A layout in which one large angular medallion stands at the center of the field, with separate corner designs and a much lighter pattern over the remaining ground, so the medallion is the clear focal point. Smaller geometric medallions often sit above and below the main one. It is typical of village and tribal rugs such as Heriz, Abadeh, Zanjan, Karaja and Qashqai, and is the angular counterpart of the floral center medallion.
Village rugs from a group of villages in the Azerbaijan region of Iran, at the western edge of the Heriz weaving area and named for the village of Karaja at their center. Wool pile on a cotton foundation (very old pieces may have a wool one), Turkish knot and single weft, so the pile is thinner and softer than the usually double-wefted Heriz. Two bold geometric medallions with hook-like edges typically alternate down a runner, and on wide rugs the repeated medallions read as a geometric allover, in reds, blues, creams and browns. Their thin pile and great lengths make them popular as hallway and stair runners.
Tribal rugs woven by Kurdish weavers around Quchan, north of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, a border region where the Safavid rulers settled Kurdish tribes to help guard the frontier. A wool or goat-hair foundation carries a wool pile at about 120 knots per square inch (roughly 186,000 per square meter), high for tribal work. Geometric medallion or all-over designs in strong red, blue or ivory fields resemble Caucasian rugs and, above all, Anatolian ones, since the weavers' ancestors came from Anatolia. Compact looms keep sizes small to medium, seldom wider than 6 ft (1.8 m) or longer than 13 ft (4 m).
Finely woven small-to-medium rugs and runners from the Kurdish weaving villages around Senneh (modern Sanandaj) in western Iran, noted for meticulous, thin, tight single-wefted construction on a cotton foundation with a wool pile. Designs are mostly geometric medallions and allover patterns, with boteh and Herati also woven, in dark red, navy and brown with yellow, light green, orange and white accents. They carry one of the great ironies of the rug world: although the asymmetrical Persian knot is called the “Senneh knot”, the weavers of Senneh actually work with the symmetrical Turkish knot, a reminder to judge rugs by structure, not by label.
Tribal rugs from the Zagros mountains of western and southwestern Iran, woven by nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled village weavers such as the Bakhtiari, Qashqai and Luri. The weavers usually use wool from their own flocks, giving a sturdy, often dense pile on a cotton or wool foundation, colored with natural dyes in bold, rich tones. Their designs, from geometric medallions to the Bakhtiari garden-panel layout, are woven from memory and passed down through generations. Bakhtiari weaving spread across more than 200 villages after the once-nomadic tribe settled, while Qashqai nomads work on small portable looms, so their rugs seldom come in large sizes.