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 so-called "rug belt", the Persian carpet stands out by the variety and elaborateness of its manifold designs.
A kilim is a flat tapestry-woven carpet or rug traditionally produced in countries of the former Persian Empire, Iran, Azerbaijan and 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.
A prayer rug or prayer mat is a piece of fabric, sometimes a pile carpet, used by Muslims, placed between the ground and the worshipper for cleanliness during the various positions of Islamic prayer. These involve prostration and sitting on the ground. A Muslim must perform wudu (ablution) before prayer, and must pray in a clean place. Many new prayer mats are manufactured by weavers in a factory. The design of a prayer mat is based on the village it came from and its weaver.
Rug hooking is both an art and a craft where rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, or rug warp. The loops are pulled through the backing material by using a crochet-type hook mounted in a handle for leverage. In contrast latch-hooking uses a hinged hook to form a knotted pile from short, pre-cut pieces of yarn.
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.
Bergama Carpet refers to handwoven Turkish carpets, made in the Bergama district in the Izmir Province of northwest Turkey. As a market place for the surrounding villages, the name of Bergama is used as a trade name to define the provenience.
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.
A rya is a traditional Scandinavian wool rug with a long pile of about 1 to 3 inches. They were made using a form of the Ghiordes knot to make the double-sided pile fabric. Though rya means "rug" in English, the original meaning in Sweden of rya was a bed cover with a knotted pile. The first ryas originated in the early fifteenth century as coarse, long-piled, heavy covers used by mariners instead of furs. As time progressed, the rugs have evolved to be lighter and more colorful. The insulation that ryas provide protect against the cold Scandinavian climate. Ryas are a knotted pile carpet, with each knot composed of three strands of wool, which enables the rug to exhibit rich texture from all the different shades of color. The name originates from a village in southwest Sweden. The term rya may also refer to a breed of sheep whose wool is used to make rya carpets.
The history of the Caucasus region may be divided into the history of the Northern Caucasus (Ciscaucasia), historically in the sphere of influence of Scythia and of Southern Russia, and that of the Southern Caucasus in the sphere of influence of Persia, Anatolia and for a very brief time Assyria.
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.
The Ruger Model 96 is a series of lever-action rifles produced by Sturm, Ruger & Co.. They featured a short-throw lever action, cross button safety and a visible cocking lever. The 4 different variants of the Model 96 represented the four calibers the rifle came in: 96/17 for .17 HMR, 96/22 for .22 LR, 96/22M for .22 Magnum and 96/44 for .44 Magnum. All four models had a hard wood stock.
The Bakhtiari rug, along with other weavings, is a major artform of the Bakhtiari tribe, located in Chahar Mahaal and Bakhtiari, Iran. They have been weaving rugs exported around the globe since the early 19th century.
Kurdish rugs are rugs woven by the Kurdish people in the Middle East, predominantly the larger Kurdistan region including the Eastern part of Turkey near the Taurus Mountains, Northern Iraq, southernmost Caucasus, Armenia and North-Western Iran. When referring to Kurdish rugs within the rug industry, one is referring to those made within Iranian Kurdistan.
Afshar is a handwoven rug style produced by the Turkic Afshar tribe, a semi-nomadic group principally located in the mountainous areas surrounding the modern region of Iranian Azerbaijan. An additional population of Afshar tribes-people is located in the Kuchan area in Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran and city of Kerman. Carpets in the Afshar style are known for their stylized floral geometric designs, tribal artistry, and a characteristic palette of rust and blue color tones.
The name Transylvanian rug is used as a term of convenience to denote a cultural heritage of 15th–17th century Islamic rugs, mainly of Ottoman origin, which have been preserved in Transylvanian Protestant churches. The corpus of Transylvanian rugs constitutes one of the largest collections of Ottoman Anatolian rugs outside the Islamic world.
