MASTERS AND WORKSHOPS IN ANATOLIAN FELT

Abstract

From the beginning of the historical process, mankind has benefited from the productions of competent people, first of all, then from the individuals around him and the development of social life, in order to meet the necessary needs in order to survive. With the diversification of needs, task sharing in the society necessitated specialization in many productions. In this way, professionalization has occurred in various productions and products have been started to be produced in places suitable for production made by skilled people. In this context, while Turks were producing felt to meet their own needs when they lived in small communities, with the development of social and economic life, felt turned into an economic value and became a profession that provides the livelihood of those who produce it. Depending on this development, felt making, like every profession, has created its own workshops (workshop) that meet its own needs. Felt is a weftless and warpless textile product made by compressing sheep and lamb wool in a humid environment with the help of hot water and soap, and its production is carried out with routine repetitions based on manual dexterity. Over time, workshops have operated collectively in the commercial centers of towns and cities, in a street inside the bazaar, or in a covered bazaar. Workshops have been traditional places of accumulation, where cultural riches are produced, kept alive and passed on to the next generations.

Turks carried their cultural accumulation from Central Asia to Anatolia through migration and continued their traditional productions here to meet the needs of the society. Masters who became competent in production performed their professions in the workshops they opened in city and town centers. Felt workshops were built under the umbrella of the Ahi organization in the process that was organized since the Anatolian Seljuk period and continued during the Ottoman Empire period. From the beginning to the end of production, it continued its production in Workshops where small-scale and limited-to-order production based on manual labor was carried out by using the traditional knowledge and skills learned in a structured system with training stages as apprenticeship, apprenticeship, journeyman and mastery. Today, although a small number of felt workshops in Anatolia continue their production with the efforts of their masters. It is seen that workshops are places that fulfill many functions such as production, exhibition, marketing and storage. In the study, determinations and evaluations will be made about the traditional felt masters and workshops that continue their production, albeit in small numbers, in the Anatolian geography.