RK Replies:Hey there, Nezuz:
You are right again, congrats. You might be a small-time collector but you apparently have a big-time ability to discern the great from the good.
This is a talent very few ruggies have. You should be proud of yourmastery.
RK will be glad to add a few comments to yours. Our's will be in a bold typeface.
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Yes Jack, this is a slightly harder comparison.
I noticed #5 on RR, and for a moment - from the detail posted - I thought it was #3.
Then, coming back to this page I realized it was not.
Now that you posted them side by side, I definitely think #3 is the real thing, for two main reasons:
RK should have been more clear when we posted this comparison of #3 and #5: We said which is the better but we should have said which is the prototype and which is the copy as we did before.
This is far more exact, after all "better" is often opinion, while prototype transcends opinion and verges on, if not is, "fact"
So we will assume when you chose #3, you would agree it and not #5 is the prototype?
REASON 1) the medallion design in #3 has a subtle structure: from the inside out, I see the blue hexagon within a stepped octagon within a "virtual square" (very nearly a square) within the outer octagon.
Actually the octagon is green and not blue but the photo does not show it well enough.
#5 is similar, but many elements are out of proportion, and the blue hexagon gets squeezed down. While in #3 the blue Hexagon is a focus point (with the two well detailed red and white diamonds in it), in #5 it almost becomes irrelevant and the eye is drawn more to the dominant red sovrastructure around it.
What might we ask is a sovrastructure?
Another detail that to me says "good age" in #3 is the outlining of the blue medallion in three progressive layers of white, orange, and red. The use of white perfectly blends the two white "pillars" in the design. It is unbelievable how such a small detail can make a difference (the red-green-red combination in #5 does not work nearly as well ... and makes the two white bars a foreign element in the blue medallion)
REASON 2) The main border: while #5 has a well executed border, #3's border is much more dynamic. I don't know how to explain it, but if I look at it moving from one figure to the next, I almost see a sequence of snapshots of a person doing somersaults: springing up in the air, landing on the hands, springing back up and so on. I don't get that "springing" feeling from #5 ... granted, nicely executed, but lacking a bit in personality.
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One question about the white: I am pretty sure in #5 cotton was used (the weave looks "compacted"). In #3, the white seems to have the weave that wool usually shows, suppler and a bit looser .. so, is it wool? Does the use of cotton white tell us anything about age?
All the white in #3 is wool. As for #5 we don't really know but would assume it too is wool. You might email the seller and ask him and report back here if you like.
Sorry, it became a longer answer than I wanted too ... look forward to your comments.
Best
We see many other differences, the most important and obvious is the elongation of the design #5 suffers. This is a typical feature of copies, not only of sumak khorjin, where for some reason the weaver was not able to articulate the perfect proportions of an original and instead proceeded to squash the design vertically.
The more squashed, the later the copy.
So here the squashing is not terribly pronounced but it is quite visible when it is pointed out, as we hope you and other readers will now see.
Another aspect we should point out is the way the weaver of #5 put some of the bird-heads on box-bases, while #3's creator apparently did not know about such an accretion to the design.

Left: bird on box base #5: Right: bird without base #3
The source for the large animal repeated in each quadrant of the sumak khorjin medallion is undoubtedly related to the earliest "animal" rugs from Anatolia.
To our knowledge these super rare pile woven carpets do not ever have animals, or their heads, represented as sitting on a box.
Clearly this is something the weaver of #5 was not privy to, while #3's knew the archaic form and reproduced it without addition.
Here's the last "difference", another subtle one, we wish to mention now though there are a number of others: The propensity for the weaver of #5 to 'attach' various elements of the design to the 'walls' of others next to them.
Perhaps the easiest place to see this is here:


Left: Detail #5 showing medallion attached to surrounding 'wall'; Right: Detail #3 showing medallion floating above surrounding 'wall'
As a general rule when there is no separation between iconographic elements of a weaving's design it invariably denotes later work.
When each element has its space, this first maintains design integrity and second it creates an illusion of deeper perspective and movement.
Here attaching the medallion of #5 to the outer-wall surrounding it defeats any attempt to create the perspective that #3 achieves.
This might be somewhat hard to see in these small digital scans but in the flesh this difference truly does allow #3's medallion to float within the field.
This, plus the elongation of every part of its design, are both important visual clues to support the reality it is a copy and not a prototype.