Material Used in Hand Woven Rugs
The same materials are used in flat-woven and pile rugs. Warp and weft yarns are either wool or cotton. In pile rugs, the knots are usually wool, sometimes goat’s or camel’s hair, depending on the region. Silk, traditionally a costly material, is found principally in fine Persian carpets and some Chinese rugs. Yarns have been used in their natural colors or colored with dyes extracted from flowers, roots, and insects. Colors, available in a wide spectrum, often have had symbolic as well as decorative importance, especially in Oriental rugs. Despite the existence of distinctive regional styles and motifs, many designs are common to diverse regions in the East and even in the West. These designs may be rectilinear or curvilinear, naturalistic or abstract; they may be based on motifs such as the sun wheel, the tree of life, the cloud band of China, the pear-shaped figure (boteh) that heralds the Islamic paisley design, flowers of all kinds, animals, birds, and insects. Muslim prayer rugs are always distinguished by the prayer niche (mihrab) woven into the pattern; this represents the actual prayer niche in the Great Mosque at Mecca, toward which the rug must point during use.
Historical Picture of Hand Woven Rugs
Sub Continent is a leader in the mystical art form of hand knotted oriental carpets. It was Akbar the great, Mughal leader of India in the 16th century, who setup workshops to exclusively weave carpets for the royal palaces. To make the finest carpets, he imported leading artisans from the Persian Court of the Safavid dynasty. After the decline of the Mughal empire in the late 1700′s, the British reestablished fine carpet making in the 1800′s. Primary rug making centers are in Agra, Mirzapur, Jaipur, Amritsar, and Bhadohi. Handmade carpets represent months and even years of time-honored processes including: sheep raising, shearing, carting, spinning and dying wool, designing, weaving, finishing, and finally washing the rug. All are considered individual art forms that create a spectacular floor to beautify your home and office, Woven Rugs.
