The History of Carpets
Carpet is one of the noble arts of Iranian people which has flowed through Iranian people vessels from old days until now. According to historians, tourist and discovered signs and monuments in historical buildings, carpet weaving art existed in Iran history for a long time and the Iranians were the first people who used carpets.
Among the old and discovered carpets, the Pazyryk carpet is known as the oldest Iranian handmade carpet which was discovered in 1949 by the famous Russian archaeologist Professor Rudenko in a historical area called Pazyryk and it was named after this area.
Professor Rudenko states that Pazyryk carpet was woven by the Medes or Persis people and then he noted that because the riders in the carpet design used carpet instead of saddle, this carpet belongs to Assyrians era and on the other hand, the elegance of work and the way the tail of the horses was knotted, is also visible in the remains of Persepolis.
Many of the historians believe that in time that Iran was attacked, one of the important spoils that was taken were many different carpets and the known and famous Baharestan Carpet was one of them which gold was used in its texture and peak of Iranian art was visible in it.
Alongside the history of carpet and carpet weaving art in Iran, Safavid era was one of the most important eras of flourishing and progress of Iranian carpet art and even some people remember it as Iranian carpet renaissance. In this time carpet weaving centers were flourished and even other cities entered the carpet weaving industry and after that Iran has become one of the biggest carpet manufactures in world. Addition to development of carpet industry in Safavid era, design of the carpets has developed too and the designers has managed to create new designs for the carpets. For example in this time summary and combined designs like Lachak-Toranj entered the carpet designs.
This designs were used for cover of the expensive books and the designers managed to use this designs for carpets too.
There are 3000 expensive carpets which remained from Safavid era and now they are maintained in many important Iranian or foreign museums.
With attack of King Mahmud to Iran, carpet weaving art lost its prevalence. In the time of Nader Shahs administration, carpet industry didn't grow and only locals kept the art of carpet weaving.
Since the Qajars, carpet weaving art was resurrected in Iran and in this time Iranian carpets were exported to Europe and other countries and even foreign companies has invested in Iran carpet industry and this process continued until Pahlavi dynasty and carpet became one of the main export products of Iran.
Nowadays, Iranian carpet has special reputation around the world because of its colors, variety and special designs.
