The Long History of Antique Rugs

Antique rugs aren’t just antique- they’re ancient. The rug and carpet-making arts reach into the distant past, before the invention of the written word- prehistory. Most dealers in the here and now provide goods from the 19th and 20th centuries, but many have older pieces and all of these modern rugs are influenced by the ancient  roots.
 
The earliest knotted rugs in this day and age reside in museums and art galleries, though their origins are often unknown.  The earliest identified knotted rug, called a Pazyryk carpet, now resides in Mongolia. It was discovered by an archaeologist in 1949, covered by ice and frozen in time in a deep burial chamber more than two thousand years old.
 
Families in the orient and middle east were regularly adorning their homes with rugs by the eighth century, and the Persian empire went through something of a rug Renaissance from 1499 to 1722 during what is known as the Safavil period. This is the origin of what today are known as “Persian rugs”, and influences from this period can still be seen in Persian rugs today.
 
During the 15th century, the practice of rugmaking flourished,  creating a great body of work and enduring on to this day.