Kalardasht is the name given to an area of fertile valleys northwest of Teheran and close to the Caspian coast. The landscape is one of gentle hills with deciduous forest, very different from the more inhospitable landscape of the southern part of Iran. The people are largely of Kurdish origin. The villages are picturesque; the houses are built of wood, roughly plastered over, and their roofs are steeply pitched and covered with slates or shingles.
The carpets produced in Kalardasht are coarsely woven with geometrical designs, often enriched with flowers, birds, etc. The main colours are rich deep red and a very strong blue, which looks almost black. Small areas of white, green and yellow are used to give emphasis to parts of The Design. All sizes are produced. The carpets are unusual in that they are woven out of doors, the looms being set up against the gable ends of the houses. Old pieces have warps and wefts of dark coloured wool; nowadays cotton is generally used.
This Karabagh type of carpets were mainly woven in Shusha, the centre of Karabagh Region. Later Armenian people who settled in Karabagh only in 19th century, started to learn how to make carpet from Azeri Turks. For the present time, they introduce the Lampa Karabagh rug as an Armenian art. There are a number of Lampa carpets with Armenian inscriptions on them. They show erroneously these inscriptions as a proof that this carpet was firstly made by Armenian, and it belongs to Armenian culture.
In old times, there were making these carpets in complete sets; two sides and one central carpet. These big carpets adorned the old houses. In Karabagh Azerian dialect "Lampa" means ceiling. They were using these carpets to cover even the ceilings. One of these beautiful carpets were decorating one of the most prominent Azeri commanders general Samed bey Mehmandarov's (1856-1931) house.
This is a small village in the Turkish-speaking north-western province of Azerbaijan near Heriz, who moved to Iran to weave rugs. Like all rugs from original area, the designs are very geometrical. The weaving is firm and regular, the quality of the wool is excellent, and the warps and wefts are generally cotton. Many small sizes are produced, and larger pieces are generally runners. The rather bold striking designs may originally have had a tribal significance which is now lost - some of The Designs resemble crabs, insects and leaves. Natural dyes are largely used.
Kashan is a city of some 300,000 people in the province of Isfahan in central Iran. It is relatively low-lying and becomes very hot in summer; building houses downwards into the ground have traditionally alleviated this. Perhaps this also discourages the scorpions for which the city is notorious. Its inhabitants are famous for their industry: the Ardebil carpet in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dating from 1542, is signed Maqsud of Kashan, and the town also produces fine silks and velvets. There are few old buildings in the city: two Seljuk Minarets and a Mosque of 1463.A wife of Harun-al-Rashid traditionally founded the city.
Kashan produces carpets in both wool and silk. The former have cotton warps and blue cotton wefts. Several qualities are produced, but most Kashan carpets are quite finely knotted. All-over and medallion designs are produced; the shape of the Kashan medallion is distinctive; it is formed of alternating curved lines and right angles. The commonest scheme is a red field with a blue medallion, with subsidiary details in other colours. The borders of Kashan carpets are also distinctive. The main border is generally flanked by guard-stripes with geometrical designs, normally tiny blue and red triangles. Kashan carpets are made in all sizes. The town of Natanez, to the southeast, gives its name to pictorial rugs similar in weave to those of Kashan.
The Kashkuli are a 'Taifeh' or sub-tribe of the Qashquai tribe of northern Persia: they are generally considered the most accomplished carpet weavers. The weave is, by tribal standards, extremely fine, with warps of cotton or silk sometimes found. The pile is always wool, mostly small sizes are produced. A wide range of designs is seen, but the most characteristic are an adaptation of the classical 'Herati' or 'fish' design and a prayer arch design with cypress-trees on each side. A wide range of colours is used.Originating from the western area of the Caucasus populated by Armenian and nomadic Kurdish tribesmen, Kazak rugs are dominated by highly stylized floral motifs. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows are the main colours used in these vibrant rugs. The rugs in our Kazak gallery are very fine quality pieces made with natural dyes and Ghazi hand-spun wool.
Originating from the western area of the Caucasus populated by Armenian and nomadic Kurdish tribesmen, Kazak rugs are dominated by highly stylized floral motifs. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows are the main colours used in these vibrant rugs. The rugs in our Kazak gallery are very fine quality pieces made with natural dyes and Ghazi hand-spun wool.
The first and largest district in the 'Kazak' group is Kazak itself, stretching from Erivan in the Armenian Caucasus to Tiflis on the border on the borders of Georgia, and with Karabagh to the south-east. The Khanate of Kazak produced both high-piled rugs from mountainous areas and low-piled rugs from the valleys, and village, and settlement, many of which have their own easily recognized characteristics.
The stepped hooked polygon recurs frequently and is seen at its boldest in the shaggy deep-piled rugs of Lori-Pombak, which also feature massive geometrical medallions on a plain field.
The city of Kerman is on the edge of the Kavir-e-Lut in south-eastern Iran, it is the capital of a province of the same name and a city of perhaps half a million people. Its geographical isolation has resulted in the preservation of many monuments (there are said to be ninety mosques) and a fifteenth century mausoleum in nearby Mahan is said to be Iran's loveliest building. Like Yazd to the northeast, Kerman contains a high proportion of Zoroastrians - followers of Iran's ancient religion, elsewhere supplanted by Islam. The skyline of Kerman is noted for its wind-towers: chimney- like structures built to catch the stray breezes and deflect them into the interior of a house.
Throughout much of the nineteenth century it wove shawls. When the demand for shawls declined, the weavers adapted the loom to make carpets. At first, they simply used shawl designs. As fashions changed they adapted The Designs, but Kerman rugs retain delicate colourings and designs. All sizes are woven. The larger sizes often have superior colourings and designs: they are often woven in the town of Lavar or Ravar, some distance in the north. Apart from shawl designs, Kerman rugs often have adaptations of the Boteh motif, naturalistic bunches of flowers or re-workings of classical carpet design. A wide range of delicate colours are used. The pile, generally, is a soft, velvety wool, while the warps and wefts are invariably cotton. Other weaving centres which come within the general category of Sarouk, Boteh, Mahal, Meyghan, Mir and Seraband.
Kilim, a word of Turkish origin, denotes a pile-less textile of many uses produced by one of several flat weaving techniques that have a common or closely related heritage.
Pile-less floor covering hand woven by tapestry techniques in Anatolia, the Balkans, or parts of Iran. In the rest of Iran, the Caucasus, and Turkistan, the name for similar pieces is Palaz. In most kilims, a slit occurs wherever two colours meet along a vertical line in the pattern, but in a few Karabagh or South Caucasian pieces, interlocking methods are employed in order to minimize these slits.
Konya has the oldest tradition of carpet weaving in Anatolia, rich with Turkomen, Seljuk, and Ottoman symbols and motifs. Traditional weaving, made from the local population, flourishes in the whole district and the kilims are of particular interest.
Among the most formal and well-known designs is the Ladik prayer, made not in Ladik itself but also with variations, in Konya.
Kurdish tribes are scattered throughout Central Anatolia and used to wander freely over the borders between Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. This wool from an area around Bayazid is very harsh, the knotting loose, and the unevenly stretched warp and weft cause distortion.
The Yuruk are nomadic and semi-nomadic people who roam across the less-inhabited regions of Anatolia. Apart from the Yuncu Yuruk whose work is now being recognized, much of the Yuruk weaving comes from Eastern Anatolia, and can be identified mainly by the long shaggy pile, thick wefts and the excellent quality wool. Yuruk patterns contain many variations on the hexagonal, diamond, and hooked, stepped lozenge, as well as a zigzag pattern in both the border and in the field.
Aleppo are most known for their kilims and not the rugs they seldom weave. The finest kilims from this part of Anatolia are those woven in an around Aleppo, just over the Syrian border. Here kilims were as important as pile-woven carpets and many of them made specifically as door hangings and curtains.
The Kurds are one of Iran's greatest tribes. Their warlike temperament has led to frequent skirmishes with other tribes, and with successive central governments, which have responded by resettling groups of Kurds in various parts of the country. There are several million Kurds in Iran, and millions more in adjoining areas of Turkey and Iraq. Most Iranian Kurds live in northwest Iran, but there is a large concentration also in the Quchan region southeast of the Caspian.
The Kurds are skilled carpet weavers. Their most famous carpets are those of Bijar and Seneh. The carpets of Songor and Kolyai have a weave similar to those of Seneh, but are less fine. Warps and wefts are cotton; while the pile is wool. The Designs often resemble those of Nahavand, but are more barbaric. The rugs of Quchan have more of the character of tribal carpets. The production is small. The construction is generally 100% wool. Other weaving centres, which come within the general category of Kurdi, are Kerman shah and Kurdestan.
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