| Oriental Rugs
Oriental Rugs made simpleGenerally rugs are divided into two main categories. They are are either geometric or floral. Geometric rugs are characterized by straight lines and come from villages or are made by nomadic tribes. Floral rugs generally come from cities. Floral rugs, by contrast, are curvilenear and were made on permanent large scale looms in a more "production-like" setting in the well developed village or urban area; this is where the historically significant pieces of the great mosques and palaces of the Persian Empire were woven. The rug pictured interesting in this regard: althought there are flowers in the design, note that they are "flat" and rather two dimensional. Thus this rug would be characterized as geometric and is tribal in origin. The pile of almost all rugs is made of wool; other lesser used materials are camel hair, cotton and silk. The foundation of almost all older nomadic and tribal rugs is wool. Cotton is the usual material used for the warp and weft (foundation threads) of city and many village carpets. An Oriental Rug is named after its place of origin or its maker. Thus a rug woven in Tabriz is called a Tabriz regardless of what it looks like. An expert will identify a rug as to type based on "clues" (or in rug lingo, attributes) which include the materials, construction and colors which present in any given carpet. The design is actually last on the list of attributes which identify the place of origin.But it is the case that many classic designs originated in specific cities or towns or villages. These designs have become immutably associated with the geographic name or the name of the tribe. So in the modern world of rugs where reproductions abound, a rug name is often hyphenated, for example, Paki-Mahal. The prefix indicates the country of origin and the second name indicates the location that has become synonymous with the design so copied.
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