The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group, speaking their own ancient language, Kurdish, and are presently distributed across areas of northwest Iran, northeast Iraq, Syria, eastern Turkey and Armenia. In some areas they constitute the majority or totality of the population, while in others they form significant minorities. The Kurds have been in the region since recorded history began. They are the Medes of the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BC and were one of the satrapal (vassal) peoples of the Achaemenian Empire. They were promised their own state in the Treaty of Versailles, but have never been united into a single sovereign geopolitical entity.
Their wide dispersal has given rise to a number of distinct weaving areas: Northern Kurdistan from Kars to Lake Urumia; Central Kurdistan around Kirkuk; Eastern Kurdistan from Suj Bulagh to Senneh; Southern Kurdistan including Hamadan and Mosul; Western Kurdistan centered around Diyarbekir; and an outpost in Khorassan around Quchan. Each area weaves carpets with their own characteristics and the districts are by no means homogeneous in their productions. There is as much variety within each as between them.
All antique Kurdish rugs, no matter what their geographic origin are symmetrically (Turkish) knotted. That is about all of their commonality. [...]
The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group, speaking their own ancient language, Kurdish, and are presently distributed across areas of northwest Iran, northeast Iraq, Syria, eastern Turkey and Armenia. In some areas they constitute the majority or totality of the population, while in others they form significant minorities. The Kurds have been in the region since recorded history began. They are the Medes of the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BC and were one of the satrapal (vassal) peoples of the Achaemenian Empire. They were promised their own state in the Treaty of Versailles, but have never been united into a single sovereign geopolitical entity.
Their wide dispersal has given rise to a number of distinct weaving areas: Northern Kurdistan from Kars to Lake Urumia; Central Kurdistan around Kirkuk; Eastern Kurdistan from Suj Bulagh to Senneh; Southern Kurdistan including Hamadan and Mosul; Western Kurdistan centered around Diyarbekir; and an outpost in Khorassan around Quchan. Each area weaves carpets with their own characteristics and the districts are by no means homogeneous in their productions. There is as much variety within each as between them.
All antique Kurdish rugs, no matter what their geographic origin are symmetrically (Turkish) knotted. That is about all of their commonality.
The antique rugs of Eastern Kurdistan in Persian Kurdistan are the most familiar to rug enthusiasts. The urban rugs (and a very few gallery carpets) of Senneh are characterized by extremely fine weaves, often on silk warps, single wefts and short piles. Both prayer and regular scatter formats are woven, often in allover Herati, stripe or Boteh pinwheel patterns. The knot densities can reach 500 per square inch and antique Senneh carpets only one eighth of an inch thick are not unusual. The antique carpets of nearby Bidjar/Garrus are just the opposite: triple wefted, wool foundations, densely packed piles and extremely heavy. These "iron rugs" often come in palace sizes. Open fields bearing medallions with anchor pendants are iconic and the corners are often filled with scatters of flowers, rosettes and stiff arabesques. The Mina Khani rosette trellis design is also popular. The third distinct weaving center is centered around the town of Suj Bulagh which has woven many antique medallion and corners carpets with dark blue Herati fields, often of surprising size. The classic Persian four gardens carpets (Chahar Bagh) of the 17th and 18th centuries may have originated there. Suj Bulagh carpets also employ classic Avshan, Ashik (saw tooth lozenge), weeping willow, and flaming palmette patterns. As an alternative to navy, the grounds may be a corrosive dark brown. Vertical looms were employed in this district.
There are literally hundreds of Kurdish villages around Hamadan. Some of the best large carpets originated in the Koliai area with its seat in the town of Songur. Mina Khani gallery carpets and rugs were the most popular, but lattice and flowering plant allover patterns are a close second. The Sanjabi tribes are known for their double wefted saddlebags in hooked lozenge patterns with exceptionally wide ranges of blues. A few antique rugs have similar layouts. They never wove large sizes. Virtually any Hamadan village rug, except Dergazines and Injilases, is a Kurdish creation. Scatter sizes with semi-geometric patterns, single wool wefts, cotton warps and coarse to medium coarse weaves are standard around Hamadan.
Central Kurdistan is partly Persian, partly Iraqi. The Jaffi tribes range there and they follow the Sanjabi style in saddlebags, but weave a larger variety of scatter rugs in Kilim patterns, colorful diagonal stripes in the Caucasian style and various all over octagon designs, as well as a variety of Kilims with horizontal bands. Their rugs are all wool and double wefted, thick, and nomadic.
The Jaffi and Sanjabi Kurds have extensive goat and sheep herds, and directly source their own excellent pile wool. The Herki tribe weaves runners with designs borrowed from Karajeh rugs to the north or the Gol Hennai pattern in particularly geometric renditions.
The "Yuruks" (tribal nomads) of eastern Anatolia are almost entirely Kurdish. Their proximity to the Caucasus influences the design pool; various funky octagons, "bug" medallions, pole medallions of joined octogrammes, star filled boxes around six point medallions in the Karachopf manner, the inevitable hooked lozenge, purely geometric arrays of dots and diamonds, as well as patterns lifted from central and western Turkish village weaving. Malatya, Aintab, Divrigi, Zara, Sivas and Diyarbekir are some of the towns in this vast, mostly mountainous region, but Kurdish carpet weaving is almost entirely a semi-nomadic activity. The rugs are double wefted, all wool, with a fleshy and lush character. Cochineal has been the predominant red dye source since the early 19th century; a natural orange from Quercetin is often the second color. The palettes of early rugs are light, but they darken as the nineteenth century progresses. There is also a production of slit tapestry weave kilims with horizontally banded patterns reminiscent of Caucasian Shirvan or Persian Shah Savan styles. Weaving in this area seems to go back at least to the sixteenth century and the Vakiflar Museum in Istanbul holds many pieces from the area that are clearly the ancestors of nineteenth-century rugs.
The Kurds of Khorassan were transferred to the remote northeast Persian border area by Shah Abbas in the early seventeenth century as a defense against the invading Turkmen tribes. Their patterns are amalgamations of Baluch, Turkmen, Persian, and Turkish sources. "Bug" medallions on madder red grounds are probably the most common of antique Quchan rug patterns, but stylized flowers, gul (flower) arrays, and comb fringed cartouches are also encountered. The rugs are all wool, medium coarse in weave, and naturally dyed. Quchan production was always small and most were for domestic use. No carpets, runner or prayer rugs were woven, only scatters, but occasionally 6� x 9� pieces occur. Weaving was done on flat (ground) looms. There are no surviving antique examples from before about 1870.
This is only the most general and superficial survey of an enormous Kurdish arts and craft industry spanning nations and centuries. The Kurds are among the most prolific of Middle Eastern weavers and have not succumbed to the repetitiveness of �ad seriatim� production as their contemporaries in much of Persia, Turkey, and the Caucasus have done. There are plenty of interesting, colorful, completely authentic antique Kurdish rugs in good condition available in any size and style, ready to be used and appreciated.