Soumak (also spelled soumakh, sumak, sumac, or soumac)

Soumak (also spelled soumakh, sumak, sumac, or soumac) is a tapestry technique used for weaving sturdy, decorative fabrics in carpets, rugs, domestic bags, and bedding. Specifically, soumak fabrics used for bedding are known as soumak mafrash. 🧶✨

Soumak is a type of flat weave, somewhat resembling kilim, but it is stronger and thicker with a smooth front face and a ragged back, unlike kilim, which is smooth on both sides. Soumak lacks the slits characteristic of kilim, as it is usually woven with supplementary weft threads as continuous supports. 

The technique involves wrapping colored weft threads over and under the warp threads, adding strength and embroidery-like pattern. 🌈🧵

Etymology 🗺️📚

The name 'soumak' may plausibly derive from the old town of Shemakja in Azerbaijan, once a major trading center in the Eastern Caucasus. Other theories include an etymology from the Turkish word 'sekmek', meaning 'to skip up and down', referring to the process of weaving. Alternatively, it could be derived from any of the approximately 35 species of flowering plants in the Anacardiaceae or sumac family, such as dyer's sumach (Cotinus coggygria), used for making dyestuffs. If this is the source of the name, then it originates from the Arabic and Syriac word 'summāq', meaning 'red'. 🌍📖🌺

Technique 🎨🔧

Soumak weave involves wrapping weft threads over 4 warps and back over 2. Sometimes, the weaver may reverse the direction of the wrapping. The process is repeated from selvedge to selvedge. The wefts are discontinuous; the weaver selects colored threads in turn and wraps each within the area intended for that particular color. Unlike kilim, the back is left ragged, with loose ends of the differently-colored weft threads visible, sometimes several inches long, providing extra thickness and warmth. Also, unlike kilim, there are no slits where colors meet, as there is a supplementary or structural weft supporting the colored pattern weft. Some late Soumaks made by the Kurds are, however, "weftless", lacking the structural weft support, causing the stitches to overlap naturally. 🧵🔄🎨

Soumaks tend to be finely woven. Although not as durable as piled carpets, they are stronger than kilims. The soumak wrapping often covers the entire surface of a bag or rug, but it can also be applied in decorative strips, contrasting with the plainer and thinner flatweave areas. For example, camel bags from Malatya in Eastern Turkey could be woven in simple flatweave stripes of red and blue, with broad strips of soumak weft-wrapping with motifs for fertility and protection. 👜🐪🇹🇷

Bags were sometimes woven with a face of soumak, featuring a tapestry-woven kilim-like top with slits between blocks of color: a rope was threaded in and out of these slits to fasten and close the bag. Sizes vary, from carpet formats through bags for bedding or use on pack animals, to tiny tribal domestic bags. The following images show the appearance and construction of a soumak saddle bag, woven in Luristan at the end of the 20th century. The Lurs sometimes, as here, combine soumak and knotted carpet piling to adorn a single piece. To form the motifs, the weaver may manipulate the weft threads to create curves or slanting shapes as desired. 🧳🐎🧩

Regions 🌍🏔️

Soumak products are made in the Caucasus (especially the Shirvan region), Southern and Western Persia including Luristan, Turkish Anatolia, by the Shahsavan tribe and the Kurds in north-western Persia, and by the Baloch people on the Persia–Afghanistan border. 🏞️🕌