page_title: Carpet
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Carpet / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Carpet, made Cotton (warp), silk (weft and pile), metal wrapped threadفارسی: فرش اصفهاني ساخته شده از پنبه ابريشم و فلز
context_page_description: A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century, synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester are often used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term carpet is often used in a similar context to the term rug, but rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor.
  Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including insulating a person's feet from a cold tile or concrete floor, making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor, reducing sound from walking, and adding decoration or color to a room. Carpets can be made in any color by using differently dyed fibers. Carpets can have many different types of patterns and motifs used to decorate the surface. Carpets are used in industrial and commercial establishments such as retail stores and hotels and in private homes.
context_section_description: The knotted pile carpet probably originated in the Caspian Sea area (Northern Iran)  or the Armenian Highland. Although there is evidence of goats and sheep being sheared for wool and hair which was spun and woven as far back at the 7th millennium, the earliest surviving pile carpet is the "Pazyryk carpet", which dates from the 5th-4th century BC. It was excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1949 from a Pazyryk burial mound in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. This richly coloured carpet is 200 x 183 cm (6'6" x 6'0") and framed by a border of griffins.
  Although claimed by many cultures, this square tufted carpet, almost perfectly intact, is considered by many experts to be of Caucasian, specifically Armenian, origin. The rug is woven using the Armenian double knot, and the red filaments' color was made from Armenian cochineal. The eminent authority of ancient carpets, Ulrich Schurmann, says of it, "From all the evidence available I am convinced that the Pazyryk rug was a funeral accessory and most likely a masterpiece of Armenian workmanship". Gantzhorn concurs with this thesis. At the ruins of Persepolis in Iran where various nations are depicted as bearing tribute, the horse design from the Pazyryk carpet is the same as the relief depicting part of the Armenian delegation.
  The historian Herodotus writing in the 5th century BC also informs us that the inhabitants of the Caucasus wove beautiful rugs with brilliant colors which would never fade.
caption: The Czartoryski carpet with coat of arms of the Polish Myszkowski family,[11] made with a cotton warp, a silk weft and pile, and metal wrapped thread (Iran, 17th century)
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