{"id":484,"date":"2024-09-16T14:31:30","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T12:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcdss-recette.mazedia.fr\/unsere-traditionelle-aghabani-tischdecke\/"},"modified":"2024-10-18T16:34:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T14:34:09","slug":"unsere-traditionelle-aghabani-tischdecke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/unsere-traditionelle-aghabani-tischdecke\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Traditional Aghabani Tablecloth\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dima Al Munajed
BCDSS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coordinator<\/h4>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A gold- or silver-thread-embroidered Aghabani tablecloth is something you can find in almost every household in Damascus. Going back to Syrian-Ottoman history, Aghabani embroidered fabrics are a well-known part of Syrian culture and tradition, especially for Syrian men and women from the city of Damascus and its outskirts, who have been producing Aghabani for over 150 years. <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embroidering Aghabani textiles to make tablecloths or clothing is a skill passed on from generation to generation, especially among Syrian women (fig. 1). Common textiles used for Aghabani are organza, silk, or cotton. Women take their selected fabrics to woodblock printers, who have several designed woodblocks they can choose from. The selected designs are printed on the fabric with washable blue ink to guide the embroidery, which is usually done with the aid of a special Aghabani sewing machine in gold or silver viscose thread. Finished fabrics are then washed, ironed, and ready for sale in shops (fig. 2).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 1: Syrian Aghabani tablecloth, detail (photo: Dima Al Munajed, 2024).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 2: Syrian Aghabani tablecloth whole (photo: Dima Al Munajed, 2024).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Our Aghabani tablecloth was passed down to me by my mother-in-law. Before making its way to Bonn, it decorated her dining table in Damascus for over twenty years. A true vintage beauty, in white and gold on silk fabric, its historical significance in our family is also linked to my husband\u2019s family name, \u201cAlshash,\u201d and their heritage as sellers of Aghabani textiles for several generations. The Alshash family still has several stores in Damascus that sell Aghabani textiles and other traditional handcraft today, and one of them produced the Aghabani tablecloth that my mother-in-law passed on to me (fig. 3). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 3: Syrian Aghabani tablecloth whole (photo: Dima Al Munajed, 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The city of Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is therefore no surprise that when telling a story of its traditional handcrafts, the craft origins, histories, and the stories of people that make it are never simple. This Aghabani tablecloth and its link with the Alshash family goes back to when Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire (1516\u20131919), and to the early 1800s when the Ottomans began creating records on the people living in the Empire, known as \u201cNufus<\/em>\u201d (population) registers. The Nufus<\/em> were collected at the local administrative level and included information like birth, death, marriage, and divorce. Families were also registered in the Nufus<\/em>; the first registered Syrian families were typically given family names that were associated with their profession at the time like baker, butcher, etc., or based on their place of origin if they had recently migrated from another city\/country, like Almasri (the Egyptian), Aljazaeri (the Algerian), etc. My family name for example, Al Munajed, translates into \u201cthe upholsterer,\u201d the profession of my Damascene great-great-grandfather.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The origin of my husband\u2019s family name is less direct, and there are two known theories associated with its meaning. The first connects it to the fabric known as \u201cshash<\/em>\u201d in Arabic or gauze \u2013 a light, open-weave fabric made of cotton. Gauze is also used in the making of Aghabani textiles, and it is said that the association of the family with the production and sale of Aghabani fabrics earned them the name. The second theory is that my husband\u2019s family originally came from the city of Shash, a city in the region of modern-day Samarqand, Uzbekistan. Whatever the case, our Aghabani tablecloth is a precious reminder of our identity and culture. Spreading it on our dinner table also reminds us of the Syrian love for celebration, beauty, and gathering with friends and family around big dinner tables, and of course the exquisite Syrian food that is placed on top.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 4: Syrian Aghabani tablecloth Detail (photo: Dima Al Munajed, 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Further Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bedirian, Razmig, 2023. \u201cSyrian Life\u2019s Rich Tapestry: 2,000 Years of History Told in Textiles at New York Show.\u201d The National News<\/em>. https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/arts-culture\/art-design\/2023\/10\/29\/stories-of-syrias-textiles-exhibition\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Childs, Blair Fowlkes, Emily Handlin, and Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, 2023. Stories of Syria’s Textiles: Art and Heritage across Two Millennia. Katonah Museum of Art. Exhibition catalogue. https:\/\/katonahmuseum.square.site\/product\/stories-of-syria-s-textiles-art-and-heritage-across-two-millennia\/1834.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kataf, Rania, o. J. n. d. Hidden Figures: The Women behind the Beautiful Craft of Aghabani. https:\/\/syrian-heritage.org\/hidden-figures-the-women-behind-the-beautiful-craft-of-aghabani\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makk, Danni, 2022. \u201cIt\u2019s Not Impossible to Revive It \u2013 Inside One of Syria\u2019s Last Brocade Shops.\u201d The National News<\/em>. https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/weekend\/2022\/03\/11\/its-not-impossible-to-revive-it-inside-one-of-syrias-last-brocade-shops\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Museum f\u00fcr Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, o. J. n. d \u201cSyrian Heritage Archive Project (SHAP).\u201d https:\/\/www.smb.museum\/en\/museums-institutions\/museum-fuer-islamische-kunst\/collection-research\/research-cooperation\/syrian-heritage-initiative\/syrian-heritage-archive-project\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dima Al MunajedBCDSS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coordinator A gold- or silver-thread-embroidered Aghabani tablecloth is something you can find in almost every household in Damascus. Going back to Syrian-Ottoman history, Aghabani embroidered fabrics are a well-known part of Syrian culture and tradition, especially for Syrian men and women from the city of Damascus and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"themenfeld":[44,45],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en","themenfeld-resistance-resilience","themenfeld-spindle-loom-needle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2413,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/2413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"themenfeld","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/themenfeld?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}