LADİK RUGS

Ladik is a small town of Konya Sarayönü. According to resources, the history of the town reaches back to antiquity (1).

Although the 17th and 18th Centuries represent a period of political and economic stagnation and regression for the Ottoman Empire, this period was also a time of elevation for Anatolian-Turkish carpet weaving. In addition to such rug centres as Gördes, Kula, Uşak and Kirşehir, Ladik rugs also emerged during these centuries and sustained their traditional features until the late 19th Century. (2)

Ladik rugs displayed at Istanbul İstanbul Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul Faundations Carpet Museum and Konya Mevlana Museum and at various museums and collections in Europe and dated at the 18th Century in relevant resources are mostly prayer rugs (3) woven with woollen material and the Turkish knot technique.

Rugs of this period were coloured with madders and natural dyes predominantly in red, blue, brown, green and white. Rug bases are mostly red, while bordering lines are brown, blue and white.

Today, rugs woven by cooperatives, merchants and companies in Ladik are in cotton and woollen materials. weft and warp are of cotton, while the knot yarn is of wool.

The warp yarn is made of 16 to 20 plies, while weft yarns are divided into two groups. Fine yarns have 6-7 plies, while coarse yarns have 14-15 plies.

In village rugs, the material is wholly wool and the public obtains the wool from their own sheep.

The rugs are created with readily dyed yarns. In general, the rug is dominated by 13 colours, the most frequent of which are dark blue, white, dark red, light green and pink.

A Ladik rug is made up of sections from the outside to the centre known in the colloquial language as bez dokuma (cloth weaving – topraklik), giyi örgüsü (side braid), sizi (ince darsu), küçüksu, yatirim-dikim suyu (large line) and orta ayna (middle mirror – the centre). These are separately ornamented with different patterns.

The colloquial saying states that the rug has 100 varieties in models. Models used by weavers can be exemplified by the Chinese motif (tray centre), vase, cloak, star-centre, and pine and almond models.

Modern Ladik rugs are produced with 40x50 quality per 10x10 cm. However, the quality of local rugs is calculated with the number warp yarns stretched on the loom and the number of knots per line.

The number of warps and knots varies according to the rug size.

For instance, the prayer rug (80 x 140 cm) has 300 wires and 666 lines.
The largest of floor rugs (360 x 260 cm) has 1200 wires and 2000 lines.
The pile height of rugs is around 5-8 mm.

Rugs woven by merchants and other institutions are produced with the single knot technique, while village rugs are created with the double-knot technique.
Today, all types of rugs are being produced in Ladik.  

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