Oh, to be at home wherever you roam! We purchased
this brightly colored tapestry in Bukhara, but we were told that it comes from
the region where Uzbekistan meets Kyrgyzstan, where it was probably used to
decorate the inside of a yurt. Round, portable dwellings that can be packed up
on the back of a camel and re-assembled in around two hours, yurts have been
used by the nomads of the Central Asian steppes for thousands of years.
Yurts are, to put it simply, a genius idea. First
described by Greek historian Herodotus circa the 5th century BC,
they’ve not only lasted up until the present, their influence has actually
spread and today you can...
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Yurts are, to put it simply, a genius idea. First
described by Greek historian Herodotus circa the 5th century BC,
they’ve not only lasted up until the present, their influence has actually
spread and today you can find yurt enthusiasts all over the world. Inspired by
a National Geographic article about US Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas’ visit to Mongolia, American entrepreneur William Copperwaite started
manufacturing them in the States in the 1960s, where they’re now used for
everything from housing, to school rooms, to a tent substitute in the swankier
national parks. Interestingly enough, the word “yurt” comes from a Turkic world
that originally described not the structure itself, but the mark left after it
had been packed up. In modern Turkish, the word yurt is synonymous with
“homeland.”
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