Anatolian Kilims; New Insights and Problems

The study of Anatolian kilims has much in common with Anatolian archaeology of the second millennium B.C. In both cases we have the evidence from the texts; place names in the Hittite texts, tribal and place names in the Ottoman ones. Whereas the bulk of the Hittite place names can not yet be securely located, but with certain exceptions belong to settled population groups, those from the Ottoman records refer to nomadic or semi-nomadic elements that can sometimes be pinpointed, but more often are vague and imprecise. Further information of relevance is sometimes supplied, but more often not. Neither set of records is perfect, nor answers such to us essential questions of dates, ancestry, arrival, affinity with others, subdivisions, size of country or territory inhabited etc. Most of the Hittite texts are religious or political; most of the Ottoman records dealing with tribal groups deal with taxation, or later with military service.The basic prerequisite both for Hittite and Ottoman tribal studies is the reconstruction of a map or better still of a series of maps for various successive periods on which the events recorded in the texts and the material evidence derived from archaeology or textile production can be plotted. Here the aims are the same and so are the methods; basically fieldwork.