User:Jim Bennight/My sandbox 1

Origins of Carpets

The tradition of carpet weaving predates written history and there is no proof of where or when the first carpets were made. Academics and experts champion theories, but it is unlikely that the whole story of the development of this craft will ever be known.

Some suggest Central Asian nomads were the first to create carpets so that they would not sacrifice valuable livestock simply to use their hides as floor coverings. Opponents of this theory say that a nomad’s lifestyle was too harsh and arduous to allow time for the creative innovation required to develop a system of looping and knotting woolen threads into a pile that imitated animal pelts. Such a fine craft, they argue, could only have developed in a prosperous, settled community.

Aeschylus wrote of carpets in his play, Agamemnon, when Clytemnestra spreads fine carpets at the feet of her husband to welcome his return. He will not walk on them at first since that is an honor meant only for the gods.

And stepping thus upon the sea's rich dye,

I pray, Let none among the gods look down

With jealous eye on me-reluctant all,

To trample thus and mar a thing of price,

Wasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.

Aeschylus wrote these words around 500 BC and the earliest surviving evidence of weaving is thought to date from that same time. The Pazyryk carpet was discovered in a royal burial mound in the Pazyryk Mountains of Siberia in 1949, preserved by a layer of perma-frost. Today this rug is in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The carpet is highly sophisticated, with floral, geometric, and pictorial designs, indicating many generations of technique development. This legendary piece is excellent testimony to the durability of the weaver's art and it is worked in a style of knot that is still used today.

Few other rugs are known to have survived more than 500 years. Many of those are displayed in museums around the world.

Types of Carpets/Rugs

Broad def, flat or piled flat are woven piled are knotted Knotted are in greater demand.