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Robert Chenciner is an independent writer based in London and co-author of Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan: Magic medicine symbols in silk, stone, wood and flesh (Bennett & Bloom 2006).
Other books include: Embroidered Flowers from Thrace to Tartary, 1981 (with C. Marko); Architecture of Baku, 1985 (with E. Salmanov); Daghestan Today, 1989; Kaitag Textile Art of Daghestan, 1993; Daghestan: Tradition and Survival, 1997; Madder Red: A History of Luxury and Trade, 2000 Kaitag Daghestani Silk Embroidery An Italian Collection, Ziya Bozoglu, 2007 (text including new material with folklorist David Hunt)
MA Cantab. Senior Associate Member St Antony’s College Oxford since 1987; Hon Member Russian Academy of Sciences, Daghestan Scientific Centre since 1990
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Portrait by P D Makhachkala
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European versions of Oriental designs printed on cotton using madder reds
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MAD ABOUT MADDER
Barnaby Rogerson's profile of Robert Chenciner
with photographs by Simon Upton, styled by Min Hogg
Cornucopia Issue 24
‘Chenciner has sourced all the world’s recipes for red – for Saharan shawls, for the Coptic script in Fatimid weaving, for the kilts worn by Roman legionaries on Hadrian’s Wall, for the silk ikats of Bukhara, for an 8,000-year-old thread from Çatalhüyük’
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Cornucopia Issue 24 Contents:
The Wild East:
Min Hogg travels with photographer Manuel Citak to Mardin, Harran, Zeugme, Urfa and beyond.
Hidden History:
How 100,000 Jews were saved ... and Turkey escaped the Iron Curtain.
Big Friendly Giant:
Colonel Fred Burnaby, a Victorian hero in step with Asia Minor, by David Barchard
Light Years from New York:
Carla Grissmann shares a 'Dinner of Herbs' with the novelist Maureen Freely.
Soups for Cool Cooks:
Berrin Torolsan brings a taste of the Steppes into the urban kitchen with ten surefire, no-fuss recipes.
Plus: Gallipoli wines, the art of 'tel kakma', book reviews and exhibition and saleroom highlights.
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The carpet bazaar in Ganja, Azerbaijan, photographed around 1900
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THE PEOPLES THAT TIME FORGOT
by Robert Chenciner
Cornucopia Issue 28
'The Russian love affair with the Caucasus has been long and cruel, though the outside world knows little of the multitude of ethnic groups who for millennia have inhabited this remote strip of land the size of France.
In 2001, however, a remarkable catalogue was published. It reveals a unique collection of artefacts which for years have stood gathering dust in the vaults of a St Petersburg museum. Here Robert Chenciner examines the book and introduces a selection of its poignant photographs.'
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Cornucopia Issue 28
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Order the exhibition catalogue plus Issue 28
Robert Chenciner participates in the Ossetian Festival of St George
andwrites on Kyrgyzstan Horse-meat and Horse-racing
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A bride in Camkalabak on the northern Aegean with her trousseau
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THE STORY OF THE SMILING CAMEL
Robert Chenciner reviews Harald Bohmer's 'Nomads in Anatolia'
Cornucopia Issue 39
'The pictures are suffused with bubbling smiles and good humour, in contrast to the struggle that has coloured their subjects' honourable, archaic existence.'
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Cornucopia Issue 39
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Robert Chenciner has also raised questions regarding the date of the Bayeux Tapestry when he noticed that an image contained in it showed people grilling kebabs, which weren't introduced to Western Europe until far later than the date usually given for the tapestry's creation. Dating tests have been refused. It is likely that the embroidery had been mended and altered, so what survived may not be entirely genuine.
Chenciner's talk and paper was called The Bayeux Tapestry Shish Kebab Mystery, Oxford Symposium of Food and Cookery 1990.
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