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Tokat Yazma, From Linden Block to Cloth

In Tokat, the apple and grape patterns on a headscarf, a bundle cloth or a quilt cover are pressed onto the fabric by hand, one by one.

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Tokat Yazma, From Linden Block to Cloth

In Tokat, the apple and grape patterns on a headscarf, a bundle cloth or a quilt cover are pressed onto the fabric by hand, one by one. Behind every pattern there is a block carved from linden wood, and behind every colour there is a separate block. Tokat yazması, the hand-printed cloth of Tokat, grew out of the trade the city built at a crossroads of caravan routes, and today it is a craft protected by a geographical indication. This article explains what yazma is, how the block is carved, which patterns count as Tokat's own, and where in the city you can follow the trail of this craft.

A craft of decorating cloth

The Tokat Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism defines yazma as a craft of decorating fabric with carved wooden blocks and various dyes, drawn by hand or printed, usually on cotton and sometimes on silk. According to the directorate, the finest examples of this craft were made in Tokat. The best known use of yazma is the scarf women tie over their heads; bundle cloths, table covers and quilt covers are also common forms.

The registration document held by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office lists an even wider range. According to the document, yazma is used for both everyday and decorative items such as the headscarf called yemeni, pillow covers, quilt covers, bundle cloths, handkerchiefs, divan covers, turban covers and the large napkin called destimal. In other words, yazma is not only a headscarf but almost every surface of a home that is covered with cloth.

A cloth city on the caravan road

The registration document gives Tokat yazması a history of six hundred years and notes that the geometric patterns used in the Seljuk period ran parallel to Seljuk art. In the Ottoman period, the revenues of Tokat yazma were assigned as a has, a crown estate, to the queen mothers. Printers working together in the city's inns handed their cloth to the dye houses and paid a stamp tax in return. According to the document, printing yazma outside the city of Tokat was banned in the region to make this tax unavoidable.

The Tokat entry of the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam gives the figures behind this economy. In 1574 the annual revenue of the Tokat dye house tax farm was 83,334 akçe. Between 1643 and 1690 the stamp duty on red cotton cloth taken from cotton weaving and printed cloth production rose from 450 to 2200 kuruş because output increased. In 1726 Atıf Mustafa Efendi, who had taken the tax farm of the stamp and dye house duties, found the existing dye house insufficient and had a new, large one built with considerable capital.

The same picture appears in the eyes of European travellers. The provincial directorate quotes Tournefort as calling Tokat the centre of Asia Minor's trade. According to Peyssonel, French consul in Crimea between 1754 and 1758, the cotton cloth and printed cloth exported from the Tokat region to Crimea, southern Russia and the northern Caucasus exceeded five hundred thousand bolts. The TDV entry also notes that this growth in weaving entered a long period of contraction and decline after 1758. The sentence in which Evliya Çelebi praised Tokat cloth appears both on the directorate's page and in the registration document, opening with "Beyaz pembe bezi Diyar-ı Lahor'da yapılmaz", that is, its white and pink cloth is not made even in Lahore.

The block carved from linden

The real mastery of Tokat yazma lies in the block. The registration document says it plainly: blocks are carved only from linden wood. The directorate explains why: linden grown near water is soft, easy to carve, durable and holds gum well. The wood must be free of knots and must be dried before carving; otherwise the block warps when it gets wet and gives no clean print.

According to the document, the wood for the block is cut horizontally rather than vertically, because the grain of vertically cut wood leaves unwanted lines in the print. The dried trunk is sliced crosswise into pieces seven to ten centimetres thick, and depending on the motif the block is at most thirty centimetres wide. Before carving begins, the piece is dipped into a molten mixture of seventy-five percent paraffin and twenty-five percent beeswax and left for a while; this makes carving easier and extends the life of the block. The depth of the carving varies between one and one and a half centimetres depending on how dense the pattern is. If the carving is too shallow, dye smeared on the background of the block spoils the print.

In the directorate's account the pattern is first drawn on the wood with a pen and then brought out by carving with a small knife called nakış bul. As many blocks are prepared as there are colours. A single-colour pattern needs one block; in the multicoloured printing called elvan, a separate block is carved for every colour. That is why the directorate describes block carving as difficult but rewarding work.

Brushwork, blocks and elvan

The directorate divides yazma into two main types. In kalem işi yazma the cloth is coloured with a brush, so the work is close to painting and examples are very rare. Printed yazma, on the other hand, suits production and can be repeated; this is why yazma usually brings printing to mind.

The registration document groups the techniques under three headings. In brushwork, the pattern transferred to cloth stretched on a frame is outlined and coloured with a brush as if painting on canvas. In the block and brush technique, the outlines are printed with a block and the coloured areas are filled in by brush. The most common method today is block printing, and the document lists five ways of applying it. In the karakalem technique a single block prints black on white or white on black. In elvan work, the blocks prepared for each colour are pressed one over another in the order of the pattern.

In the discharge technique, a block coated with a mixture of plum gum and lime cream is pressed onto cloth first dyed black. When the cloth is left for a day and washed with plenty of water, the areas touched by the lime turn white and a white pattern emerges on the black ground. In the dip technique, the printed motifs are sealed with glue or beeswax, the cloth is dipped into dye and everything outside the motifs takes the colour. In blue bleaching, white cloth is dyed with the powdered indigo the printers call kozan mavisi; after a series of prints and washes the inside of the outlines turns milk white, and then elvan printing in the desired colour is added.

Tokat red and the city's patterns

According to the directorate, every kind of yazma used anywhere is printed in Tokat, but two original patterns belong to the city: Tokat içi dolusu and Tokat elmalısı. These patterns are printed on a crimson ground called Tokat alı or Tokat red, or on a red-purple ground that is a darker shade of the same colour. A modified form of Tokat içi dolusu is Tokat üzümlüsü, also called Tokat morlusu, in which the flower motif takes the shape of a bunch of grapes. Tokat elmalısı consists of apple motifs printed in red or red-purple on a black ground, and according to the directorate it is used around Zile. Its broken-down, smaller form is called Tokat yarım elmalısı or aynalı.

The Çengelköy pattern, which originated in Istanbul, is also printed in Tokat. According to the directorate, this pattern, which fills the whole black ground with yellow, green and red, is used in the Tozanlı villages of Reşadiye. The registration document adds names such as purket, kaynana yumruğu, Trabzon kenar, asma yaprağı, Tokat beşlisi, onaltı fulyalı yazma, sinekli hamamiye and Şam hamamiye, and notes that the motifs mostly take their subjects from plants.

Cloth and dye

According to the document, Tokat yazma is printed only on one hundred percent cotton. The reason is clear: cotton holds the print, does not spread the dye, does not run when washed, and the dye on it does not fade. The fabrics used are locally loom-woven cloths, the American cloth locals call kaput bezi, muslin and mermerşahi. Where once only plant dyes were used, today plant and chemical dyes are used together.

The directorate also explains the secret of the old Tokat red. The crimson ground came from a root dye called alizarin. The cloth was first washed and dried, the outline of the pattern was printed in black, and a mordant of alum and black dye was applied. The cloth was then dyed in cauldrons prepared with juniper cones and buckthorn, stirred constantly over a wood fire. According to the directorate, the colours that came out of this laborious work were brilliant and did not fade. When alizarin was discontinued, other dyes came into use and these no longer gave the old Tokat red; screen printing, better suited to mass production, partly replaced the wooden block. Even so, the directorate stresses that the craft is fighting to survive.

A name protected by a designation of origin

Tokat Yazması is registered as a designation of origin under Industrial Property Law No. 6769. The application was filed on 1 November 2017, registration was completed on 26 February 2020, and the registration number is 484. The registering body is Tokat Municipality and the geographical boundary is Tokat province. According to the document, every stage of production, from preparing the blocks to printing, must take place within the province.

Inspection is carried out by a body coordinated by Tokat Municipality with the participation of Gaziosmanpaşa University, the Tokat Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism and the Tokat Provincial Directorate of Industry and Technology. At least once a year the body checks the type of cloth, the properties of the blocks and the production method at workshops and points of sale. The name Tokat Yazması and the emblem of the designation of origin appear on the product itself or on its packaging.

Following yazma through the city

To see the history of yazma, your first stop should be Tokat Museum. The museum is housed in the Arastalı Bedesten on Sulusokak, and according to Kültür Portalı the arasta section on the west side of the building holds an ethnography hall that presents crafts such as copperwork, yazma printing, weaving, carpets and kilims. A bedesten is a covered market where precious cloth was sold; seeing yazma in exactly the kind of building where the cloth trade took place gives the visit its meaning.

Walking along Sulusokak you pass the former Gazioğlu Hanı, which GoTürkiye calls Yazmacılar Hanı, the Inn of the Printers. GoTürkiye says the name changed in recent years because of the production carried out here. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, however, writes that the inn was used by printers until recently and is now completely empty and in ruins. So do not plan to tour the inn inside; looking at its two-storey facade and the row of shops on its north side from outside is enough. Taşhan, close by, is a large two-storey city inn with an open courtyard built between 1626 and 1632; it tells the story of the inns where Tokat's cloth trade turned better than any other building.

If you want to buy yazma, keep a few things in mind. Look for the emblem of the designation of origin on the product or its packaging. In a block-printed piece, small differences can be seen between repeats of the motif; places where the colours meet are a clue to elvan printing. Do not hesitate to ask the seller whether the block was carved from linden and which pattern counts as Tokat's own; by now you can tell Tokat içi dolusu from Tokat elmalısı yourself.

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