Armenian Carpet Weaving from History

Carpet weaving has a very ancient history. It has been practiced since the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC. Scientific explanations suggest that all nomadic peoples who lived in conditions of harsh cold winters and very hot summers engaged in carpet weaving. These primarily include the peoples living in the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asia, including Armenians. A carpet is a multi-colored decorative fabric, either pile or without pile, that serves as a rug, cover, curtain, for heating and decorating the home, as well as for sound absorption. Carpets are mainly woven from threads. There are also carpets made from embroidery and colorful patches. They have been made from wool, goat hair, silk, and cotton threads. Pileless carpets have been called carpets by Armenians. This name was passed on from merchants to Europe, and Europeans refer to all types of carpets as carpets. Sometimes carpets are also referred to as khali or kali. Arab historians explain this by stating that Erzurum (Karin) was a major center of carpet weaving, where Arab merchants bought and sold the products in other countries. Since the Arabs called Karin Kalin or Khalin, this led to the name khali. The most famous specimen related to carpet art that we know of is the carpet called Pazirik. This work of art, dated to the 5th century BC, was discovered in 1949 in one of the burial mounds of the Pazirik Kurgan in the Altai Mountains. It remained frozen in the tomb for about 25 centuries. Sergey Rudenko, who disc