Serab Rugs & Carpets

The Serab area in Azerbaijan Province, northwest Persia, forms the southeast corner of the roughly triangular Heriz weaving area. Serab is located approximately halfway between Tabriz and Ardebil. It is a small market town of considerable antiquity, having been mentioned by 10th-century historian and traveler Ibn Hawkal. It centers a rich agricultural area with about twenty minor surrounding villages. Serab has, as far back as surviving specimens go, specialized in strips or runners. Not scatter (throw) rugs and certainly not large carpets. The lesser grade Serabs are marketed in Ardebil and went under the trade name of “Ardebils." More recently, post-WWII rugs called "Ardebils" are in the Caucasian Shirvan style and are not woven in the Serab area.

Serab rugs are especially noted for their range of camel colors. 'Shotori' is Farsi for 'camel' and it has been assumed by almost all rug writers and collectors, that the camel-tone wool is actual camel hair. A look at the versos of camel-colored areas quickly puts this fiction to rest. Actual camel hair is finer, curlier, and fuzzier than wool with its thicker, straighter fibers. Camel hair browns are fuzzier and slightly raised on the rug back, while the wool areas are lower and smoother. Camel does not acquire a lustrous or metallic patina from use, either on the face or the verso of a rug, whereas wool does. Further, the little hairs on the versos never rub off in use while the wool develops a smooth and even hairless appearance. The camel tone in Serabs is produced by dyeing sheep wool, acquired from the nearby Shah Savan tribes, with walnut husks. This gives a brown varying from deep chocolate to light taupe, depending on the immersion time and initial amount of colorant. Alum is used as the mordant. The wool in Serabs is of high quality, particularly meaty and thick. Older Serabs often employ a rich red instead of camel for both fields and borders. In recent times, the [...]

The Serab area in Azerbaijan Province, northwest Persia, forms the southeast corner of the roughly triangular Heriz weaving area. Serab is located approximately halfway between Tabriz and Ardebil. It is a small market town of considerable antiquity, having been mentioned by 10th-century historian and traveler Ibn Hawkal. It centers a rich agricultural area with about twenty minor surrounding villages. Serab has, as far back as surviving specimens go, specialized in strips or runners. Not scatter (throw) rugs and certainly not large carpets. The lesser grade Serabs are marketed in Ardebil and went under the trade name of “Ardebils." More recently, post-WWII rugs called "Ardebils" are in the Caucasian Shirvan style and are not woven in the Serab area.

Serab rugs are especially noted for their range of camel colors. 'Shotori' is Farsi for 'camel' and it has been assumed by almost all rug writers and collectors, that the camel-tone wool is actual camel hair. A look at the versos of camel-colored areas quickly puts this fiction to rest. Actual camel hair is finer, curlier, and fuzzier than wool with its thicker, straighter fibers. Camel hair browns are fuzzier and slightly raised on the rug back, while the wool areas are lower and smoother. Camel does not acquire a lustrous or metallic patina from use, either on the face or the verso of a rug, whereas wool does. Further, the little hairs on the versos never rub off in use while the wool develops a smooth and even hairless appearance. The camel tone in Serabs is produced by dyeing sheep wool, acquired from the nearby Shah Savan tribes, with walnut husks. This gives a brown varying from deep chocolate to light taupe, depending on the immersion time and initial amount of colorant. Alum is used as the mordant. The wool in Serabs is of high quality, particularly meaty and thick. Older Serabs often employ a rich red instead of camel for both fields and borders. In recent times, the camel tone has tended toward a tan, with details in madder red, ivory and various blues. The blue is indigo. The dark brown of the minor borders is corrosive, giving a pleasing etched relief effect to the colored motives.

True antique Serab rugs are wool warped and double wool wefted, and this separates them from their Hamadan doppelgangers. Serab pieces are known for their broad outer camel-tone borders. In antique runners, often there are animals, human figures, flowers, and various geometric elements tossed in. As the rugs become more recent, this extraneous, but charming, ornament is lost and the plain borders become narrower. Antique Hamadans follow this broad, undecorated, camel-honey outer border style, but generally without the amusing elements. Hamadans are usually cotton warped, single wefted pieces. The wefts may be also cotton or wool. The handle is somewhat lighter than Serabs. Clearly there is some sort of relationship, but since there are camel border Hamadans with dates significantly into the first half of the nineteenth century, any initial copying must have gone on way before.

Recent Serabs have a very firm and solid handle, compact almost like a Bidjar, with a medium semi-erect pile of about a quarter inch. The wool is always strong and resilient, and Serabs stand up to heavy traffic extremely well.

There is substantial variety in the patterns of antique Serabs: botehs (paisleys), diagonal stripes, floating medallions, palmettes. A Caucasian influence is often evident. In the second half of the 19th century, the lozenge or hexagonal medallion, rendered in copper red and ivory, on camel-tone grounds, becomes standard. Internal comb fringes appear. The central main ivory border displays alternations of squares and dot arrays. A border of a tendril and stylized flowers is also popular. A very few Serabs are dated, usually in the top main border, and we find pieces from the third quarter of the 19th century.

Hamadans with camel borders are often in kellegi (gallery) formats, six feet by thirteen or so, but true Serabs are never in gallery sizes. The looms in the Serab area were all narrow and as the district never became a source of larger carpets, hence the looms were never replaced. Runners range from eight to 25 feet in length and 2.8 to four feet in width. A meter (one Persian Zar) wide is usual, just too broad for a modern American hallway. Runners are less profitable on a unit area basis than room size carpets, and much less versatile, and sellable, than scatters, and it is curious that Serab weavers have stuck to their difficult format. But we are happy that they have. Serab runners are unique and a very long example, with its train of ivory medallions framed by a camel border, has a look that has no parallels.