A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century, synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester are often used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term carpet is often used in a similar context to the term rug, but rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor.
A Persian carpet or Persian rug, also known as Iranian carpet, is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in Iran, for home use, local sale, and export. Carpet weaving is an essential part of Persian culture and Iranian art. Within the group of Oriental rugs produced by the countries of the "rug belt", the Persian carpet stands out by the variety and elaborateness of its manifold designs.
Qashqai is a conglomeration of clans in Iran consisting of mostly Turkic peoples but also Lurs, Kurds and Arabs. Almost all of them speak a Western Oghuz Turkic dialect known as the Qashqai language, which they call "Turki", as well as Persian in formal use. The Qashqai mainly live in the provinces of Fars, Khuzestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Bushehr and Southern Isfahan, especially around the cities of Shiraz and Firuzabad in Fars. The majority of Qashqai people were originally nomadic pastoralists and some remain so today. The traditional nomadic Qashqai travelled with their flocks twice yearly to and from the summer highland pastures north of Shiraz roughly 480 km or 300 miles south to the winter pastures on lower lands near the Persian Gulf, to the southwest of Shiraz. The majority, however, have now become partially or wholly sedentary. The trend towards settlement has been increasing markedly since the 1960s.
A kilim is a flat tapestry-woven carpet or rug traditionally produced in countries of the former Persian Empire, including Iran, Azerbaijan, the Balkans and the Turkic countries of Central Asia. Kilims can be purely decorative or can function as prayer rugs. Modern kilims are popular floor coverings in Western households.
Gabbeh or gabba carpets are a traditional variety of Persian carpet. Gabbeh is known as gava in Kurdish and Luri and is also called khersak (خرسک) in Bakhtiari, literally meaning a "bear's cub". Traditionally a sleeping rug, a gabbeh is a hand-woven pile rug of coarse quality and medium size characterized by an abstract design that relies upon open fields of color and a playfulness with geometry. This type of rug is popular among the populations of the Zagros Mountains of Iran, including Kurdish, Luri and Qashqai people. The gabbeh is usually crafted by women.
Uşak carpets, Ushak carpets or Oushak Carpets are Turkish carpets that use a particular family of designs, called by convention after the city of Uşak, Turkey – one of the larger towns in Western Anatolia, which was a major center of rug production from the early days of the Ottoman Empire, into the early 20th century.
A Shiraz carpet is a type of Persian rug made in the villages around the city of Shiraz, in the Iranian province of Fars.
An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in “Oriental countries” for home use, local sale, and export.
Heriz rugs are Persian rugs from the area of Heris, East Azerbaijan in northwest Iran, northeast of Tabriz. Such rugs are produced in the village of the same name in the slopes of Mount Sabalan. Heriz carpets are durable and hard-wearing and they can last for generations. 19th century examples of such carpets are often found on sale by major auction houses in United States and Europe. Part of the reason for the toughness of Heriz carpets is that Mount Sabalan sits on a major deposit of copper. Traces of copper in the drinking water of sheep produces high quality wool that is far more resilient than wool from other areas. The Heris Carpet is the only carpet in the world where stories of the Old times are woven.
A Nomadic bag is a bag woven by various nomadic tribes of the Middle East and Central Asia for utilitarian and decorative purposes.
Anatolian rug is a term of convenience, commonly used today to denote rugs and carpets woven in Anatolia and its adjacent regions. Geographically, its area of production can be compared to the territories which were historically dominated by the Ottoman Empire. It denotes a knotted, pile-woven floor or wall covering which is produced for home use, local sale, and export. Together with the flat-woven kilim, Anatolian rugs represent an essential part of the regional culture, which is officially understood as the Culture of Turkey today, and derives from the ethnic, religious and cultural pluralism of one of the most ancient centres of human civilisation.
The Afshar, also spelled Awshar, is one of the Oghuz tribes. These originally nomadic Oghuz tribes moved from Central Asia and initially settled in what is now Iranian Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Republic, Eastern Turkey. Later some of them were relocated by the Safavids to Khurasan, Kerman and Mazandaran. Today, they are variously grouped as a branch of the Azerbaijanis and Turkmens or Turkomans. Afshars in Iran remain a largely nomadic group, with tribes in central Anatolia, northern Iran, and Azerbaijan. They were the source of the Afsharid, Karamanid dynasties, Baku Khanate, Zanjan Khanate and Urmia Khanate.
Essie Sakhai is one of the world's foremost experts, collectors and dealers of the ancient Iranian art form of the Persian and Oriental Carpets and Rugs. Born to a family with a long history of dealing in Persian Carpets dating nine generations back to 1766, he gained much of his knowledge from his father Benayahoo Sakhai. Essie is the founder of Essie Carpets, based in Mayfair London, and holds one of the world's most comprehensive and finest collections of Persian and Oriental carpets and rugs in private hands. Various pieces of Essie's collection have featured in numerous museums and exhibitions around the world; including the 'Fabric of Life' exhibition of the Sakhai Family Collection opened by HRH Prince Charles.
A Turkmen rug is a type of handmade floor-covering textile traditionally originating in Central Asia. It is useful to distinguish between the original Turkmen tribal rugs and the rugs produced in large numbers for export mainly in Pakistan and Iran today. The original Turkmen rugs were produced by the Turkmen tribes who are the main ethnic group in Turkmenistan and are also found in Afghanistan and Iran. They are used for various purposes, including tent rugs, door hangings and bags of various sizes.
Bakshaish rugs and carpets are a type of tapestry found in north-west Iran. Bakshaish, Heris County, is a town on the banks of the Aji Chay in the Heris region. Situated in the mountainous region 60 miles east of the large city of Tabriz, Bakshaish is the oldest rug weaving village in the district, noted for carpets with diverse abstract adaptations of age-old tribal and classical Persian motifs.
In 1292, Marco Polo was the first to make mention of the Konya carpets in writing when he called them the most beautiful in the world. Konya carpets are named for the region in which they were made. Renamed from the Greek “Iconium” when the Seljuk Sultans of Rum made it their capital, Konya is one of the largest, oldest and continuously occupied cities in Asia Minor. When Polo wrote of the Konyas, he had probably seen them in manufactories that were attached to the Seljuk courts. In the early 20th century, large carpets were found in the Alaadin Mosque in Konya; they are now housed in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. Scholars and collectors alike, primarily for their bold tribal designs and magnificent color combinations not to mention their rarity, covet Konya rugs.
Caucasian rugs are primarily produced as village productions rather than city pieces. Made from materials particular to individual tribal provinces, the rugs of the Caucasus normally display bold geometric designs in primary colours. Styles typical to the Caucasus region are Daghestan, Shirvan, Gendje rugs, Kazakh and Quba rugs. Several carpet styles from contemporary northwestern Iran also fall largely into this bracket, such as the Ardabil rugs.
Kerman carpets are one of the traditional classifications of Persian carpets. Kerman is both a city and a province located in south central Iran, though the term sometimes describes a type which may have been made elsewhere. Kerman rugs are prized for a wide range of designs, a broad palette, use of natural dyes and fibers, great tensile strength and abrasion resistance, and expert color combinations. Typical manufacturing used an asymmetrical knot on cotton foundation, but rare examples include silk or part silk piles, or silk foundations with wool pile.
The Bakhtiari rug, along with other weavings, is a major artform of the Bakhtiari tribe, located in Chahar Mahaal and Bakhtiari, Iran. Since the early 19th century, Bakhtiari rugs have been exported around the world.
Turkoman is a term that was widely used during the Middle Ages for the people of Oghuz Turkic origin. According to medieval authors Al-Biruni and al-Marwazi, this term referred to the Oghuz who converted to Islam. There is evidence non-Oghuz Turks such as Karluks may also have been called Turkomans and Turkmens.
