What is a handmade rug?
In most older rugs, natural dyes derived from plants and insects are used, which involves additional labor such as growing or foraging dye materials. The materials in handmade rugs are always all-natural and may include wool, cotton, silk, goat hair, camel hair, and other animal fibers.
In contrast, most modern rugs sold in home goods stores are machine-made and typically constructed from synthetic materials like plastic. These rugs are designed to be inexpensive, wear out quickly, and be discarded in a short time. The manufacturing process is vastly inferior to that of a handwoven rug, which features a strong foundation and a knotted pile of natural materials.
Handmade rugs can last for hundreds of years with proper care. They are also easier to maintain, as the lanolin in wool naturally repels moisture and dirt. Lanolin, also called wool fat, is a wax-like substance secreted by sheep to protect their wool. Spills on a high-quality wool rug can often be fully cleaned without issue, whereas a cheap plastic or cotton rug is much more likely to be damaged and stained permanently.
Sheep grazing in the Armenian Highlands.
How is a handmade rug constructed?
As the rug is woven on the loom, a line of weft is placed, followed by a row of knots, and the process is repeated from bottom to top until the rug is complete. A flatwoven rug, called a kilim, is constructed of only warp and weft and does not have a knotted pile. Knots on pile rugs are generally symmetrical or asymmetrical (see more below). The pile may be left long or clipped very short.
Rugs may be woven in a workshop, home, or by nomadic peoples in tents as they move between summer and winter pastures. The methods, materials, and designs vary significantly by region, culture, and time period. A cartoon (graph paper with a design) may be used, or it may be woven entirely from the mind and imagination of the weaver.
Left: An asymmetric knot with two wefts between each row of knots. The knot fully wraps around one warp and partially around the other.
Right: A symmetric knot with two wefts between each row of knots. The knot fully wraps around both warps.
These knot types are sometimes referred to as "Persian" or "Turkish" but this is inaccurate and misleading. Both knot types are used across Iran. While most rugs in Turkey and Anatolia use the symmetrical knot, it is used across a wide area and has been used for thousands of years. The oldest surviving carpet, a 2,500 year-old piece known as the Pazyryk Carpet, uses the symmetric knot. It originates to somewhere around the Armenian Highlands and northwest Iran.
Masoumeh Mohammadi, 37 years old, weaving a design of birds and fish. She is from the village of Chalbi (in the Komijan district) and has three children named Reza, Rezvan, and Abbas. (Photographer: Motahare Mashayekhi, Iranian Students' News Agency)
How is a handmade rug identified?
The most important features to identify origin:
Warp: What material is used? Are the warps flat or are they offset? How are the warp ends (fringe) finished? Are they flat woven, braided, etc?
Weft: What material is used, and how many wefts are there in each row?
Side finish: What material is used and what technique was applied?
Example rug analysis:
Front of the rug.
Back of the rug.
All wool warps.
Warp: Made of all beige and light brown wool twisted together. The warps are flat with no offsetting or ”depression.” This is apparent because the knot nodes are on the same plane. If the warps were offset, it would create a sort of "corrugated" look and one knot node would be physically behind the other. All wool warps generally indicate the early 1900s or older, with some exceptions based on region and ethnic group.
Weft: Single weft between each row of knots, easily identified by every other warp being visible. The wefts are all wool and are dyed red and blue. All wool wefts indicate the early 1900s or older, with some exceptions based on region and ethnic group.
Side finish: Some wear to the sides, but they are original. It is a two cable flat selvage wrapped in a figure-eight. Flat in this instance means that a pair of two warps on the outermost sides of the foundation were overcast to create the selvage, rather than two cords of wool separate from the foundation being attached to the sides to create the selvage. This feature will end up being critical to identifying its origin.
Knotting: The knots are symmetrical, of medium fineness, left long for a thicker pile.
Colors: The huge variety of colors on this rug are entirely vegetal dyes. Indigo, madder root, vine leaves, pomegranate rind, onions, walnuts, etc., are used in these types of dyes. This also indicates the early 1900s or before.
Design: A cartoon (graph paper) was not used for this rug, and it was woven entirely from mind with inspiration from designs passed down from hundreds of years of tradition. This is apparent because of the many "imperfections" of the repeating field pattern; lack of symmetry, inconsistent variations in sizes and colors of motifs, symbols scattered in open space, etc. The field is an allover floral lattice of 8-petal flowers flanked on either side by serrated leaves. The 8-petal flower has slightly different meanings depending on the culture, but generally is a symbol of the sun and cosmic harmony, eternity, and rebirth. Abstract “eye” motifs are distributed throughout the design above the large flowers. This motif is believed to provide protection from the evil eye. The field design is somewhat similar to the elaborate “Shah Abbas” palmette rugs of Isfahan. The borders are of repeating boteh and turned leaves.
Using all of this information, I was able to determine that the rug is from the Feridan region of western Isfahan Province, Iran. Thanks to a book of field research by JP Willborg, I was able to attribute this rug to the Armenian village of Khoygan. The construction, colors, and design of the rug matched this region, and the book helped pinpoint a more exact origin because of its unique side finish. Because the warp and weft are all wool, this indicates a pre-1920 origin, as cotton would have been used in this area after then. The construction technique and location of a small village means this rug was woven by a woman in her home. Wool and dyestuffs were likely sourced from the village. The village of Khoygan is one of the oldest Armenian villages in Iran, established sometime in the 1600s when Shah Abbas forcibly moved hundreds of thousands of Armenians from the Caucasus into Safavid Iran amid clashes with the Ottomans. It is an incredible, one-of-a-kind work of art I will cherish for a lifetime (and is not for sale, sorry!). This is the type of information I can provide with your purchase.
Conclusion:
Persian-Armenian Khoygan village rug, Feridan area of Isfahan Province, Iran, circa ~1910.
Khoygan, situated in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. (Photo by Seyyed Vahid Hosseini)