THE GERMAN BROTHER OF ANATOLIAN CARPETS: HARALD BÖHMER
- Ipek
- 15 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Come, let me take you to Bodrum. Not to the noisy bar street, nor to the “cool” venues crowded with white-collar escapists who, despite their efforts, still cannot quite shed their privileged urban identity. Instead, we will slip through a quieter door. And somewhere between these lines, our German Brother, Harald Böhmer, will quietly appear.
We arrive in Bitez. Noise, crowd, confusion. Everything seems covered with a thin layer of dust, waiting to be brushed away. As I turn into the back streets, a small bookshop suddenly appears as if it had been waiting for me. Its carefully curated selection immediately catches my eye. For a long time, I had been searching for books on Traditional Anatolian Carpets, works long out of print and impossible to find online, which I refuse to purchase anyway.
With a spark in his eyes, Günay Mete, the owner of Bodrum Sahaf, leads me to what feels like a hidden archive. Time slows. A familiar excitement surrounds me, the sense of touching the edge of something meaningful and long awaited. He hands me a precious book:“Return to Tradition: The Rebirth of Turkish Village Carpets.”As I turn its pages, Harald Böhmer’s story begins to unfold, an unexpected journey that would bring new life to a fading tradition, one dyed thread at a time.
A Teacher Turned Accidental Cultural Historian - Harald Böhmer
Harald Böhmer’s path to Anatolia begins in the 1960s when he arrives in Istanbul on a seven-year contract to teach chemistry, biology and physics at the German High School.“Teachers have plenty of free time,” he says in an interview. “My wife Renate and I spent ours traveling.” On these trips, they stumble upon a fascination they never anticipated: traditional Turkish carpets. At Istanbul’s museums, the old carpets mesmerize them with their deep and vibrant colors. Yet in the Grand Bazaar, contemporary carpets feel harsh, flat and oddly lifeless. Something had clearly changed in the craft.
What Happened to the Colors? - Harald Böhmer
In the 1970s, the Böhmer couple begins researching the mystery. The main difference, they discover, lies in the dyes. Antique carpets were colored with natural dyes derived from plants and insects. Modern carpets relied almost entirely on synthetic dyes. These dyes had spread into Anatolia as early as the 1880s, during the peak of the chemical industries in Britain and Germany.
At the same time, Anatolian carpets became fashionable in Europe, celebrated at exhibitions in London, Paris and Vienna. The Orientalist Movement, shaped by the imagination of A Thousand and One Nights, captured the hearts of the rising middle class. Demand grew rapidly. Production increased. Quality declined. The colors lost their soul.
Searching for the Lost Knowledge - Harald Böhmer
The Böhmers travel across Anatolian villages, seeking elders who might remember the old dye processes. But oral tradition had preserved little. Much had already slipped away.
Some villagers invented stories rather than disappoint their curious visitors. Written sources were scarce. Natural dyeing, once a deeply rooted knowledge system, had nearly vanished.
Then a turning point arrives.
Schweppe’s Method: A Scientific Key to an Ancient Art - Harald Böhmer
Harald contacts Helmut Schweppe, a renowned German chemist who had developed microscopic techniques to identify natural dyes in historical textiles. Initially created for BASF, this method became revolutionary in art and antique markets.
Schweppe teaches Böhmer the fundamentals.Harald sets up a small laboratory in his kitchen. With simple tools, he begins analyzing fibers and learns what made antique colors so alive. The investigation becomes a mission.
Mapping Anatolia’s Dye Plants - Harald Böhmer
By 1978, with support from the German Research Foundation, Böhmer expands his work. He and Renate travel thousands of kilometers across Turkey with Professor Turhan Baytop, the eminent botanist of Istanbul University.
Together, they identify where nearly 80 percent of Anatolia’s natural dye plants still grow.
The forgotten palette of Anatolia begins to re-emerge: indigo, madder, weld, cochineal and many others.
From Passion to Project: The Birth of DOBAG - Harald Böhmer
But passion alone cannot revive a lost craft.Böhmer shifts his career from teaching to working with the German Development Agency, which allows him to dedicate himself fully to research. Soon, he becomes senior consultant of a pioneering initiative at Marmara University:
DOBAG - Harald Böhmer
Natural Dye Research and Development Project
Its aims were ambitious:
revive natural dye techniques
train village women
re-establish high-quality traditional weaving
create a self-sustaining cooperative
ensure fair income and economic independence
The first pilot villages were in the Yuntdağı region.What emerged there would change everything.
A Revival Beyond Expectation - Harald Böhmer
DOBAG carpets quickly gained international acclaim. Their deep natural colors and meticulous craftsmanship stood out immediately. These were not commercial imitations; they were genuine cultural artifacts. Prices increased in global markets.Village women became financially independent. Traditional weaving gained new prestige.
The project grew, spreading to other villages and becoming a model cited across Europe and America. Exhibitions celebrated the revival as a triumph of cultural preservation and women’s empowerment.
A Legacy Woven into Color - Harald Böhmer
Harald Böhmer passed away on 24 November 2021.Yet his belief in nature, craft and human dignity lives on in every thread dyed with the plants he helped rediscover.
He once said:
“These carpets are not just knots of wool and pattern.Each knot holds a human story.When the colors of nature meet the labor of hands,what emerges is the soul of a culture.”
And perhaps that is why, on an ordinary day in Bitez, while turning the pages of an old book in a dusty bookshop, I felt that unmistakable tug, a thread leading back to a story waiting to be told.
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