Beyşehir Seljuk carpet fragments

Objects from the mosque

The municipal heritage book reports that Rudolf M. Riefstahl identified three historic carpet fragments in Eşrefoğlu Mosque in 1930. It connects them with the design and techniques of Seljuk-period weaving, while recording that the fragments later entered separate collections. Their history is a history of movable objects, not a claim that every mosque carpet was woven in Beyşehir.^[1]

Fragmentary preservation limits what can be reconstructed about the original carpets. Borders, repeat patterns, fibres and technique can be studied; missing sections cannot be filled in as certain. The fragments also show how a working mosque can become a source for textile history.^[1]

Architectural setting

The carpet pieces once belonged to the mosque’s furnishings, while its columns, mihrab and minbar are architectural fabric or fittings. Comparing them with Kubadabad’s tiles reveals different ways that decorated objects were used, moved and displayed.^[2][3]

Recording and dispersal

The mosque’s carpets attracted attention before modern cataloguing. Friedrich Sarre described seeing old floor coverings during his 1895 visit; Rudolf M. Riefstahl published a fuller illustrated account in 1931. İsmail Efe’s study reports transfers of pieces from Eşrefoğlu Mosque to Konya and Istanbul museums in 1932–34. Those dates help distinguish a carpet’s medieval weaving from its much later discovery, photography and museum history.^[4][5]

The municipal heritage book names three fragments associated with Riefstahl and reports two in a Konya collection and one in the Keir collection in Britain. Efe discusses a wider group of carpets and kilims, including later Ottoman material, with additional collections and uncertain totals. The differing counts refer to different selected groups and dates; they should not be collapsed into a claim that only three textiles ever came from the mosque.^[6][7]

Reading the textiles

Erdemir describes early examples close to Konya Seljuk carpets, with red dominant and dark blue, blue, yellow, black and white also used. Diamonds, stars, polygons, stylised foliage and inscription-like borders are among the recorded designs. These observations concern surviving pieces: damaged or absent areas cannot be restored with certainty, and a mosque findspot alone does not identify the workshop that wove each piece.^[8]

Efe also records an on-site examination of stored carpets in 1999 that identified more than seventy historic pieces of varied date. His account is a valuable first-person observation, but the report does not provide a modern object-by-object catalogue for all of them. Comparing his observations with museum inventories and Riefstahl’s photographs is the next step for tracing individual textiles.^[7]