Introduction

Traditional Eastern art forms are understood as a blend of form, decoration, and function within an integrated whole.  What better converges beauty and function than a fine Oriental rug?  The culmination of a lengthy process of love and labor, from the shepherds to the weavers, a fine Oriental rug is an exquisite work of art trod underfoot.  Duly delightful to touch and pleasing to the eye, each rug has its own character, each rug tells a story. 

Man has been weaving since he first domesticated sheep thousands of years ago in ancient Mesopotamia and the goat in the Zagros Mountains.  Since wool decays over the passage of time, it cannot be ascertained when pile-rugs were first made.  The oldest surviving rug was discovered in the Pazyryk Valley of Siberia, preserved by ice.  The Pazyryk Rug, as it came to be known, has been dated to approximately 500 B.C.E.   The Pazyryk Rug has been alternatively proposed as having been woven under the Achaemenid court or by Iranian Scythian nomads.  The sophistication of the Pazyryk rug testifies that people had been weaving pile-rugs hundreds of years prior.  Though rug styles and patterns have changed frequently throughout history, the methods of rug manufacture have changed little since ancient times. 

Wool from the Mountains

The traditional centers of rug manufacture in Iran, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia are marked by rugged, mountainous terrain.  Geography has played a paramount role in the development of rug types as we know them today.  Uncountable mountains and valleys rendered travel difficult, and traditionally each tribe, village, or city has been self-sufficient in its weaving.  Every weaving group has relied on local resources for wool and dyestuffs, and has carefully guarded precious streams and woods for water and timber.  Additionally, the physical barriers of the land helped preserve local, tribal, and familial weaving methods and styles as distinct.  The differences in local tastes combined with the variability of regional flora and fauna has meant that each tribe, village, or city has traditionally produced rugs of unique character. 

High in the mountains, where the wind blows cool and dry, sheep produce fleeces finer and silkier than their counterparts on the plains.  The three types of domesticated sheep of Southwest and Central Asia¡ªthe fat-tailed sheep, the long-tailed sheep, and the fat-rumped sheep grow wool perfect for carpet weaving.  The fat-tailed sheep is famous for its coarse, long staple that makes especially strong wool, gives a lustrous shine, and remains especially receptive to dye.  The long-tailed and fat-rumped varieties of Afghanistan and Turkestan display color variation that can be used to spin uniquely colored wools from the same animal.   The Zagros and Taurus Mountains form at the convergence of the Iranian, Anatolian, Eurasian, and Arabian plates, a corner of the world bestowed with a high level of seismic activity.  In some places where volcanic soil deposits such as copper remain high, such as the region of Mt. Sabalan, south of the Caspian Sea, sheep consume these minerals as they graze, resulting in the highest quality of wool.  This has made Heriz rugs among the most durable in the world.   

       Typically sheep are shorn in springtime or early summer.  When possible sheep are driven through a stream prior to shearing, to cleanse them of grime and dirt.  Sheep are shorn using hand scissors.  The wool is usually washed repeatedly, then sun-dried before it is carded and spun.  Soft-water proves ideal for cleansing wool, and rights to good streams and wells may be passed down for generations.  Carding, by either fingers alone or with a bow-like instrument, detangles raw wool and orients the fibers in a uniform direction.  Wool may be spun in a variety of methods from a stone weight to a hand-turned wheel.  Regardless of method, wool is either spun in a clockwise ¡°Z¡± twist or a counter-clockwise ¡°S¡± twist.     Handspun wool has a loose twist of fibers arranged parallel to its length.  Handspun wool gives rugs a smooth surface and a beautiful sheen.  In contrast, machine-spun wool often uses frizzy, broken fibers, and rarely offers the luster of handspun wool.

       
        Silk rugs date back to at least the sixteenth century in Sabzavar and the seventeenth century in Kashan and Yazd.  Silk is much finer, and far more expensive than wool, but proves less durable.  Usually silk rugs are displayed on walls rather than used as floor covering.  Often silk and wool are mixed to produce rugs with a luxurious feel and shine.
      Traditionally the weft and warp of rugs were made from wool.  For the past hundred years, however, cotton has been used for loom.  The advantage of a cotton warp is that moth larvae do not eat cotton.  While moths will continue to eat wool, the cotton foundation of rugs will remain intact making them easier to repair. 

        Dye

       Dying is more art-form than science.  Dyers occupy an elevated position in weaving societies and pass their secrets from generation to generation.  As traditional dyes are derived from local botany, each region will display a traditional color palette in its rugs.  For instance the villages of Hamadan, Lylyan, and Sarouk in central Iran are known for their sublime pinkish dye, which dominates their rugs and is produced by boiling madder root with yogurt.  Lavar is known for its indigo dye.  In some places, such as Balochistan, where dyestuffs are scarce, weavers have become highly skilled at combining different colored natural yarns.  Most dyes need a mordant to bind to the yarn.  Yarn may be mordanted before, after, or during the dying process, but best results come when it mordanted before.  Common sources of red dyes are madder root, poppy, cherry skin, pomegranate skin, rhummus bark, jujube bark, rose root, rhubarb, apricot, tulip petals, and cochineal.  Blues are often derived from indigo or aubergine skin.   Yellows may come from safflower petals and buds, lemon rinds, pomegranate rinds, onion skin, saffron, turmeric, larkspur and sophora flowers, artemisia stems, apricot leaves, apple, willow, and wild pistachio trees.  Orange from grass root, plum tree bark, poplar leaves, or willow leaves.  Green from walnut leaves, olive leaves, or sweet violet.  Browns and blacks from tea, tobacco, mud, walnut bark, or wild pistachio leaves.  Additionally wool may be double dyed to arrive at the desired color.  Madder-dyed yarn dipped in pomegranate husk solution produces orange and double-dyeing any yellow with indigo will produce green.  With the exception of yellow, these natural dyes retain their color well and gently fade over time as they acquire the mellow patina of age, so admired in antique rugs.  In contrast to natural dyes, chemical dyes corrode wool, fade quickly, and bleed easily when washed. 

        Weaving the Rugs

       Rugs may be woven in either city workshops or by villagers or nomads who make rugs part-time as supplementary income as their field lay fallow or in between migrations.  Both men and women work as weavers, though the division of labor sometimes differs according to nomadic or city life.  Rugs may be woven as one-sided-flat-weaves (kilims), two-sided-flat-weaves (soumaks), pile rugs, or soafs.  A soaf is a rug with a flat-woven foundation like a kilim, but with raised motifs woven atop the foundation resulting in a woven relief.  Some nomadic tribes weave patterns from memory or improvise as they go along.  In more elaborate design, a cartoon is usually drafted prior to weaving, which the weavers follow as they knot the rug.  Rugs are woven using either symmetrical or asymmetrical knots (often referred to as Turkish and Persian knots, respectively, which is misleading as both knots are employed in both countries.)  As of yet, no machine can replicate either the symmetrical or asymmetrical knot, which still must be individually knotted by hand.  The relative coarseness of the wool, the craftiness of the weaver, the intricacy of the design, and the size of the rug all factor into the amount of time it takes to weave a rug.   Weaving a rug requires meticulousness and patience, but the end result is beautiful. 

        After a rug is woven, it is sheared then washed, then combed to remove excess fuzz.  The rug is then dried in the sun and sheared a second time.  After the second shearing the weavers examine the rug to see if needs touch ups, such as compacting uneven knots and neatening curves.  The rug is then stretched, after which fuzz is burnt off the back.  Finally a fringe is woven for the rug, which prevents the rug from unraveling and adds beauty to the rug.  The rug receives one more sheering before it is finished.    

         Beautiful Flaws

        Each hand-woven rug is special in that no two are quite alike.  As hand-knotted, a certain degree of irregularity is to be expected.  The buyer should not be concerned, abnormalities are a reminder that a rug was not made by machine, and indeed some flaws are even intentional and can add to the attractiveness, intrigue or value of a rug. 

Often Western buyers will highlight that a rug has a broken motif, a non-symmetrical or imperfect pattern.  Such instances usually have more to do with cultural superstition than the ineptness of the weaver.  Very often weavers intentionally add a flaw to their work as a sign of humility; they recognize only God as perfect and do not wish to appear vain or to be the target of envy.  

Sometimes a rug will display an oversized medallion, a portion of an extremely large medallion, or pattern which seems better suited to a much larger rug.   Occasionally a female weaver will begin a very large rug but will become pregnant during the weaving process.  Sometimes she hurries to finish a rug before the baby is born, resulting in these peculiar but lovely weavings. 

Often one will find a variation in shade and tint within a single color of an Oriental rug.   This quality is called abrash.  Abrash is caused by variations in yarn diameter, the use of yarn from different dying batches, or by differences in the amount of lanolin in the yarn.  Abrash can add stunning dimension to a rug and is a very desirable trait in tribal rugs.  Abrash is less desirable in city rugs. 

Many nomadic groups are unable to carry large quantities of wool with them on their migrations.  Instead they use whatever color and texture of wool is at hand.  Whenever they establish camp they set up a portable loom and continue weaving.  Rugs from such groups may be an endlessly shifting colorscape, recounting a story of nomadic life. 

Should you ever attend an antique rug auction, you will notice none of the rugs have been repaired.  Auctions always sell antiques ¡°raw¡± because every collector has his own tastes.  Some enjoy the bruises of history on a rug as a part of its story.  Should you wish to a repair a rug, Mr. Nooraee will always ask you to be specific about what aspects of the rug you wish to fix and those you wish to preserve. 

Naming and Classifying Rugs

Rugs are typically named for their place of origin or for the weaving tribe.  With nomadic items a rug may be known both by the name of the tribe or a sub-tribe; for example Tekkes and Bokharans are also referred to by the broader name Turkomans.   Rugs from small villages may be named for the nearest large rug-manufacture center if enough similarities exist between the larger town and the surrounding villages.  Kerman is both a city and a province in Iran and rugs from either bear the name ¡°Kerman¡±.  Lavar (Raver) lies in the province of Kerman and is known for rugs of extraordinary quality, though rugs in nearby towns such as Rafsajan may also be called Lavar Kermans as well.  To add to the confusion some rugs are named for their design rather than their place of manufacture or the group that made them.  This is especially the case for rugs woven in India, China, Pakistan, and Egypt that imitate Persian, Turkish, or Caucasian designs.  Sometimes a clarification is made by labeling such rugs ¡°Indian Isfahan¡±, but the buyer should always ask if the name refers to the place of origin or to the design if in doubt.  Some of the most popular rug types are Tabriz, Kashan, Hamadan, Mashad, Isfahan, Kashmar, Shiraz, Gabbeh, Ardabil, Lylyan, Sarouk, Bakhtiari, Nain, Qom, Sabzazvar, Turkoman, Heriz, and Bidjar. 

        Rugs may be categorized by a number of criteria: origin, weaving category, age, composition (wool, silk, or a wool-silk mix), size, and dimension.  The broadest categorization of rugs is by region: Anatolian, Caucasian, Persian, Central-Asian/Turkoman, and Chinese.  Certain generalizations may be made about Anatolian (Turkish), Caucasian, Persian, Central Asian, and Chinese rugs, though obviously exceptions exist.  For instance Turkish and Caucasian rugs tend to be more geometric whilst Persian rugs tend to be more floral and curvilinear.  The next categorization is the aforementioned division by name, which can refer to town, tribe, or design.  They may also be divided by their pile type, if they are kilims, soumaks, pile-rugs, or soafs. 

        There are a number of different types of kilims based on the weaving method, such as, but not limited to, balanced plain-weave, weft-faced weave, and silt-weave.  These kilims may be known by different names such as zilli or cicim (jijim). 

        Weaving category refers to the type of production of the rug if it is a nomadic rug, a village rug, a workshop rug, or a master-workshop rug.  Nomadic rugs are woven by nomadic or semi-nomadic tribeswomen from memory.  Usually nomadic rugs appear with compositional boldness, a simple color palette, and dominated by geometric forms.  Like nomadic rugs village rugs belong to the cottage industry; their weavers work part-time.  Village rugs may be of simple or elaborate design.  Workshop rugs may produce the same designs as village rugs, but differ in the manner of manufacture.  Workshops operate as full-time businesses.  Weavers work from a design whilst an overseer (salim in Persian) systematically calls out the color of each knot as it is required.  Workshop rugs lack the improvisational nature of nomadic or village rugs, but allow for highly sophisticated, technically challenging, intricate rugs to be woven.  Each workshop in Iran and Turkey has its own style and defining characteristics.  Master-workshop rugs come from workshops that have achieved a caliber of prestige and form the most expensive weaving group category.  Isfahan, Nain, Hereke (in Istanbul), Kashan, Tabriz, Mashad, Kerman, and Qom are all widely considered to be master-workshops.  

        Rugs can be easily grouped by age.  Dovar means not brand new, but not old enough to be considered old.  Old is used to describe rugs older than twenty five years, semi-antique for rugs older than fifty years, and antique is reserved for rugs older than seventy-five years. 

        Rugs are frequently grouped by their size or by their approximate dimensions.  The largest rugs are called qalis, and may be referred to as carpets in English[1].  Qalis are at least two by three yards.    Qalicheh (literally ¡°little carpet¡±) usually measure smaller than six feet by a foot and a half.  Runners are designed for hallways and are characterized by their long length and narrow width.  Other common dimensions include a dozar which is 4¡¯6¡± by 7¡¯, a nimzar at 3¡¯by 5¡¯, a pardeh which is 5¡¯ by 8¡¯, and a poshti which approximates 2¡¯X 3¡¯.  Poshti is the typical size of a prayer rug (namazlık in Turkish).  In addition to a relatively uniform size prayer rugs often feature a mithrab, or pointed arch, which can be pointed toward Mecca.  

          Noor Oriental Rugs carries an exquisite collection of authentic Oriental rugs.  A few terms are employed to convey the degree of authenticity of a rug.  Authentic rugs are hand-woven with at least one of the following qualities: ¡°Original¡± is used to describe a rug means that all parts of the rug production come from the traditional area of the rug¡¯s manufacture.  It is possible to find rugs elsewhere that are finely woven but use foreign dyes or wool from places as far removed as New Zealand and Tibet, such rugs cannot use the term ¡°original¡±.  ¡°One-of-a-kind¡± refers to a rug that is made with only natural fibers, dyes, and wool and a rug that is not mass produced.  A ¡°unique¡± rug is not only ¡°one-of-a-kind¡±, but also is the only copy woven in the weaving country. 

The Meaning of Rugs

Every part of a rug tells a story.  As we have seen the wool and dye already say a lot about the rug¡¯s place of origin; its mountains, its springs, its local trees and flowers, and its herds of sheep.  The design tells us a story about a tribe, a village, about tradition passed from generation to generation.  As no two hand-knotted rugs are exactly alike, each rug is also a soul into the soul of its weaver. 

A weaver will literally tie images of his or her life, village, hopes, longings, or fears into a rug.  Some rugs flaunt the ponds, rivers, plant, and animal life of the weaver¡¯s home.  Others feature deserts, stars, suns, and moons.  Some rugs depict a tree of life or even the garden of Paradise.  Come into Noor Oriental Rugs and allow Mr. Nooraee to guide you through the woven world of rugs.  Let your own eyes, hands, and feet hear the story of the rugs.