Tabriz is the largest city of north-western Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan province, set in the valley below Mount Sahand, east of Lake Urmia and roughly 600 km north-west of Tehran. Most of its people speak Azerbaijani Turkish rather than Persian. For centuries the city has been the commercial gateway between Iran and the Ottoman and European markets, and its vast covered bazaar, listed by UNESCO, is still where the weaving of the whole surrounding district is bought and sold. As a rug name, Tabriz covers both the city itself and the villages around it, so the name describes a district rather than a single municipality.

Weaving here is old and courtly. Tabriz was the capital of the Ilkhanid realm in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the first capital of the Safavid dynastyThe Persian ruling house that reigned from 1501, beginning with Shah Ismail, into the 1730s, whose court patronage of painting, calligraphy and weaving made this the golden age of Persian rugs. Many museum and top-auction masterpieces come from the era, with Tabriz, Herat, Kashan and Kerman the largest centers. As patterns grew more complex, designers, often miniature painters, became separate from the weavers who worked from their drawings; the large central medallion, curvilinear and geometric layouts and richer flowers and vines became hallmarks, and patterns were standardized for export to Asian and European markets. The Afghan invasion of Isfahan in 1722 interrupted weaving in the main manufacturing centers for several years, though tribes and villages carried on.See in the carpet dictionary under Shah Ismail from 1501, and it ranked among the largest carpet-producing centers of the Safavid golden age alongside HeratRugs from Herat, a historic city in western Afghanistan that was among the largest rug-producing centers of the Safavid period (16th to early 18th century), alongside Tabriz, Kashan and Kerman. The city also gives its name to the Herati design, a repeated diamond holding a small flower or leaves, with curved leaves at its sides, which is said to have originated there and is still woven in many Persian rugs.See in the carpet dictionary, Kashan and Kerman. The trade that brings these rugs into European homes, however, dates from the nineteenth century, when Qajar-era workshops in Tabriz, SultanabadAntique Persian carpets from Sultanabad, the former name of the Arak region of Iran, a newer weaving center that flourished under the Qajars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and supplied European and American buyers. Their typical layout is an allover field of oversized palmettes, lotus blossoms, floral sprays and angular vines, recalling the Shah Abbasi pattern in a rustic village manner rather than the precise curvilinear drawing of city rugs. Indigo or midnight blue with rust or brick red, gold and olive is a classic palette. Because Sultanabad no longer exists under that name, antique examples are scarce and command higher prices.See in the carpet dictionary (now ArakRugs from Arak, a city in central Iran formerly called Sultanabad, and the villages around it, a weaving region that grew in the Qajar era when exports of Persian rugs to Europe and America thrived. Rug texts also use the city as a reference point: the town of Sarouk lies about 50 km (31 miles) to its north, and the Malayer villages lie between Arak and Hamadan. Older pieces of the area are still sold under the old name Sultanabad.See in the carpet dictionary), Kerman and Mashhad were built up around English and German demand. The master weaver Haji JaliliOne of three master weavers of Tabriz, with Kurban Dai and Sheikh Safi, who are credited with making possible the export of Tabriz rugs to the West. Weaving in the city goes back to the 1500s, but that export trade did not begin until the 1900s.See in the carpet dictionary, working in the district in the closing decades of the 1800s, is the name most often attached to that revival.

The knot itself sets Tabriz apart from most Persian weaving. Its weavers tie the symmetrical, or Turkish, knot rather than the asymmetrical Persian knotThe asymmetrical knot of hand-knotted rugs, the counterpart of the symmetrical Turkish (Ghiordes) knot. The weaver wraps the yarn around one warp thread and passes it under the neighboring one, usually working by hand without a hook. On the back of the rug the knots look staggered or diagonal rather than like tidy squares, and the pile feels softer; the knot permits finer detail and higher knot density. In Iran, a rule of thumb ties it to the central, eastern, and southern rugs (Kashan, Isfahan, Nain, Kerman), while the northwest and west favor the Turkish knot, though exceptions exist. Fine curvilinear florals are often credited to it, but Turkish-knot rugs can be just as intricate.See in the carpet dictionary, a legacy of Seljuk Turkic rule over the region from the eleventh and twelfth centuries; the same influence still shows in Azerbaijan and Hamadan rugs. They also tie it with a small hooked metal knife rather than with the fingers alone, a tool the district is known for. Between the two, Tabriz rugs are unusually regular: repeats line up, medallions sit true, and curved outlines stay smooth right across the width of the rug.

DensityA measure of how tightly a carpet is packed. In machine-made carpet it describes the fibers in the pile and is calculated by multiplying the face weight by 36 and dividing by the pile height; higher density generally indicates better durability and performance. In hand-knotted rugs it means knot density (KPSI, knots per square inch), counted on the back and averaged over several areas (150 KPSI is about 23 knots per cm²). Like image resolution, higher density allows finer curves and sharper designs, usually with a lower-trimmed pile and more labor, but it is not the sole measure of quality: bold geometric village rugs are made at low to medium density.See in the carpet dictionary is where the name misleads buyers most often. Quality across the district varies enormously, and genuine Tabriz rugs run anywhere from about 50 to about 500 knots per square inchThe number of knots in one square inch of a hand-knotted rug (KPSI; 1 KPSI is about 15.5 knots per 10 x 10 cm), counted on the back with a ruler by multiplying the knots along one inch of height by those along one inch of width, averaged over two or three areas. More knots give sharper detail, like a higher-resolution screen, and, all else equal, somewhat more durability and a higher price, but density alone does not grade quality: Heriz and Bijar are durable at low to medium counts, while floral curvilinear designs blur without enough knots. Figures run from under about 80 for coarse tribal weaves such as Gabbeh and Qashqai, through roughly 120 to 225 for many village rugs and 300 to 700 for fine city rugs such as Nain and Isfahan, to 600 to 1,000 or more for pure silk Qum.See in the carpet dictionary (KPSI). That spread is the characteristic, not any single typical figure, and a coarser village piece at the bottom of the range is no less authentic than fine city work at the top. What lifts a rug towards the upper end is the foundation and the workshop behind it rather than the town on the label. One or two signature workshops build silk-foundation rugs somewhere between 700 and 1,200 KPSI, a ceiling reached by a handful of looms and not a standard to expect.

Foundations are usually cotton, carrying a woolA natural animal fiber used for the pile, and in some rugs also the foundation, of high-quality rugs. It is durable, resilient, stain resistant and flame resistant, feels soft and cushioned underfoot, insulates against cold, and takes up dye readily and holds it for many years. It also traps dust particles, which helps reduce allergic reactions. Quality depends above all on where the sheep graze: high-elevation pastures and good feed give thicker, oilier wool, with Manchester, New Zealand and Ghazni wools the best-known prized examples. Early-spring shearing and hand spinning (finer, softer thread than machine spinning) improve it further, while thin, dry wool from dead sheep goes into cheaper rugs.See in the carpet dictionary pileThe surface of a rug or carpet, made of upright fibers in cut tufts or loops. In a hand-knotted rug it is formed by the cut ends of thousands of wool or silk knots tied onto the warp row by row, trimmed lightly during weaving and given its final height by shearing at finishing. Pile thickness, measured from the back of the rug to the top of the pile, typically runs from low, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch (3 to 6 mm), to high, about 1/2 to 5/8 inch (13 to 16 mm). Fine, dense designs are cut short to keep the pattern sharp; higher pile suits traffic and heavy furniture, lower pile suits door clearance and humid rooms.See in the carpet dictionary. Where a silk foundationA rug base in which the warp and weft threads are silk rather than the usual cotton or wool. Silk is finer and thinner, so many more knots fit into each square inch; silk-based rugs typically run about 500 to 1,000 knots per square inch (roughly 78 to 155 per square centimeter). It is found mainly in fine traditional city rugs, most commonly Qum and Isfahan, and also in select Tabriz workshops and a special group of Yomut Turkoman rugs. The pile above may be wool, silk and wool, or pure silk.See in the carpet dictionary appears it is doing a job rather than adding glamour: silk warps and wefts are finer and stronger than cotton, so they are what makes the very high knot counts possible at all. Many Tabriz rugs combine silk and wool in the pile, with the silk placed deliberately on chosen motifs so those parts catch the light and shift as you walk past. Finer pieces use kork woolA fine, soft grade of wool taken from the neck and inner fleece layer of young sheep, often from the first shearing. Oily with natural lanolin, it feels soft and resilient and gives colors extra shine. It is used for the pile of many fine city rugs from Isfahan, Kerman, Qum, Tabriz, and Mashad, and older antique Sarouks cut to a short pile use it too. Also spelled cork or kurk wool.See in the carpet dictionary, the soft fleece taken from the neck and underbelly of the sheep, prized for its handle and resilience. Some workshops in the city make nothing but silk-and-wool rugs and no plain wool pieces at all.

Pile is cut short. A Tabriz feels noticeably lighter and flatter in the hand than most Persian city rugs, which is part of why fine detail reads so clearly on it. It sits in the medium band for pile height rather than the deep one: for a hallway or a hard-worn family room, thick-piled weaves such as BijarRugs from the city of Bijar in Kurdistan province, northwestern Iran, and the villages around it; the name covers both fine and coarse double-wefted pieces, woven by Kurdish tribes and, in workshops, Afshar weavers. Nicknamed the “iron rugs” of Iran, they are among the heaviest rugs for their size: double wefts, symmetrical (Turkish) knots, and rows beaten down hard, often while the wool is kept wet, give a thick, dense pile. Designs run from floral, Herati, and medallion to geometric, drawing on Isfahan and Kashan as well as Russian, Caucasian, and European sources (a French-style rose bouquet among them), in jewel tones of rust, red, beige, and navy. Bijars are often small rugs or runners, large sizes are rare, and the flat-woven ends and fringes are typically braided.See in the carpet dictionary, HerizBold village rugs from the Heriz area of northwestern Iran, near Tabriz, and the best-known of all Persian village rugs. A coarse, tough wool pile on a cotton foundation, usually double-wefted for extra thickness, and a low-to-medium knot density (commonly quoted at about 120 to 170 KPSI, roughly 1,900 to 2,600 per 10 by 10 cm) make them very durable; the wool's strength is traditionally credited to copper-bearing mountain water. The classic design is a large angular medallion with four corner pieces, sometimes an allover layout, in a rust red traditionally credited to copper minerals in the local river, with dark navy and cream. Bakshaish and Serapi, the latter now over a century old, are their older forms.See in the carpet dictionary, QashqaiTribal 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.See in the carpet dictionary and Mashhad absorb wear more forgivingly, and where a door has to swing over the rug a genuinely flat weave such as a kilimA flat-woven rug with no pile, traditionally made in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. Colored weft threads are interlaced with the warp without knots, so both sides look alike. The fibers are typically wool, cotton, or goat hair, and natural dyes often give slight shade variations that are normal, not flaws. Its low profile clears doors easily, and it can hang as wall art. In a knotted rug, "kilim" also names the flat-woven band at each end, where extra weft rows secure the ends beside the fringe.See in the carpet dictionary clears better. A Tabriz is happiest in a sitting room, a dining room or a bedroom.

Design range is the defining Tabriz trait, and it is wider than that of any other Persian weave. Floral medallions, floral allover fields, geometric allover and repeating-medallionA large motif at the center of a rug's field, around which the rest of the design is organized; the large central medallion is said to have been introduced in the Safavid era (16th-17th centuries). Floral medallions, typical of city rugs such as Tabriz, Kashan and Sarouk, are often read as a lotus blossom, and the motif has also been read as mirroring the interior dome of a mosque; geometric ones, often hexagonal or diamond-shaped, mark village and tribal rugs such as Heriz and Zanjan. A medallion may stand alone, come with four corner pieces, be flanked by smaller medallions above and below, or repeat down a runner. Rugs with no central motif are called allover. In a well-made rug the medallion sits at the center and the corners mirror one another, as closely as handwork allows.See in the carpet dictionary layouts, the Herati lattice, hunting scenes, vase designs, botehA teardrop-shaped motif with a curved upper tip, ubiquitous in Persian and Kashmiri weaving for centuries. The Persian word is glossed as “budding flower or plant,” and the motif stands for growth and regeneration; it is also read as a cypress that bends in the wind but rarely breaks, a flame, a seed, a pine cone or a stylized almond. When Scottish mills began imitating Kashmir shawls in the 19th century, the boteh became known in the West as “paisley,” after the town of Paisley. In rugs it usually repeats throughout the field, notably in Tabriz, Sarouk, Kerman, Mashhad and Malayer pieces.See in the carpet dictionary, garden panels, tree of lifeA design in which one large, elaborate tree rises through most of the field, surrounded by botanical ornament, with birds, animals and flowers spread among its branches. The tree can also occupy a single panel of a garden-panel rug or appear as a border pattern. In Persian tradition it stands for the connection between earth and the environment, is also read as a link between heaven and earth, and symbolizes strength, wisdom and the continuity of life. It is woven in Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Kerman and Malayer rugs and in Baluchi rugs.See in the carpet dictionary and pictorial work are all woven here, along with round formats and the occasional three-dimensional curiosity. The depth goes a level further than elsewhere: within a single family such as Herati, Tabriz weaves several distinct sub-designs rather than one house version. If a Persian pattern exists, some loomThe 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.See in the carpet dictionary in the district is making it.

Herati is worth knowing by name, since it turns up on Tabriz rugs more than any other pattern: a repeating diamond lattice with a rosetteA round, flower-like ornament in which petals radiate evenly from a center, like a blossom seen from above. From about the 16th century, as floral design entered Persian rugs, weavers began placing a rosette at the center of the field, which produced the central medallion of floral city rugs, as in the circular rosette medallion with scrolling lines on a round Shah Abbasi Tabriz. On Abadeh rugs a small rosette worked in navy, red or cream marks the center of the medallion, one way to tell the type apart. Rosettes also repeat along borders, as in Tabriz and Bakhtiari rugs, and among the vines and palmettes of Sultanabad rugs.See in the carpet dictionary at each center, framed by four curving leaves. Persian speakers call it mahi, meaning fish, because those leaves resemble one, and the name Herati points back to Herat, a city now in western Afghanistan. In the classic medallion-and-corner layout the corner spandrels are quarter-sections of the central medallion, so the four corners echo the center exactly. Finer medallion pieces surround that center with Shah AbbasiA classic Persian floral style named after the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas, which began as a royal court pattern about 400 years ago. Its main features are stylized, feather-like palmette leaves and lotus flowers, the lotus being an ancient symbol of long life, arranged in strict symmetry with scrolling ornament around a central medallion, often a rosette. Early examples favored deep reds and blues, while later rugs in this style often turn to muted neutral tones. The design appears in Kashan, Nain and Tabriz rugs.See in the carpet dictionary palmettes on swirling vines and arabesques radiating outward.

Pictorial weaving is a Tabriz specialty above all others. Most Persian portrait and scene rugs come from here, and its workshops take on subjects other towns would not attempt: episodes from the Persian epics such as Layla and MajnunA pictorial rug theme drawn from the classic Persian love story of two young people whose families forbid them to marry. The man, known as Majnun (“madman”), loses his reason from longing and roams the desert composing poems and songs; the woman, Layla, is married off to a wealthy nobleman to safeguard her family's honor and dies of grief, and he weeps himself to death on her grave. The best-known Persian telling is the verse romance of Nizami (1188), and the story appears on pictorial rugs, for example from Tabriz.See in the carpet dictionary, religious scenes including the Finding of Moses, landscapes and portraits from life. Kashan, SaroukPopular, durable Persian city rugs from Sarouk, a town in central Iran about 50 km (31 miles) north of Arak, prominent from the 19th century and exported to Europe and America. A cotton foundation carries a medium-to-thick wool pile, at times with silk highlights, usually tied with the Persian knot (some older pieces use the Turkish knot) at medium-to-high density of up to about 320 knots per square inch (roughly 50 per cm²). Floral, medallion and allover designs, with some Herati, boteh and pictorial patterns, appear on beige, ivory, cream, navy or red fields, the red leaning toward orange or rust, usually with a thin secondary border. American Sarouks, woven mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, adapted designs and colors to U.S. taste, and many were re-dyed to a preferred rose red.See in the carpet dictionary and Isfahan weave pictorials as well, but the skill and the appetite for unconventional imagery are strongest in Tabriz, where traditional and thoroughly untraditional subjects have long been treated as equally proper work for a loom.

Color is less restricted here than anywhere else in Persian weaving. Where many towns work within a handful of familiar tones, Tabriz uses reds, blues, greens, yellows, orange and pink freely. Deep red, midnight blue, pastel ivory and yellow are the classic combinations, and soft ivory, copper, burgundy, navy, baby blue, salmon and gold turn up regularly. Color also gives a rough guide to age: dark navy and deep red fields point to older, semi-antique and antique pieces, while newer work runs lighter, towards light green, peach, soft blue and gold. Silk-and-wool Tabriz rugs in particular favor pastel palettes.

Sizes cover the full range, from small mats through runners of every width to oversized carpets made for very large rooms, and round rugs are woven here too, which is unusual. Among runners, the wide ones, roughly ninety centimeters across and up, are nearly always older or semi-antique rather than recent production. For a room with an awkward shape, an off-center fireplace or furniture that will not sit square, an allover design is the easier choice: a repeating field looks settled whether the rug is centered or not, whereas a medallion asks to be placed symmetrically to look right.

More than any other Persian town, Tabriz is a city of named workshops, and many of its rugs are signed. AlabafA 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.See in the carpet dictionary, founded in the early twentieth century and since passed to a third generation of the founding family, has run hundreds of looms from its earliest days and works only in natural materials. GharbagheA Tabriz workshop known for some of the most unusual designs in the city, woven on a silk foundation at extremely high densities of about 700 to 1,200 knots per square inch (roughly 108 to 186 per cm²). That is far above the 50 to 500 knots per square inch (about 8 to 78 per cm²) typical of Tabriz rugs as a whole, which makes its rugs exceptionally fine and detailed pieces.See in the carpet dictionary is known for unusual designs on silk foundations at extreme density, ShirfarA Tabriz workshop founded in the 1990s, young by the standards of Persian rug making, and known for contemporary designs with innovative, unusual color combinations, using a palette of light colors such as cream along with red and yellow. Its rugs carry the workshop's signature and are woven not only on the usual cotton but also on a silk foundation, which allows very high knot densities. The founder's three sons now run the workshop.See in the carpet dictionary for contemporary patterns and unexpected color harmonies since the 1990s, and Torabi is another of the city's known signatures; the Amir Khizi Javan workshopA 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.See in the carpet dictionary stopped signing new rugs when its second-generation owner retired in 2020. One caution is worth carrying into any showroom: the label Tabriz style describes a look, not an origin, and a rug sold under it was not necessarily woven anywhere near the city.

A Persian rug is a rug hand-knottedA 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.See in the carpet dictionary in Iran, and the tradition behind it is the oldest documented anywhere. The earliest surviving carpet, the Pazyryk rugThe oldest known pile carpet in the world, woven around the 5th century BC and discovered in 1949 in the frozen tomb of a Scythian noble in Siberia's Altai Mountains. Grave robbers left the burial mound open, so cold and moisture froze the chamber and sealed the carpet in ice for some 2,500 years. Its symmetrical knots, about 36 per square centimeter (roughly 230 per square inch), show that carpet weaving was already a mature art in antiquity. It is often described as the oldest Persian rug and as early evidence of tribal weaving, a craft that began as protection against cold and damp. It is displayed in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.See in the carpet dictionary, was found preserved in a frozen burial mound and dates to the fifth century BC — roughly 2,500 years ago — and it is already accomplished work, not a beginner's craft. What began as warm, hard-wearing floor coverings for tribal households grew, over those centuries, into the art form that every other rug-weaving country has borrowed from.

Two later chapters shaped what a Persian carpet looks like today. Under the Safavid dynastyThe Persian ruling house that reigned from 1501, beginning with Shah Ismail, into the 1730s, whose court patronage of painting, calligraphy and weaving made this the golden age of Persian rugs. Many museum and top-auction masterpieces come from the era, with Tabriz, Herat, Kashan and Kerman the largest centers. As patterns grew more complex, designers, often miniature painters, became separate from the weavers who worked from their drawings; the large central medallion, curvilinear and geometric layouts and richer flowers and vines became hallmarks, and patterns were standardized for export to Asian and European markets. The Afghan invasion of Isfahan in 1722 interrupted weaving in the main manufacturing centers for several years, though tribes and villages carried on.See in the carpet dictionary, from 1501 to 1732, the court promoted weaving alongside painting and calligraphy, and the workshops of Tabriz, HeratRugs from Herat, a historic city in western Afghanistan that was among the largest rug-producing centers of the Safavid period (16th to early 18th century), alongside Tabriz, Kashan and Kerman. The city also gives its name to the Herati design, a repeated diamond holding a small flower or leaves, with curved leaves at its sides, which is said to have originated there and is still woven in many Persian rugs.See in the carpet dictionary, Kashan and Kerman produced the masterpieces that now sit in museums. This is when the great central medallionA large motif at the center of a rug's field, around which the rest of the design is organized; the large central medallion is said to have been introduced in the Safavid era (16th-17th centuries). Floral medallions, typical of city rugs such as Tabriz, Kashan and Sarouk, are often read as a lotus blossom, and the motif has also been read as mirroring the interior dome of a mosque; geometric ones, often hexagonal or diamond-shaped, mark village and tribal rugs such as Heriz and Zanjan. A medallion may stand alone, come with four corner pieces, be flanked by smaller medallions above and below, or repeat down a runner. Rugs with no central motif are called allover. In a well-made rug the medallion sits at the center and the corners mirror one another, as closely as handwork allows.See in the carpet dictionary appeared, and when designs grew elaborate enough that a separate designer — often a miniature painter — drew the pattern onto a cartoon for the weaver to follow. The second chapter came in the nineteenth century, under the Qajar dynastyThe era of the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Persia in the 19th century and produced the largest rug output in Persian history. Weaving revived after the turbulence of the 1700s that had halted the main manufacturing centers, and exports to Europe and America thrived, with England and Germany the biggest buyers. Newer centers such as Sultanabad and Kashan rose alongside Tabriz and Kerman, and European and American companies set up their own manufacturing hubs in Persia. Rugs from these large factories follow standardized, easily recognized designs, unlike village and tribal rugs, whose weavers still design their own patterns.See in the carpet dictionary, when production reached its historical peak, exports to Europe and America boomed, and the workshop industry whose descendants still weave today took its modern shape.

The trade sorts Persian rugs into three families. City rugs — Tabriz, Kashan, Kerman, Nain, Isfahan — are woven in workshops from a drawn design, carry the highest knot densities and come in the widest range of colors, sizes and patterns. Village rugs such as HerizBold village rugs from the Heriz area of northwestern Iran, near Tabriz, and the best-known of all Persian village rugs. A coarse, tough wool pile on a cotton foundation, usually double-wefted for extra thickness, and a low-to-medium knot density (commonly quoted at about 120 to 170 KPSI, roughly 1,900 to 2,600 per 10 by 10 cm) make them very durable; the wool's strength is traditionally credited to copper-bearing mountain water. The classic design is a large angular medallion with four corner pieces, sometimes an allover layout, in a rust red traditionally credited to copper minerals in the local river, with dark navy and cream. Bakshaish and Serapi, the latter now over a century old, are their older forms.See in the carpet dictionary, BakhtiariColorful rugs of the Bakhtiari, a Zagros Mountains tribe that was nomadic until much of it settled southwest of Isfahan in the 19th century and whose weaving now spreads across more than 200 villages; smaller pieces tend to be tribal work and larger ones come from the region's villages. The foundation is usually cotton under a wool pile from the tribe's own sheep, though some small tribal pieces are wool throughout, and every row is beaten down so hard that the pile ends up dense and long-lasting. The signature layouts are the garden panel design (Khesti, also spelled Kheshti), a grid of framed squares that each show a garden scene meant as a view of paradise, and the medallion-and-corner design with a semi-geometric center medallion. Deep red and dark navy are the usual field colors.See in the carpet dictionary and KarajaVillage 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, and knot density is low to medium. Two bold geometric medallions with hook-like edges typically alternate down a runner, often on a different ground color with each repeat, and on wide rugs the repeated medallions read as a geometric allover, in orange-reds, blues, creams and browns. Their soft, thin pile and great lengths, some over 20 feet (6 m), make them popular as hallway and stair runners.See in the carpet dictionary sit in between, mostly geometric and largely woven from memory. Tribal rugs — Baluch, TurkomanTribal rugs woven by Turkoman (Turkmen) nomads, whose forebears came from the Afghan and Uzbek region and who later settled in the Turkmen region of Iran. Rows of octagonal guls (“flowers”) cover a deep red, reddish-brown or occasionally cream field, accented in black, blue, green or beige; prayer designs also occur. Foundation and pile are usually wool, said to come from the soft undercoat of Karakul sheep, though a cotton foundation is occasionally used. In older pieces each tribe kept its own gul design, whereas newer rugs freely mix them. Turkoman designs inspired Bokhara and Khal Mohammadi rugs and are the Persian design closest to Baluchi work, which they predate; the low-to-medium pile suits places where doors swing over the rug.See in the carpet dictionary, QashqaiTribal 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.See in the carpet dictionary, each named after the people who weave it — are made on small portable looms, so they run smaller, and their bold geometric drawing comes from the weaver's own head rather than from paper.

The design vocabulary draws on a deep stock of motifs: Shah AbbasiA classic Persian floral style named after the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas, which began as a royal court pattern about 400 years ago. Its main features are stylized, feather-like palmette leaves and lotus flowers, the lotus being an ancient symbol of long life, arranged in strict symmetry with scrolling ornament around a central medallion, often a rosette. Early examples favored deep reds and blues, while later rugs in this style often turn to muted neutral tones. The design appears in Kashan, Nain and Tabriz rugs.See in the carpet dictionary palmettes, flowing arabesques, the small repeating Herati patternA classic Persian design built on a diamond repeated across the field, with a small flower or leaves inside each diamond and curved leaves at its sides; the leaves are read as stylized fish, said to circle a lotus. The name comes from Herat, the city in Afghanistan where the design is said to originate; it is also called the fish design, and Mahi means “fish” in Persian. It is one of the three main design families, woven as an allover pattern or around a central medallion with diamonds inside and outside it, and it sometimes appears as a thin border. It is common in Tabriz, Sarouk, Mashhad, Moud, Bijar, Hamadan, Abadeh, Zanjan, Kerman and Kashan rugs.See in the carpet dictionary, medallions, garden and tree-of-life compositions. These combine with regional habits into styles a practiced eye can place at a glance, from the bold geometric medallions of Heriz to the fine curvilinear florals of Isfahan.

The classic palette is built on natural dyes: madderThe root of the madder plant (Rubia tinctorum), a natural red dye and the source of the terracotta tones in Persian and Oriental rugs. Together with indigo and walnut husks it is among the plant dyes used to color the wool, bonding to its natural lanolin. Slight shade variations within one color area, known as abrash, are normal in rugs dyed this way.See in the carpet dictionary reds, indigo blues, saffron yellows and soft ivory tones, settled into combinations refined over centuries. Natural dyes age gracefully, mellowing into the patina that older rugs are prized for, and slight shifts of tone between dye batchesA single batch of dye, together with the yarn colored with it, all of which takes the same shade. Natural dyes are made in small artisanal batches, and when one runs out the replacement cannot be matched exactly, so yarn from different lots differs slightly in tone. In a finished rug the difference shows as the color shifts known as abrash, which is read as a sign of hand dyeing, whereas a perfectly flat, uniform color suggests synthetic dyes and machine making.See in the carpet dictionary — the effect called abrashSubtle shifts in color within a handmade rug, often visible as horizontal bands across the field. They arise because successive dye batches never match exactly, because differences in the wool's fat and oil content make colors change unevenly with age, and, in cream areas woven from undyed wool, because the fiber changes tone as it ages. Abrash often grows more distinct with age, so in an older rug it counts as a sign of natural dyes and hand production rather than a fault, while a newer rug is still checked for even color. Machine-made and some new hand-knotted rugs imitate it on purpose.See in the carpet dictionary — are a mark of small-batch natural dyeing, not a flaw.

The pileThe surface of a rug or carpet, made of upright fibers in cut tufts or loops. In a hand-knotted rug it is formed by the cut ends of thousands of wool or silk knots tied onto the warp row by row, trimmed lightly during weaving and given its final height by shearing at finishing. Pile thickness, measured from the back of the rug to the top of the pile, typically runs from low, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch (3 to 6 mm), to high, about 1/2 to 5/8 inch (13 to 16 mm). Fine, dense designs are cut short to keep the pattern sharp; higher pile suits traffic and heavy furniture, lower pile suits door clearance and humid rooms.See in the carpet dictionary is almost always woolA natural animal fiber used for the pile, and in some rugs also the foundation, of high-quality rugs. It is durable, resilient, stain resistant and flame resistant, feels soft and cushioned underfoot, insulates against cold, and takes up dye readily and holds it for many years. It also traps dust particles, which helps reduce allergic reactions. Quality depends above all on where the sheep graze: high-elevation pastures and good feed give thicker, oilier wool, with Manchester, New Zealand and Ghazni wools the best-known prized examples. Early-spring shearing and hand spinning (finer, softer thread than machine spinning) improve it further, while thin, dry wool from dead sheep goes into cheaper rugs.See in the carpet dictionary, and the wool decides much of the rug's quality. The best fleece comes from high-altitude flocks, where it grows thicker and richer in natural oils; spring-sheared wool beats the autumn clip, and hand-spun yarnWool yarn spun from cleaned, carded fleece by hand or on a manual wheel rather than by machine, after which the spun threads are twisted together into thicker, stronger strands before dyeing. It gives finer, softer threads than machine spinning, so the wool feels softer and looks shinier, and hand spinning is said to preserve the wool's natural lanolin. It is usual in Kazak and Peshawar rugs woven in Pakistan and in Afghan Khal Mohammadi rugs, all of which are also colored with natural dyes.See in the carpet dictionary gives a finer, softer thread than machine spinning. Fine pieces add silk highlights to a wool pile, and the finest are woven in pure silk. Foundations are usually cotton in city weaving, wool in tribal and older pieces, silk at the very top of the range.

Every knot is tied by hand, one at a time, in one of two forms: the asymmetric Persian knotThe asymmetrical knot of hand-knotted rugs, the counterpart of the symmetrical Turkish (Ghiordes) knot. The weaver wraps the yarn around one warp thread and passes it under the neighboring one, usually working by hand without a hook. On the back of the rug the knots look staggered or diagonal rather than like tidy squares, and the pile feels softer; the knot permits finer detail and higher knot density. In Iran, a rule of thumb ties it to the central, eastern, and southern rugs (Kashan, Isfahan, Nain, Kerman), while the northwest and west favor the Turkish knot, though exceptions exist. Fine curvilinear florals are often credited to it, but Turkish-knot rugs can be just as intricate.See in the carpet dictionary, usual in central and eastern Iran, or the symmetric Turkish knotOne of the two main knots of hand-knotted rugs, also called the symmetrical knot (the other being the asymmetrical Persian or Senneh knot). The yarn is looped around two adjacent warp threads with both ends emerging between them, so the back shows small, even, squarish knot heads; weavers often tie it with a hook. Named after the town of Ghiordes (modern Gördes) in Turkey, it is typical of Turkey, the Caucasus and northwestern Iran (Tabriz, Bijar, Heriz, village Hamadan), where Seljuk Turks are said to have introduced it, and gives a durable, precise pile. The Persian knot is often credited with finer detail, yet knot type is a tendency, not a limit: Tabriz rugs woven with the Turkish knot reach about 500 knots per square inch (roughly 78 per cm²).See in the carpet dictionary, common in the north-west ever since Seljuk weavers introduced it in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. A large carpet holds in the region of two million knots and can occupy a weaver for about a year.

Knot densityThe number of knots in one square inch of a hand-knotted rug (KPSI; 1 KPSI is about 15.5 knots per 10 x 10 cm), counted on the back with a ruler by multiplying the knots along one inch of height by those along one inch of width, averaged over two or three areas. More knots give sharper detail, like a higher-resolution screen, and, all else equal, somewhat more durability and a higher price, but density alone does not grade quality: Heriz and Bijar are durable at low to medium counts, while floral curvilinear designs blur without enough knots. Figures run from under about 80 for coarse tribal weaves such as Gabbeh and Qashqai, through roughly 120 to 225 for many village rugs and 300 to 700 for fine city rugs such as Nain and Isfahan, to 600 to 1,000 or more for pure silk Qum.See in the carpet dictionary is the figure newcomers fixate on, and the finest silk-foundation pieces do reach as much as 1,000 knots per square inch. But densityA measure of how tightly a carpet is packed. In machine-made carpet it describes the fibers in the pile and is calculated by multiplying the face weight by 36 and dividing by the pile height; higher density generally indicates better durability and performance. In hand-knotted rugs it means knot density (KPSI, knots per square inch), counted on the back and averaged over several areas (150 KPSI is about 23 knots per cm²). Like image resolution, higher density allows finer curves and sharper designs, usually with a lower-trimmed pile and more labor, but it is not the sole measure of quality: bold geometric village rugs are made at low to medium density.See in the carpet dictionary only matters as far as the drawing demands it: a curvilinear Isfahan needs a fine weave to stay sharp, while a geometric Heriz is famously durable at a modest count. Material, symmetry, color harmony and condition say more about quality than any single number.

Persian carpets settle into modern rooms as naturally as classical ones, as a focal point in a living room, a foundation under a dining table or a quieter accent in a bedroom. Care is undemanding: gentle vacuuming without a rotating brush, an occasional turn for even wear, and a professional wash about every five years — sooner in a hallway or entrance, less often in a quiet room.

A hand-knotted Persian rug tends to outlast its owners. Pieces a century old regularly survive in fine condition, their colors settled and their pile supple, often looking better than when they left the loomThe 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.See in the carpet dictionary. A well-chosen, well-kept rug holds its worth and passes down as a family heirloom rather than being replaced — which is precisely what the knots, the wool and the dyes were always for.