Wool Runner, Uzbekistan

Thirty-three octagons, three abreast, marching down twelve feet of red.

This wool runner comes from Uzbekistan and dates to about 1900. Central Asian weavers worked within long traditions of repeated geometry, and they seldom passed up a chance to keep repeating it. Eleven rows of quartered octagons fill the field, each cut into blocks of blue, cream, coral or green with a small flower in every quarter. The colors shift as the rows descend, as if nobody had counted the yarn. Narrow borders run up the sides, and bright diamonds cap each end. Twelve feet eight inches long and four feet three wide.

A long hallway has seldom had so much to say.