27 July 2001
Together with her historian/photographer husband Paul, independent textile researcher and Anatolian textile collector Martie Henze has spent over three decades travelling and doing field research in Ethiopia, where in the churches of the highlands she discovered a fascinating cache of pre-19th century Anatolian kilims and carpets.
She recalls a day in February 1992 when she stepped onto an 18th century Anatolian kilim in a church on the shore of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile. The incident literally changed her life and, because of the unique nature of the discovery, forced her to make a serious career of a long-held amateur interest in oriental textiles. In the course of her research she realised that all the textiles in the Ethiopian churches - silken vestments, ceremonial curtains, gold embroidered velvet cloaks of royalty - were of foreign origin, and that it was a centuries-old tradition for Ethiopian Orthodox churches to maintain a collection of 'church carpets', most often gifts from pious well-off or powerful members of the community.
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