Weaving and Knotting
The most basic of looms has been used to produce exquisite Oriental rugs. For the wandering nomads, two trees growing a few feet apart can become a loom when a couple of poles are stretched between the trees.

Looms can be horizontal or vertical. Vertical looms are further divided into the village loom, the Tabriz loom and the loom with rollers. The village loom is the simplest with an upper and lower beam, both horizontal, fastened firmly to two vertical posts. The warp threads are rolled around the lower beam and their free ends are brought together in bundles that are fixed to the upper beam.

Whether horizontal or vertical, the loom has a simple mechanism that allows the weaver to divide the warp threads into two sets so that the warp threads can be reversed after each shoot of the weft. The artisan first weaves a selvage. Several shoots of weft are made to obtain a narrow band which is intended as a firm edge for the knotted areas.

The majority of Oriental rugs, including those from Turkey and the Caucasus, use Turkish knots. Many Turkoman and Persian rugs use Persian knots, but Turkish knots also are common in those regions. The geographical dividing line seems to be the Caspian Sea. To the west of it, the Turkish knot is used almost exclusively. To the east, the Persian knot dominates. Lying on both sides of the dividing line, Persia uses both types of knots.

Each knot is tied by hand. Skillful artisans can tie about 15 knots a minute or about 6,000 a day. This means it would take the artisan more than 4 months to weave a carpet that is 9 feet by 6 feet and has a hundred knots per square inch. Typically, a rug of this size would be woven by several artisans working together from a chart which shows the number of knots to be tied in each color.

SOUMAK (Weft-wrapping/ Embroidery)
In addition to knotted rugs, the Caucasus is known for producing Soumaks. These are pile-less carpets made with a flat weave technique of wrapped weft threads -- a technique used throughout the Middle East. The geometric decorative elements used for the Caucasian soumaks are based the designs used for knotted carpets. A typical layout includes superimposed medallions in the form of notched stars. Typically made of wool, these Soumak carpets are strong and compact.

Images below: Soumak knot and Soumak carpet





KILIM (Flat weave)
In decorating terms, kilims are even more versatile than tribal rugs, because they are so supple. You can drape them over furniture and tables and, because they are lighter than pile rugs, they can easily be hung on the wall or used to cover doorways, in place of doors. They can be moved around the house, or carried into the garden, and they are usually less expensive than Persian pile rugs. In theory Kilims are not as hardwearing, because the pile on a rug protects its underlying structure but, if treated with care, they will last as long as you want them to. They belong to a tradition that is even longer than that of pile rugs, and they should therefore not be seen as these rugs' poor relations. On the contrary, Kilims offer a different but equally distinguished outlet for the talented weavers of the Nomandic tribes of Iran, and other weavers.

A Kilim is a flatweave, which is too say it has no pile but is simply a piece of flat woven textile. It is not, in other words a knotted rug. Unlike a pile rug, where the supporting structure consists of the warp and weft, while the pile supplies the design on its surface, on a Kilim structure and design are one. The weft is the pattern on almost all Kilims.

Images below: Kilim knot and Kilim carpet