Karajeh Rugs & Carpets

The prosperous village of Karajeh is on the Tabriz-Ahar road, just before the Heriz weaving district proper, about thirty-five miles from Tabriz city. Although weaving has been carried on there since at least the middle 19th century, few extant pieces predate 1900. There are about a dozen lesser villages in Karajeh's orbit. All weave the same design with the same technique.

Karajeh rugs are all single wefted on a cotton foundation, with symmetric knots and flat warps. The piles are of medium length, and the wool tends to the soft side and lies down, rather than resilient and upstanding. The handle is light and flexible. The formats include scatters, runners both narrow and wide, and the rare room size carpet. [...]

The prosperous village of Karajeh is on the Tabriz-Ahar road, just before the Heriz weaving district proper, about thirty-five miles from Tabriz city. Although weaving has been carried on there since at least the middle 19th century, few extant pieces predate 1900. There are about a dozen lesser villages in Karajeh's orbit. All weave the same design with the same technique.

Karajeh rugs are all single wefted on a cotton foundation, with symmetric knots and flat warps. The piles are of medium length, and the wool tends to the soft side and lies down, rather than resilient and upstanding. The handle is light and flexible. The formats include scatters, runners both narrow and wide, and the rare room size carpet. The fields are usually dark blue or tomato red, with a few ivory pieces available. There are no old yellow, true green or light blue Karajehs. There is a very attractive bluish-green used in details, however. The patterns are limited with hook fringed hexagons alternating with square octogrammes. In some older runners, additional palmette types are added to this basic repertory. Small stylized flowers and other devices fill the fields in a horror vacui style. The drawing is geometric in vintage rugs and gets slightly more curvilinear in antique examples. Karajehs seem to be descended from Karadagh rugs (not to be mistaken with Karabagh rugs of the Caucasus) from the immediate north. Karajeh borders, navy with dark blue fields, or red with navy grounds, are in either a simplified version of the "turtle" palmette style, or in a rosette and bud grid array pattern. Both these borders can be seen on antique Karadagh and Heriz-Bakshaish rugs. On the rare room size Karajehs the medallions are arrayed in columns, with each one offset vertically from its neighbors.

The usual two-legged animal or triangular bird will often be slipped in due to the village weavers imagination. The weavers must have a good time making these cheerful rugs. A long time ago, the Karajeh weaver found a formula that works and they has not since deviated from it. Karajehs have not succumbed to any urbanization, up marketing, or repositioning. A Karajeh is an honest, authentic northwest Persian village rug.