Finding Quality Oriental Rugs

Oriental rugs are like gold. By making them part of your home you in effect make your home part of long rich cultural traditions. Authentic Oriental rugs are hand made using looms according to time honored craft traditions in Central Asia and Middle East. First Oriental rugs were made as long ago as 3000 BC.

This is made with silk and wool fibers. High quality floor rugs will have higher knot density (knots for square inch) than low quality ones. A very good quality area rug will have about five hundred to thousand knots per square inch.

There are three main traditions or styles in Oriental rug making. They are Caucasian, Persian, and Turkish.

Caucasian Oriental rugs have bright geometric patterns and come from the countries in the Caucasian mountains. New rugs from this region are rare these days because the tradition has almost died away in the region. Best rugs from this region were made in late 19th century. There are several sub types of Caucasian rugs categorized according to their place of origin. They are Baku, Dagestan, Gendje, Karabagh, Kazak, Shirvan, and Talish, rugs.

Persia is course present day Iran. Persian Oriental floor rugs tend to have curved lines. They too are subdivided according to areas they come from. Main ones are Central Persian, Eastern Persian, Northwest Persian, Southern Persian, Southwestern Persian, and Western Persian. Persian rugs can also be dived according to the type of peoples or tribes the rugs were made by. Rugs made by nomadic tribes would be smaller since they use smaller more portable looms. They also tend have bolder colors. Floor rugs made in cities or villages tend to be larger. In Persia rug making became an industry shortly after first ones were made and people were employed by workshops for the making rugs especially for selling. Most floor rugs made in cities comes from such ancient workshops.

Turkey was known as Anatolia and as such these Oriental rugs are commonly called Anatolian rugs. They are divided into three subcategories Central, Eastern, and Western.

Good quality Oriental rugs will last a long time. In fact it will last for several generations if properly cared for. However avoid putting such area rugs in places where the foot traffic is heavy. Especially avoid places where they will be trodden on by dirty shoes. Remember in the countries where they make these rugs people used to take off their shoes when entering a house.

They are easily cleaned with a vacuum cleaner. However they may need to be beaten once in while.

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Lanny Hintz writes about Area Rugs,Oriental Rugs and Shag Rugs