Can anyone help with weaving

Looking for help with information on this piece. If anyone can help it is much appreciated. Measures 57 inches in length and 18 inches wide. Thanks as always for all the opinions and comments here

 

Should this be moved to tribal art??

 

It isn't Native American, if that's any help. But I have no idea of where it is from.

Any idea of what the material is? It looks almost like jute or sisal, from the photos.

 

@Taupou I’m not sure what the material is.....

 

It is not a familiar piece. The stripes with the woven patterns are done in a kilim technique, which might point towards a North African/Turkish/Middle Eastern source. The fibers of the main weaving look like they might be coarse goat or camel hair. But the fringe looks strange (not to mention it being added on all sides). It might be helpful to determine the fibers with a small burn test, at least for the fringe, where it would be easy to cut off a small strand.

Hold the fiber with tweezers or a hemostat. Use a butane lighter or alcohol lamp, rather than a match (which has its own smell). Hold the fiber over the flame and observe how it burns. Remove it from the flame and wave it under your nose to note how it smells. Wool will smell like burning hair. If the fibers are jute, sisal, or other plant material it will smell like burning paper. Natural wool and plant materials will form a powdery ash. If the fiber is a synthetic of some sort it may shrink from the flame, ball up, or melt, with a variety of chemical odors. You might practice on some known fibers before sacrificing part of the mystery textile.

 

@2manybooks the fringe is just looped through so a strand is able to be pulled out with ease. I burned one and it is a powdery ash and a sweet natural smell

 

Sounds like some sort of plant, then. Could be jute or sisal, as @Taupou suggested, or some other plant material. But I am at a loss as to what that means for its origin.

 

I agree with 2many. First impression by coloration brought Central America to my mind, particularly Guatemala but the piece is slit woven which is a Kilim technique-particularly from Turkey. I think it has to be Middle Eastern.

 

@Crim000, I am still working on your textile as I find time. I have some more questions, though. From your photos, it looks like the main fabric might be made from a different material than the added fringe. Can you tell if the fringe on the short ends is added on in the same way as it is on the long sides? Or is it an extension of the basic fabric? In most textiles with fringe, the fringe is made from the warps used in the weaving process - the long threads stretched on the loom. But in your textile it looks like there is a different fiber used for the warps - I can see little spots of white (and occasionally yellow) peeking out from between the weft yarn.

 

Thank you @2manybooks the fringe part looks to be alternating purple to red simply looped through loosely through a alternate red purple braid around the main part all the way around. Yes there is a white yellow color underneath in main part

 

Thanks for the additional photos. These make it look more like the same type of fiber used for the weft and the fringe, at least. Still not sure where that gets me, though. How does it feel? - stiff, soft, silky, scratchy like wool, or something else?

 

@2manybooks Stiff rough feeling