A region in western Iran where as many as a thousand villages here are making one sort of a carpet or another. Everyone has a style, color and design they are proud of. Many of them are coarse as they are mainly used by the locals but the ethnicity of this place showed more than its simplicity which over time from their thick plush pile some 50-70 years of use brought out the elegance in these sought after pieces. Since the piles were thick when new they would look fuzzy and the designs were not very distinct and hence the region started to thrive somewhere in the 1940’s when a traveler happened to go to a villagers house and saw one these magnificent pieces that had been in the family for 50-60 years and as Iranian tradition is not only warm in its hospitality but also would give their prized rugs away if one would set sight on it. The traveler didn’t take it for free but paid a price not too extravagant but still a handsome amount for the family whose ancestors had made it and they were able to get a newer piece as times and modernization came in.
The one thing the region of Hamadan did was travel to neighboring villages’ to barter their wares as well as when there were weddings they were given as gifts so each admired each other’s craftsmanship and so the designs unique to each tribe/village started to migrate and evolved into another whole dimension of carpet weaving.
The large stylized flowers, trees, birds and various other elements around them became their motifs which with the beautiful wool from this region with the vegetable dyes of Indigo plant, madder root, saffron flower, olive/green leaves, nuts, bark combination or picking a few colors to make a blue and red carpet or rust and blue each one had its uniqueness. Using Local grown Sheep’s the wool from these parts were plush and shiny as they hand – spun the wool on a wheel until the desired fineness or consistency was achieved.
Again age plays a big part in Persian carpets as the older they are the better they get provided that the quality of materials used were good with an experienced weaver knotting was well packed and tight.
Many well known Carpets from these regions were the following:
Nahavand – Malayer – Kolyai – Ingles as well as many others but to name a few.
