research publications in National and International research journals having impact factor and presented seven papers in conferences as esteemed paper presenter. History of South Asian Art and Architecture is her major area of interest. She is also a practicing artist and has participated in several National and International solo and group shows. Ten National and International Solo Shows of paintings and more than ninety shows are in her credit. Her artwork has been selected for permanent display in the Museum of Hebi Normal University Sijiazhuang China in 2017. She has won several prizes in prestigious Art Competitions.

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Interaction between sedentary farming and nomadic cultural traditions has played an important role in the centuries-old history of applied arts in Uzbekistan. By the late 19th and early 20th century, driven by urbanization in the region and the gradual transition of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples to sedentary lifestyle, many industries and traditional culture forms of formerly nomadic ethnic groups naturally disappeared. Nevertheless, their role in shaping the national cultural identity of the Uzbek people is great. This is true in relation to one of the largest ethnic groups in Uzbekistan, the Kungrats, whose applied art represents a unique, viable and yet little-studied phenomenon in the national culture of Uzbekistan. The article reviews carpet weaving, one of their still surviving crafts, exemplified by qiz-gilam, a unique type of rugs made using a combined technique. Keywords: Southern Uzbekistan, Uzbeks, Kungrats, carpet-weaving, qiz-gilam, medallion, ornament

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Binafsha Nodir is an art historian, Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (PhD). She works as deputy editor-in-chief of "SAN'AT" (ART) magazine of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan and as a senior researcher at the Institute of Art Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. She also gives lectures at the Institute of Arts and Design named after K. Bekhzod. Binafsha Nodir is an expert in traditional applied arts, especially textiles. She has participated in preparation and implementation of a number of international projects in the field of culture and art implemented by the UNESCO Representative Office in Uzbekistan (training courses, exhibitions and conferences within the framework of the annual International Festival of Traditional Textiles "Atlas Bayrami"). The author of many projects and curator of exhibitions on traditional arts and crafts of Uzbekistan, including "The Sacrament of Magic Threads" (dedicated to the revival of traditional embroidery in Tashkent), "Thread that connected Generations", "In Search of the Lost Paradise...” . She is the author of more than 50 articles, catalogues and album-books.

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With the expansion of the Russian Empire southward in the nineteenth century, connoisseurs, art historians, and scholars in Russia began to pay attention to carpet traditions in the new territories of the empire in Turkestan. In journals and other specialty publications, they underscored a need to establish claims to authority over the knowledge of the traditional craft. They were highly attuned to parallel accounts of carpet weaving from regions that had a longer history of research and collecting of carpets. In contrast to the situation in western Europe or the United States, commentators bemoaned the fact that the public and even professed experts in Russia did not appreciate carpets from the Caucasus and Central Asia. These scholars articulated a need to establish authority over the carpet weaving traditions of Russia’s colonial possessions, resulting in a push toward a serious study of carpet weaving as a legitimate field of inquiry. Furthermore, the interlocuters categorized their knowledge along familiar lines. This paper uses publications regarding carpet ornaments and collections of carpets to examine how carpet weaving traditions in Russian Turkestan figured into an imperial discourse of knowledge. It argues that attempts to understand, categorize, and appreciate carpet weaving as an art form occurred along two fronts. Intellectuals and scholars attempted to wrest control over the locus of knowledge from experts in the West as well as from local weavers. In the process, they established a distinctly imperial vision of carpet weaving in contrast to competing imperial discourses and over traditional forms of knowledge. Key words: collecting, ornament, carpets, Russian Empire, Central Asia

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Sohee Ryuk is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University. She is a historian of twentieth-century Eurasia, Russia, and the Soviet Union. Her dissertation is tentatively titled “Weaving ‘Oriental Carpets’ into the Soviet Union: Handicraft and Folk Art at the Intersections of Nations, Commodity, and Labor, 1890-1986.” In her dissertation, she uses carpets from Central Asia and the Caucasus as a lens to contextualize changes in labor organization and commodity production in the Soviet Union. Carpet weavers, scholars, and the state reimagined carpet traditions as they transformed trade and production networks to form national commodities. Her research interests include craft, commodity, and national heritage.

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Many knotted carpets from western China and Central Asia of from 1000-700 BCE to 700 CE demonstrate strong resemblances to the Assyrian-Persian stone reliefs and Hellenistic-Roman mosaics, in their overall composition, design, and iconographic motifs. The essay compares and analyzes the design of these stone/mosaics and the carpets, and discusses their stylistic connection and esthetic interaction. Keywords: Carpets, mosaics, Central Asia, Hellenistic-Roman art, Pazyryk, Assyrian stone thresholds

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Dr. He ZHANG（张禾）is Professor of Art History at William Paterson University, US, and Fulbright Scholar in Central and South Asia. Her special field is Pre-Columbian Art, and her teaching responsibilities include Pre-Columbian Art, Asian Art, Silk Road Art, and Western Art History survey. Grown up in Khotan, a little oasis town on the ancient Silk Road deep in the Taklamakan Desert in west China, Zhang has dedicated her recent research studies and publications on the archaeological artifacts from Central Asia, focusing on the interactive cultural relationships as reflected in the arts between the East and West. Zhang had several NEH awards for the study of Asian Art, Silk Road, and Maya World, and published numerous studies on the ancient carpets and Pre-Columbian arts and writings.

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