The principal motif in Turkmen carpets is the octagonal ‘gul’. The two guls shown here, each with eight, stylised horned animals are known as tauk nuska. Madder is the dye used as the ground colour in both examples. The darker one comes from a carpet made by women of the Arabatchi tribe using madder with an iron rich mordant while the example with lighter red is knotted by women of the Ersari tribe using probably alum as the mordant.