Tajikistan · Weaving / Ikat / Textile
Атлас (Atlas — Tajik variant)
Tajik atlas ikat is the specific ikat tradition of the Khujand area in Sughd Province — Tajikistan's main silk weaving center — distinct from Uzbek atlas (CRAFT-0686) in its specific color palette (Tajik atlas uses more green and white alongside the standard red and dark blue) and in a specific warp tension test that differs from the Uzbek approach. Where Uzbek adras uses warp singing to calibrate silk-to-cotton tension (CRAFT-0687), Tajik atlas uses a simultaneous two-warp-thread singing comparison: 'I pluck two warp threads at once and they must answer each other — one voice, two strings.'
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Tajikistan national ICH list; UNESCO documentation
Kandakori (Кандакорӣ — wood carving) in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of eastern Tajikistan is one of the most elaborate domestic architectural carving traditions in Central Asia — producing the carved wooden columns and…
Tajik suzani (Сузани тоҷики) from Panjakent in western Tajikistan is related to but distinct from Uzbek Bukhara suzani (CRAFT-0688) — the Tajik tradition uses a color overlay shading system where the same motif is worked in two or three…
Turquoise (firuza — فیروزه in Persian and Tajik) has been the most important decorative stone of the Central Asian and Persian Islamic world for three thousand years.
The Vashti (Вашти) knife tradition of Khatlon Province in southern Tajikistan produces the characteristic Tajik knife with a distinctive upward-curved tip and a specific pattern-welded blade made by folding and twisting steel during…
Handwoven flat floor coverings (dhurries) in which a claw-like iron fork, the panja, beats each weft into the cotton warp by hand, producing a dense, durable, weft-faced fabric.
Song brocade (宋锦) is the third of China's Three Great Brocades — alongside Shu brocade (CRAFT-0363) and Nanjing Yunjin (CRAFT-0386) — produced in Suzhou, Jiangsu, and inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List in 2009.
Xilan katze (西兰卡普 — meaning 'beautiful flower cover' in Tujia language) is the traditional brocade of the Tujia people — an ethnic group of over 8 million concentrated in western Hunan and western Hubei provinces.
Dong brocade (侗锦) is the supplementary weft silk brocade tradition of the Dong people of Guizhou, Guangxi, and Hunan provinces — produced on a horizontal body-tension loom using a specific pick-up stick technique that creates geometric…
Mongolian felt making (擀毡 gǎn zhān) is the nomadic textile tradition of the Mongolian people of Inner Mongolia — producing thick, durable, insulating felt from raw wool through a process of carding, layering, rolling, and wetting that…
Shuri textiles (首里の織物) are the court and aristocratic cloths of Shuri, the former Ryukyu royal capital — a family of figured weaves and ikat rather than a single technique.