Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ive, while wool and silk mixtures are more practical and look beautiful. Weavers are of-
ten, but not always, women.
Dyes
Dyeing is often done in large vats in small,
old-style buildings in the older parts of towns;
walk the old town streets of Kashan, in particu-
lar, to see it in action. The dyes themselves are
the product of centuries of innovation and ex-
perimentation. Colours are extracted from nat-
ural, locally available sources, including plants
(such as herbs, vegetables and fruit skins), in-
In 2006-07 some 1200 Iranians produced the
world's largest hand-woven carpet for the vast
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan mosque in Abu
Dhabi. It measures 5627 sq metres, weighs 35 tons
and includes 2,268,000,000 knots.
sects and even shellfish.
In 1859 chemical dyes such as aniline and chrome were introduced. They caught on
quickly because they were cheap and easy to use. Not everyone abandoned the old ways,
however, and some weavers, notably those in the Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari region west
of Esfahan, have continued using natural dyes almost uninterrupted to the present day.
Today Iranian rug producers big and small are turning back to natural dyes.
Looms
Traditionally, nomadic carpet-weavers used horizontal looms, which are lightweight and
transportable. Designs were either conjured up from memory, or made up as the weaver
worked. These carpets and rugs were woven for domestic use or occasional trade and
were small because they had to be portable. In villages, many homes or small workshops
have simple upright looms where weavers can create better designs, with more variety.
Over the last 150 years larger village workshops and city factories have begun using
bigger, modern looms. Some still require people to do the weaving, while others are fully
mechanised - producing 'machine carpets' that cost about half as much as their hand-
woven equivalents.
Knots
You may come across the terms 'Persian (or
senneh
) knot' (known in Farsi as a
farsi-baf
)
and 'Turkish (or
ghiordes
) knot'
(turki-baf)
. Despite the names, both are used in Iran: the
Turkish knot is common in the Azarbayjan provinces and western Iran.
As a rough guide, an everyday carpet or rug will have up to 30 knots per sq cm, a
medium-grade piece 30 to 50 knots per sq cm, and a fine one 50 knots or more per sq cm.
A prize piece might have 500 or more knots per sq cm. The higher the number of knots,
