Interesting Facts About Oriental Rugs

The term Oriental rug is a broad one used to describe woven and knotted coverings for walls, floors, or tables that are produced over a large area of Asia and the Middle East. Although India and China have extensive histories of rug production, and these wares come under the general heading of " Oriental rugs," the term generally denotes products of the Islamic world, from Afghanistan and Iran, across the Middle East to Turkey, and even into North Africa. While we refer to this broad range of carpets with the word Oriental, in the Roman Empire such works were known as "Babylonian" rugs. In 18th-century England Oriental floor coverings were known as "Turkey work," and in colonial America a broad range of rugs came to be known as "Smyrna carpets," reflecting the sometimes circuitous exportation routes as much as the source of the wares.

Carpet weaving is a very ancient art. Highly developed traditions are known to have been practiced by the Assyrians and Babylonians from very early times, and their wares were widely distributed throughout the ancient world. The oldest preserved rug, employing the Turkish knot and dating from approximately the 4th century B.C., was found in 1949 in a Scythian burial site at Pazyryk, in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. The so-called Pazyryk rug, now housed in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, provides valuable corroborative evidence for what is known about the well-developed art of rug-making at this early date from written sources. The rug, with a border featuring five stripes containing geometric and animal motifs, is stylistically reminiscent of mosaic patterns known from 7th-century-B.C. Nineveh and demonstrates the cultural reach of the Assyrian empire at its peak. 

Oriental rugs were prized possessions and symbols of luxury in ancient times, just as they are at the beginning of the 21st century. Depictions created during the reign of Ramses II in Egypt, in the 13th century B.C., show what appear to be rugs in an Assyrian style. Centuries later, as we know from ancient sources, "Babylonian" rugs were widely used as table coverings in the Roman world, and the Athenian historian. Xenophon cites as an example of Persian opulence the fact that rugs were used to cover even floors. Evidence from a host of European paintings---such as the Dutch master Jan Vermeer's Young Woman with a Water Jug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City---shows that Oriental rugs were still frequently used as table coverings in 17th-century Europe, since they remained far too precious to be considered for use on the floor.

Asia Minor took the preeminent role in carpet making in the early years of the 2d millennium A.D. and has been a leading center for the trade ever since. Owing to Turkey's geographical proximity and extensive trade contacts, its carpets have been particularly prominent in Europe and the West since the Renaissance. Under the Mughal (Mogul) Dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries, India experienced its own golden age, during which glorious carpets were produced. However, in the history of what are now known as Oriental rugs, Persian rugs have long represented the "gold standard" in terms of both art and the marketplace.

After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C., Persia became the most noted textile center in Asia, beginning a tradition that would last for over 2,000 years. Indeed, many historians agree that the Oriental rug reached its highest peak of artistry during the reign of the Safavid dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1501 until 1736.

Rugs produced under the Safavid court were often based on classic designs and emblems, but individual weavers were free to improvise, creating a broad range of individualistic and idiosyncratic designs. Where many modern rugs, created expressly for Western markets, feature standard designs and conform to a preordained symmetry, a particularly alluring feature of classic older rugs is their uniqueness and irregularity.

The Ardabil mosque carpet, created in Tabriz, Iran, dated 1539-1540 and now housed at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, is a classic of the Safavid era and represents many of the most important design elements of the period. In this fine rug delicate arabesques and intricate decorative patterns of vines intersect one another to create complex patterns suggesting overlapping layers. In other carpets of the time, such as an important "hunting" carpet preserved in the Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, multiple hunting scenes produce elaborate patterns of human figures, animals, and floral motifs. The Vienna example's central medallion and corners even depict fantastic creatures such as phoenixes and dragons.

Although well-preserved classic carpets from centuries past are extremely rare commodities, the production of fine rugs continues throughout Asia and the Middle East, supplying a vast worldwide market. For the collector or connoisseur, however, just as for contemporary rug makers, the great rugs of the past provide a necessary background for understanding quality craftsmanship.