Antique Rugs Online

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Search the World of Antique Rugs Online by Name, Origin, Color, Pattern, Rug Number, Size and Price. How to search

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How Old Does A Carpet or Rug Need To Be To Be Called Antique?

To be able to reference any carpet or rug as an “antique”, it would need to be at the very least, 80 years of age.

Searching and Shopping for Fine Antique Rugs Online

Shopping for fine antique carpets or decorative rugs online should be easy. This is a no-brainer for internet savvy shoppers. But that said, not all rug dealers make finding the perfect antique Oriental area rugs easy. Searching and finding that one special rug, that specific antique carpet that captures your heart, is possible!

Extraordinary fine antique rugs and textiles are within reach. Nazmiyal Collection presents the complete world of antique or semi antique rugs to shoppers. The best of the best area rugs, from the most renowned weaving centers, are all represented in this unprecedented collection. And these phenomenal rugs could be viewed in person, or searched online.

Earlier antique rugs, from the 17th century, are displayed alongside more modern shag carpets and rugs from the 20th century.

Now, 400 years of textile history are accessible anywhere, anytime. Having such a broad selection of fine rugs, at your fingertips, opens a world of design possibilities.

Find and Shop for Rugs Online by Size, Shape, Style and Origin

The search for antique carpets is an adventure. It will span cultures and world history. There are so many historic and modern carpets available. Therefor, narrowing down the scope, to find the piece that fits one’s personal sense of style, can be a serious quest.

Sifting through an immense catalog of unique pieces is a challenge. Even for the most experienced collector it could prove daunting. That’s why, we, at Nazmiyal, have invested in technologies and tools that simplify the process. We do this with the hopes of making it easier for everyone to find the perfect rug.

You may search rugs by style, pattern, color, origin or size. Like any good taxonomy and indexing system, these fine rugs can be sorted. Sorting may be done based on the rugs’ country of origin, regional designation and many other attributes.

Rug shoppers can even request personal assistance. Our sales staff are here to help locate area rugs or carpets of a particular size, shape, budget and any other criteria you may have.

Technology, and a cross-referenced carpet catalog, have made it easy to search rugs. So it is now easier than ever to find exactly what you are looking or.

What to Consider When Looking for an Antique Rug

Are you looking to buy rugs? Well, if you are, the chances are that you’ve got some questions. Luckily, that’s just what we’re here for! After all, choosing the right antique rug for you and your home can be a challenge.

There are practically countless styles of antique rugs on the market today. In addition, they also come in a huge range of quality, size, and origin.

But fret not! While there is tremendous variety of different types of rugs, not all of them will right for your needs.

Some rugs you’ll be able to eliminate straight out of the gate. With others, you may need to spend a little more time considering your needs.

There are various considerations to keep in mind while looking for a rug:

What’s my budget?
What size area would work best?
What color rug should I buy?
Do I want to buy a modern rug or an antique rug
Would I be better served by a more durable rug than a thinner flat weave rug, like a kilim?

The above are just a couple of examples of things to thinking about when buying an antique rug. Once these considerations are addressed, the choice becomes much more focused, selective and therefor – simpler.

The initial processes when deciding to purchase new antique rugs may seem daunting. But don’t worry, things will get easier (and more fun!) once the shopping begins!

Remember, our rug site is a great resource for information. It offered you so many tools answers to questions. So when you’ve decided that it’s time to start looking for a rug, this should be our go to rug website!

Antique Area Rugs And Home Decor

Antique Area rugs are an indispensable interior design accessory. Grand rooms and private spaces can both benefit from the addition of a stylish old area rug. The soft textures, balanced proportions and carefully selected colors are the secret ingredients that can tie any interior design together.

From luxurious traditional rugs, to artful contemporary carpets, rugs can function as an arresting conversation pieces. From dining room to bedroom rugs, a fabulous antique carpet, in your living room would make a world of difference.

Even in one’s kitchen dining section a magnificent area rug can serve as a breathtaking focal point or become a neutral feature that ties the room together.

Area rugs are available in every size, shape, style and color palette imaginable. Interior designers and do-it-yourself-ers will quickly experience the tremendous variety and stylistic breadth of contemporary and traditional rugs.

The Roots Of Antique Rug History

The start of the weaving industry began with the domestication of animals. People used their wool that they sheared. They did not have to kill them, just shear them on a regular basis. Thus, they continued to produce wool for future weaving needs.

Therefore, in many ways, antique area rugs are just another facet of our own human evolution.

What did people do before they started weaving rugs?

They killed animals and used their hides. They used them for warmth and floor coverings. Whatever the skins looked like was what floor coverings looked like.

Once people began to dye the wool, the commercial weaving of rugs began. People produced a more colorful product and used artistic talents to design them.

Why did people weave area rugs to begin with?

In the beginning, people wove area rugs for personal use. Only later on it became an industry.

An today, the rug industry continues in much the same fashion

What does the term “antique rugs” mean?

The term antique rugs refers to area rugs that are at least eighty years old.

It is important to note that the antique are limited in numbers. Therefore, they will become more rare as time goes on.

Antique Rugs And Carpets by Nazmiyal

20th Century Area Rugs

The twentieth century ushered in the industrial era. From this point on, the economy became more global. This resulted in more Western influences in the Middle East. During this period, the uniqueness and individuality of the “antique rug” began to wane.

During the early 20th century, economic instability began to set in worldwide. As a result, rug productions became more commercial. The prices also became less expensive.

Unfortunately, this resulted in the degradation of the rug production throughout. Rug designs, colors, overall quality and appeal, all took a back seat to affordability.

The rug companies just looked to lower costs. That is why, most educated rug buyers would only consider buying area rugs that predate (for the most part), the advent of mass production.

The price of antique area rugs

A little known fact that I would like to talk about is price. Despite the difference in quality between the antiques and new, many superiorly older area rugs, might be, less expensive, than the new ones.

The antiques also have unique assets compared to their newer counterparts. For instance, antique rugs with hand-spun wool and natural dyes, have a more luminous surface. New area rugs, sadly, will never have the patina as the antiques.

New rugs also have no intrinsic value. Therefore, area rugs that are antique, are decorative items and may potentially be solid investments as well.

Quality and imperfections are more subjective aspects for judging the prices of antique rugs

City vs Village Area Rugs

Some buyers of antique rugs might be less inclined to acquire area rugs that are not extremely fine. These quality driven buyers would more than likely gravitate towards the workshop city rugs.

For the most part, these city production area rugs will generally be perfectly straight. Their colors and design are more likely to be consistent throughout.

Others might appreciate the personality of tribal village rugs. Village rug weavers confront us every time they inserts a willful twist, change of color or pattern. Therefore, in many ways, the weaver is forever alive and part of the antique rugs that he or she created.

An Introduction to the World of Antique Carpets and Area Rugs:

The Origin and Evolution Of Antique Area Rugs Throughout History

The history of area carpets and rug weaving is complex. It is one that is fraught with lingering scholarly questions. While the recent history of artisanal rug weaving is well documented, and while certain areas have kept reliable historical records, there is, in fact, little consensus regarding the genesis of the craft.

Most people would not be able to make an educated guess as to the origins of rug production. That said, it is true that most people, in the Western world, associate the earliest antique rugs with the part of the world that we call the “Near East”.

Indeed, rug weaving has been an important cultural practice, in many Near Eastern countries, for centuries. However, the academic general consensus, while far from unanimous, suggests that the region was not the birthplace of rugs. This is despite its long and ancient history of rug production.

In fact, the incomplete historical record, of rugs, does show, that rug weaving was a practice that was independently developed by a myriad of peoples across the world. The record becomes especially vague when talking about the history of knotted pile rugs.

It is an established historical fact, that the Near Eastern empires were the commercial centers of rug productions. Throughout the Medieval Era, it is also well established, that these places were not the first to weave knotted or pile rugs.

The Nomadic Genesis Of Area Rugs

To find out more about the genesis of the knotted carpet, one must venture into prehistory. That is when most of mankind lived a nomadic existence.

Light Blue Antique Chinese Peking Rug

In their most basic form, rugs today function much as animal hides and skins functioned for our nomadic ancestors.

For centuries, the nomadic people utilized animal skins for a variety of functions. That said, it is relatively unclear when people began to sheer the fur and wool from certain animals to use in weaving.

The Animals Who Make Area Rugs Possible

Naturally, the advantages of sheering over killing an animal are enormous. A dead animal yields a very finite amount of hide. In contrast, a living animal, that was sheared, offers a practically limitless supply of material.

This was a simple, but immeasurably important realization in the history of human evolution. Now our nomadic ancestors found themselves with more resources than they were accustom to having. As such, the nomadic peoples, were now able to experiment with wool and other similar materials, in ways that were previously unimaginable.

Dyeing Wool For Rugs

The relatively bright wool, given by sheep, was well suited for dyeing. That is precisely what the earliest rug makers did. Plant materials, insects and a variety of other natural materials were all used to extract dyestuff. These colors were then applied to the wool. This colored wools was then used to create the first rugs with patterns and culturally significant symbols.

The Birth Place Of Pile Area Rugs and The Story Of The Pazyryk Carpet

It is the High Altai Mountains of Siberia, in modern day east-central Russia, that seems to be the most likely birthplace of the pile rug. The earliest human inhabitants of this region were in fact nomadic.

Unlike their cousins in the Near East, these people had a vested interest in developing new methods for keeping warm. Over time, the peoples of the High Altai Mountains become very invested in rug production. That is why were soon adorning their rugs with distinct and symbolic patterns.

The earliest reliable records suggest the High Altai peoples were weaving pile rugs as early as 600 BCE.

The best evidence for this hypothesis is attributed to a series of excavations carries out by Russian archaeologists at a pair of locations in the High Altai. Those sites were the tombs of Bash-Adar and Pazyryk in southern Siberia.

At Bash-Adar, a partial fragment of a pile rug was discovered. This simple, un-decorated rug fragment, was carbon-dated to 600 BCE.

Meanwhile, a considerably more headline grabbing discovery was made at the tomb of Pazyryk. There, a largely intact pile rug was discovered encased in ice. This ancient area rug, which is widely referred to as the Pazyryk rug, dated to the fifth century BCE.

The Pazyryk Carpet

While initially in a very distressed state, the frozen rug was eventually carefully and painstakingly restored. This process revealed a truly remarkable ancient area rug.

Complex detail work appears throughout the remarkable antique carpet. A pattern of squares graces the center, with each square decorated with floral patterns.

Woven into the borders are a series of further floral details. This is in addition to the meticulously woven griffins and the procession of horsemen.

The rug colors are as impressive. They feature shades of red, blue, green gold throughout this remarkable composition.

This is an astonishing level of detail and color. It also boasts an impeccably fine weaving technique. This has led many scholars to conclude that the Pazyryk carpet must be Persian in origin – NOT the work of a band of Siberian nomads.

This disagreement, is the source for most of the academic disagreement, regarding the genesis of hand knotted or pile rugs.

Was the Pazyryk carpet is of Persian origin?

Also excavated at Pazyryk, were a smattering of ancient Persian textiles. These ancient textiles were discovered in addition to the Pazyryk carpet itself.

Does this evidence mean that the Pazyryk carpet is of Persian origin itself? Or does it mean that the Altai nomads attempted to reproduce something that they found beautiful?

There is, as of yet, no fully agreed upon answer. However, there is evidence to suggest that Pazyryk carpet was in fact a local creation, woven by the Altai nomads.

More specifically, the fallow deer that are woven into the rug, leads some experts to believe that is was, in fact, a locally produced piece. That is because these animals are neither indigenous to Persia, nor were they a common motif in Persian period textiles. These deer are actually common in other artistic media from the High Altai region.

Further, the wool and dyes that make up the Pazyryk carpet seem to be local to the High Altai region as well. Thus it is likely, but far from certain, that this particular ancient rug was, in fact, woven by the nomadic peoples of the High Altai Mountains. Not by the Persians with whom they evidently enjoyed trading.

Numerous examples support the hypothesis that weavers in this part of the world (the Russian Far East) were influenced by the weavers of the Near East. Ample archaeological evidence suggests that it was common for those weavers outside of Persia, to weave rugs in imitation of the style.

The Dark Ages of Area Rugs

There is an enormous gap between the weaving of the Pazyryk carpet, in the fifth century BCE, and the reemergence of knotted rugs, which date back to the fifth century AD (in Roman occupied Egypt).

Meanwhile, a scattering of evidence suggests, that area rugs were woven during this period. Mostly in places such as the Caucasus and Central Asia. Further, the archaeological record suggests that nomadic tradition of weaving looped carpets, proliferated from the High Altai Mountains into China and Tibet. There the craft was modified.

The precise genesis of the “area rug” is unclear. Also, the historical records are spotty. That is why there isn’t a good body of knowledge regarding the early days of this craft.

What is known, is that rugs have been an important part of human history for millennia. The academic world has been fascinated by rugs. This fascination is fueled by the fact that people have most likely been weaving rugs since before they were writing.

Antique rugs represent a unique development in human culture. They also offer some of its greatest mysteries and delights.

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