SOUMAK KILIM

Description

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

Soumak is a type of flat weave, somewhat resembling kilim, but with a stronger and thicker weave, a smooth front face and a ragged back, where kilim 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 coloured weft threads over and under the warp threads, adding strength and embroidery-like pattern.

The name ‘soumak’ may plausibly derive from the old town of Shemakja in Azerbaijan, once a major trading centre in the Eastern Caucasus.  Other theories include an etymology from Turkish ‘sekmek’, ‘to skip up and down’, meaning the process of weaving; or from any of about 35 species of flowering plant in the Anacardiaceae or sumac family, such as dyer’s sumach (Cotinus coggygria), used to make dyestuffs.  If this last is the source of the name, then it is derived from the Arabic and Syriac word ‘summāq’, meaning ‘red’.