A famed Tabriz workshop begun in the early 20th century by Hassan Alabaf and run through three generations of his family, from Hassan to his son Abbas, who took over on his father's death, and on to a third generation that continues it. It reportedly ran over 300 looms with a thousand or more weavers. Its rugs in traditional Tabriz designs are regarded as among the finest made in Iran, often likened to the Rolls-Royce of Persian rugs, and pieces bearing its signature are sought by collectors and command higher prices.
A respected Tabriz workshop opened in 1923 by Amir Khizi Javan (born 1899), who founded it at about age 24; the name Javan means “young” in Persian. It began with four or five looms and grew to more than 150 looms and about 200 weavers, known for fine weaving, high knot density and distinctive color combinations. The founder, also known for his charity toward the poor of Tabriz, died in the early 1970s; his son continued the work until retiring in 2020, when production ended, so no new rugs with the Javan signature are made.
Tribal rugs woven by the Baluch people of the border region between northeastern Iran and Afghanistan, who sell them in the bazaar of Mashhad because they have few buyers nearby. The designs blend Turkish, Persian, and Caucasian influences and stay closest to Turkmen weaving, which came first: repeating guls (flowers set in octagons), boteh, tree-of-life motifs, and prayer designs, mostly on dark navy, red, or brown fields with ivory and dark-purple accents, though newer pieces run lighter. The thin pile is wool, usually on a wool foundation. Because the weavers move around and cannot set up large looms, rugs are small, typically 4 x 6 ft (1.2 x 1.8 m), 5 x 7 ft (1.5 x 2.1 m) or smaller, and runners reach only about 10 to 12 ft (3 to 3.7 m) long and 1.5 to 5 ft (0.46 to 1.5 m) wide.
Carpet manufactured in wide widths (typically 12 or 15 feet) on a broad loom. Refers to wall-to-wall carpeting as opposed to carpet tiles or area rugs.
The modern method behind most woven Wilton carpet: two carpets are woven simultaneously as a sandwich, connected by shared pile yarns, then a traveling blade slices the sandwich apart into two identical cut-pile carpets. The technique doubles loom output and explains why the pile of a face-to-face Wilton is always cut — the loops never existed as loops, but as bridges between the two carpets.
A floral rug built around one central medallion, either a single large flower or a cluster of small blooms joined into one shape, often echoed by smaller medallions above, below and beside it. The medallion is traditionally said to stand for the sacred lotus. Because it takes up field space, the flowers and branches are smaller and thinner than in allover floral rugs. The design is typical of Tabriz, Kerman, Sarouk and Kashan, and its strong center makes it a natural focal point of a room.
A rug construction in which the weaver ties each knot of wool or silk pile yarn by hand around adjacent warp threads on a loom, then runs a weft through the row and beats it down. The cut knot ends form the pile, the warps and wefts form the foundation, and the warp ends become the fringe. A rug can take months or even years, and the work leaves subtle irregularities: patterns not perfectly symmetrical, opposite edges a few inches different in length, an uneven fringe. Authentic Persian, Oriental and Turkish rugs are hand-knotted, unlike hand-tufted rugs (sometimes sold as “handmade”) and machine-made ones, whose backs feel stiff and evenly aligned.
A very large government-owned Iranian rug producer, known by the initials ICC and in the United States as the Iranian Rug Company, whose roots reach back to 1934. It runs a network of workshops in about 44 cities, including Tabriz, Hamadan and Sarouk, with some 25,000 workers, and turns out roughly 50,000 square meters (about 540,000 square feet) of rugs a year. It supplies wool and materials and lends money for replacing old looms. Dyeing and weaving are tightly controlled, and even a small flaw has to be unpicked and redone, so its signature signals consistent, high quality whichever town the rug comes from.
The Mashhad workshop founded by Khalil Khadivi, who began as a designer and weaver at the older Amoghli workshop and rose to foreman. While still foreman he wove a few pieces of his own on the side; their quality drew buyers, and he set up his own workshop and signature. He put quality ahead of volume, and his rugs are prized as very fine, densely woven and scarce; at its peak the workshop ran about 35 looms with several dozen workers in Mashhad and nearby towns. One of his sons ran it afterward, and the family continues the signature today.
The frame on which the warp (vertical) threads are strung first and held under tension so the weft (horizontal) threads can be interlaced through them and the knots tied onto them. Hand-knotted rugs are made on simple looms, from those set up in weavers' homes to the compact, transportable ones of nomadic weavers, where every knot is tied by hand. Loom size sets rug size: nomads' small looms typically yield rugs no larger than about 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 ft (1.2 x 1.8 m or 1.5 x 2.1 m), city workshops with very large looms weave palace sizes, and the number of looms a workshop runs gauges its scale. Wooden looms in tribal and village weaving expand and contract over time, one cause of crooked rugs. Power looms such as Wilton, Axminster, and Jacquard, the industrial descendants, make machine-woven carpet.
A rug produced by industrial machinery, typically on power looms, rather than knotted by hand, usually from synthetic fibers such as polyester, polypropylene or nylon, and finished in hours rather than months. Its design looks perfectly symmetrical yet slightly fuzzy, and its edges measure almost exactly alike. The back feels stiff and plastic-like, with a regular honeycomb texture on which the pattern cannot be read. Any fringe is a uniform synthetic trim attached at the end of production, and some rugs have none, unlike a hand-knotted rug, whose fringe is its own foundation threads. Machine-made rugs are less expensive, of lower quality and wear out sooner, and are not authentic Persian or Oriental rugs.
A size band between small and large, running from about 4 x 6 ft (122 x 183 cm) to 5 x 7 ft (152 x 213 cm). Rugs this size fit entryways and kitchens, or flank a bed, one on each side in front of the nightstands. Tribal rugs such as Baluchi and Qashqai are woven at this size or smaller, because migrating weavers cannot set up a large loom in one place. Being light, medium rugs tend to slide and are best used with a rug pad. Dealers' size labels vary, and some call 5 x 8 or 6 x 9 ft medium.
Carpets woven by nomadic tribes across the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa, who move with their flocks through spring, summer and fall and settle in winter to weave. Working on compact portable looms, they typically make small pieces (for example 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 ft, about 1.2 x 1.8 or 1.5 x 2.1 m), sometimes runners, using wool from their own flocks, often for both foundation and pile, traditionally dyed with local plants. The bold, mostly geometric designs are passed down through generations without written patterns and sometimes echo city rugs. Unlike city or workshop rugs, they often show asymmetry, color variation and patterns that do not resolve neatly at the corners.
An exceptionally large carpet woven for a grand formal room, in special sizes beyond the standard ranges, roughly from 12 x 18 ft (3.7 x 5.5 m) upward. Such sizes are often made to order, and workshops with access to very large looms and ample resources, as in Sarouk weaving, can produce them. A 13 x 20 ft (4.0 x 6.1 m) Kashan with a medallion-and-corner layout is an example of the scale. Dealers set the threshold differently, so the figure is approximate.
The cutting back of a rug's knotted pile with shears. Weavers trim it lightly every few inches (roughly every 5 to 10 cm) of knotting so the pattern stays visible, and a final trim after the rug comes off the loom sets the finished pile height. Finely knotted rugs, such as silk Tabriz and other silk and silk-and-wool pieces, are cut short so that sharp detail shows, while rugs made to look antique, such as Kazak and Oushak-style pieces, are deliberately cut short so they feel thin and look aged.
An industrial loom driven by machinery rather than by a weaver's hands, on which machine-made rugs are woven through an automated process, typically from synthetic or machine-spun yarns. Because no one ties knots by hand, the design comes out perfectly aligned and symmetrical, the back feels stiff and plastic-like, and the pattern and colors cannot be read from it as they can on a hand-knotted rug. The process is faster and less labor-intensive than hand-knotting, giving a less expensive rug of lower quality.
Tribal rugs woven by the Qashqai, a nomadic tribe of southwestern Iran that unites Turkic, Arab, Kurdish and Lur groups and has lived in the region since at least the 16th century. Designs come from memory rather than written plans, pairing geometric and medallion layouts, occasionally in a simpler, sparsely detailed form, with animals, plants and household objects, in jewel-tone reds, saffron gold and indigo, often on deep red or dark navy grounds. The thick, hard-weaving wool of the tribe's own flocks is durable yet soft, forming a medium-height, dense pile on a cotton or wool foundation that suits busy areas; compact looms keep sizes small, typically 4 x 6 ft (1.2 x 1.8 m) or 5 x 7 ft (1.5 x 2.1 m) plus 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).
The last production stage of a hand-knotted rug, after all knotting is done. The rug is taken off the loom, its pile is sheared to an even surface that fixes the final pile height, and it is washed professionally, sometimes with a spell in direct sun to calm colors that are too strong. Stray fibers are then trimmed away, and the rug is inspected for flaws before it goes to market.
A weaving workshop in Mashhad (Mashad), northeastern Iran, founded around the mid-twentieth century by Abbas Gholi Saber and known for large, high-end rugs of typically about 12 square meters (roughly 129 square feet, or 10 by 13 feet) and up, made on about sixty looms at its peak. Some pieces use a silk foundation, very uncommon among Mashhad rugs, which are usually woven wool on cotton; one such piece is said to reach nearly 1,000 knots per square inch (about 155 per square centimeter). After the founder's death his longtime foreman reportedly kept up the same quality but stopped adding the Saber signature, so signed Saber rugs are rare, collectible and bring higher prices.
The degree to which a hand-knotted rug holds true, parallel edges and a width that stays nearly the same at the top, middle and bottom. A machine-made rug almost always measures identical at every point, but a handmade one never does exactly, because wooden looms expand and contract over time, and wool foundations, which also react to humidity, do so more than cotton ones; village and tribal weavings are especially prone to being crooked. A difference of an inch or two (2.5 to 5 cm) is acceptable, while major differences count as a flaw that lowers quality and value. It is checked by eye from a distance, against the lines of a hard floor, or by measuring the top, middle and bottom with a tape.
A coded script used in Kashmir and Persia to record carpet designs as compact symbols indicating the number of knots and their colors. In traditional workshops a talim reader chants the code line by line — almost like a song — while several weavers knot in unison, allowing one design to be reproduced precisely across looms and generations without the weavers ever seeing a drawing.
Rugs woven by mostly nomadic tribes, chiefly in Iran but also across the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa; a few names, such as Bakhtiari and Gabbeh, span tribal and village weaving. The tribes move with their flocks from spring to fall and typically settle in winter to weave on compact, portable looms, so rugs are small, often 4 x 6 ft (1.2 x 1.8 m) or 5 x 7 ft (1.5 x 2.1 m), or runners, and oversized pieces are rarely found. Wool from the tribe's own flocks often serves for both foundation and pile (goat hair is also used), dyed with local plants. Designs, mostly geometric, are passed down and woven from memory rather than from a drawing, so unlike city rugs the pattern often fails to resolve neatly at the corners. Qashqai, Baluchi, and Turkoman rugs are named after their tribes.
A rug woven by settled villagers, sitting between nomadic tribal rugs and city-workshop rugs. Village weavers have better tools, materials and dyes than nomads but work in a looser, semi-structured setting than city workshops, often from memory rather than a drawn blueprint, and some sell through the bazaar of a larger nearby city, as Abadeh's weavers do in Shiraz. Designs are mostly geometric (medallion, all-over, boteh or Herati) with fewer florals than city rugs; knot density is usually higher than tribal but lower than city rugs, and varied loom sizes give a wide size range, from small pieces and runners to large rugs. Heriz is the best-known example, alongside Azerbaijan, Abadeh, Karaja, Mehraban and Senneh; Shiraz and Bakhtiari are also counted as village work in some classifications.
Generated illustration: enlarged cord model of plain weave.
The two thread systems that make up a carpet's foundation: the warp, the vertical threads strung on the loom first, and the weft, the horizontal threads passed through them between rows of knots. The foundation is usually cotton, though wool is common in tribal and older rugs and silk in very fine ones. Single-weft rugs, standard in the greater Hamadan area, show zigzag rows of white warp dots on the back and have a thinner pile, whereas double-weft construction, standard in fine, tightly woven rugs and in Bijar and Heriz, hides the warp and gives a thicker, denser pile. The warp ends form the fringe, and extra weft passes at each end form the flat-woven kilim end that secures the pile.
A type of woven carpet made on a Wilton loom, known for its dense construction and ability to create intricate patterns. Often considered higher quality than tufted carpets.
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.
Tribal rugs woven by nomadic weavers in the Zanjan region in the west of Iran, near the Bijar and Hamadan weaving areas. Compact, portable looms, set up on the winter plains, keep most pieces to about 4 x 6 ft (1.2 x 1.8 m) or smaller. The foundation is usually cotton and the pile is wool from the weavers' own sheep, in geometric or Herati designs with beige, deep red and blue as main colors; older pieces often show a central medallion framed by a hexagonal one. Bijar-influenced pieces have a heavy-duty pile almost as thick as a true Bijar's, which is why they serve as a Bijar alternative; Hamadan-influenced pieces follow Hamadan designs and colors with a slightly thinner pile than Hamadan rugs.