What Types Of Oriental Rugs Are There?

Oriental rugs feature many intricate designs. In 1905 carpets from the period of Seljuk domination of Turkey (eleventh century of the Common Era) were found in the Alaedin mosque at Konya, Central Anatolia. They have background colors of dark blue or red. In lighter shades of the same colors are designs in the form of oft repeated geometric patterns. These include octagons with hooked corners, eight-pointed stars, and even more complicated designs.

Some carpets have the field, or main area, divided into small squares or hexagons, in which there are bird or animal figures. There are specimens of Oriental rugs containing action scenes of animals attacking one another. Some of the rugs are quite large. One measures 15 square meters (161 square feet), with each square meter having about 84,000 Gördes knots. Especially interesting are the borders of these carpets, often adorned with bold Kufic lettering, a simplified form of the Arabic alphabet.

Later came "Ottoman" carpets, coinciding with Ottoman rule throughout the Central Anatolian plains of Turkey. Some are called "Holbein" rugs because they appear in the paintings of the sixteenth-century German painter Hans Holbein. These rugs have a very high knot count, with as many as 100,000 to 150,000 knots per square meter (1.2 square yards).

Add Comment

Report