AKSTAFA or AKSTAFA PEACOCK DESIGN: A tribal rug design depicting a stick figure bird with illustrious long tail feathers. Currently found on new rugs with Caucasian based motifs (Kazaks) or antique pieces from the Caucasus or Turkey.

ANTIQUE RUG: A rug woven 100 or more years ago.

BOTEH: The small tear drop design that you see in Paisley. There are many arguments among rug scholars as to the significance of this drawing. Some say flame, pear, leaf, pine cone and this list goes on. There are numerous renditions of this symbol found in rugs of antiquity; some geometric that are difficult to recognize, unless one is familiar with the basic form. The flame gets my vote from the ancient Zoroastrians that worshiped fire.

BAF: A suffix meaning woven by.

CARPET: A large or oversized rug, usually not less than 9' x 12'.

CARTOON: A picture of the rug to be woven (on graph paper) indicating the exact placement of each knot to be tied and in what colors to create the design of the rug.

CHINESE RUG: An Oriental rug woven in China. Sometimes the term “Chino” will be on the label of a rug produced in China. An example of this might be: Chino-Tabriz; this would be a Tabriz design rug woven in China.

CITY RUG or WORKSHOP RUG: Sometimes these terms are used interchangeable. Denotes a finely (tightly) woven rug which is produced in workshop facilities with a master weaver ensuring perfect renditions of specific patterns and standards. These rugs are woven with the design or pattern created by the weaver following a “cartoon” which has been carefully drawn down to the exact knot count and each color thereof. Workshop rugs are woven on metal looms to exact size specification which have been somewhat standardized.

DECORATIVE: Denotes beauty in a rug that is not necessarily an antique or collectable piece. Example: This rug is highly decorative.

DOBAG:   Natural Dye Research and Development Project, Turkey.

ELEPHANT'S FOOT: Additional name for a large gul on Turkoman rugs originally coming from Ersari Turkoman weavers. Ersari Turkoman: One of the more prolific weaving groups of the Turkomans now settled in northern Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.. The most well know Ersari weaving design is a large octagonal form called a gul set in rows on a red background.

FINE QUALITY or finely woven: A term used to denote a high knot count in the Oriental rug world.

FOUNDATION of the rug: The warp and wefts.

GABBEH: This word means unfinished or unclipped and originally referred to simple, whimsical rugs that the weavers kept for themselves and sometimes used for sleeping. Originally Gabbehs had very long pile and up to 5 or 6 rows of wefts. With this many wefts, the rug could be produced very quickly. See my article, “What is a Gabbeh?”

GHANZI: City in E Afghanistan, SW of Kabul, known for producing silky, beautiful wool.

GUL: This term come from a Persian word meaning flower. It is a geometric design element, octagon in shape, usually set in rows and associated with Turkoman rugs.

KAZAK: A general term currently being used in the rug world to describe rugs woven with design elements from the Caucasus. Originally this term was reserved for a specific antique Caucasian rug.

KHAMSEH: 1) Persian tribal affiliation, Southern Iran area. The Khamseh weavers include Qashqai, Kurdish, Turkmans and Arabic descendants. These 5 tribal groups originally came together to fight the Qashqai. [The root of this word comes from an Arabic word meaning 5.]

**Current production of vegetable dyed tribal rugs from this area of Iran are woven with fantastic hand-spun Persian wool in traditional designs.**  See all galleries with above named rugs. Galleries

KILIM or KELIM: A flat woven rug composed only of warps and wefts with no knots being tied.

KPSI: Knots per square inch.

OLD: A positive term denoting some age but not an antique.

ORIENTAL RUG: A hand woven rug made from wool, silk or cotton, woven in the Orient. When the term "The Orient" was first coined, it was another word for Asia ─ “The Orient” being the East as opposed to “The Occident” being the West.

PERSIAN RUG: A hand woven rug from Iran or the former Persian Empire. See my article, “How to Buy an Oriental Rug” for more information on this.

PILE: The actual fabric of the rug. The pile is composed of threads emanating from the knots tied around the two warps at the base of the rug. The pile shows the design and IS what you are walking on when you travel across your rug! The pile can be trimmed quite short or left long or anything in between. On tightly woven rugs it will be cut shorter so as to see the details of the design and colors.

QASHQAI: A tribal confederacy generally associated with the Fars province in Iran. According to one reference, the majority of Qashqai were decedents of Turkoman peoples. Formerly nomadic, many Qashqai are now settled in small villages in southwest Iran. Their antique rugs are highly sought after and their new vegetable dyed are superlative.

TABRIZ: 1) A city in Iran known for its finely woven workshop rugs with intricate, detailed designs, often using both wool and silk in the pile. 2) An Oriental rug woven in Tabriz.

TRIBAL RUG: A rug woven by nomadic or pastoral people based on traditional motifs woven with hand-spun wool. Tribal rugs were originally woven on wooden looms set up on the ground to be dismantled and reassembled while traveling. Normally a tribal rug will have a lower knot count and a geometric pattern verses the tightly woven symmetrical floral styles usually found in rugs produced in the larger cities. Older or antique tribal pieces will most often be woven on a wool foundation with plant based dyes. Tribal pieces would also include textiles woven to be used in daily life. This includes any pieces used inside or outside of nomadic dwellings or as animal trappings; functional or decorative. A few examples are: tent bands, saddle bags, salt bags, etc.

TURKOMAN or TURKMAN: A Turkic speaking tribal group originally from Asia and Turkmenistan with minimally five different sub-tribes famous in the rug world for producing excellent quality tribal rugs and trappings. Most Turkoman rugs are red with a repeating octagon motif called a gul. See “GUL” above.

VILLAGE RUG: Rugs woven in villages settled by former nomadic or pastoral tribal peoples. Village rugs and tribal rugs would be included in one group verses city rugs or workshop rugs at the other end of the spectrum.

WARP: Vertical threads that are set up on the loom as the first step in creating a hand woven rug. If the loom is not upright but on the ground, these threads run top to bottom or lengthwise. The knots are tied around the two warps so the warp is part of the foundation of the rug.

WEFT: Threads that are inserted running horizontally (side to side) after a row of knots have been tied. These wefts work to hold the knots in place. A rug can have one, two, three or more wefts depending on the type of rug or location where it is being made.

WOOF: An older term for weft. The “woof and the warp” is sometimes used in literature to denote the heart of something, it’s inside workings, structure or significance.

WORKSHOP RUG: See “CITY RUG”.