How Persian carpets are made

Carpet making is a chain of specialised work. Before weaving begins, fleece is sorted, washed, spun and dyed. In town production a designer draws a full-size cartoon (naqsheh) on squared paper, each square standing for one knot; village and nomadic weavers more often work from memory or a sample piece (vagireh).

After weaving, the carpet is cut from the loom, washed, stretched and clipped. Finishing strongly affects the look of a new carpet and is often done by separate specialists.

Nomadic groups such as the Qashqai and Bakhtiari traditionally use horizontal ground looms that can be dismantled and carried between camps; this limits width and often produces slight irregularities in shape. Town and village workshops use fixed vertical looms, including roller-beam looms that let very long carpets be woven without moving the weaver's seat.

The loom type is rarely visible in a finished rug, but irregular sides and shifts in width can hint at ground-loom work.

Each row of knots is tied around pairs of warps, cut with a knife, and followed by one or more weft passes. The weaver then beats the row down with a heavy comb. The number of wefts between rows, and whether one warp of each pair sits deeper than the other ('depressed' warps), shapes the rug's handle and is a useful structural clue for regional attribution.

Skilled weavers tie roughly 8,000–12,000 knots a day, but speed falls sharply on fine silk work and complex curvilinear designs.

Washing removes dust and loom oils and settles the dyes; stretching on a frame corrects distortions; shearing brings the pile to an even height. Ends are secured with a kilim band or knotted fringe and the sides are overcast or wrapped. Harsh chemical washes, once used to soften colours for export markets, can weaken wool and should be disclosed by sellers.

Follow one warp pair through knotting, weft insertion, beating and clipping. A town carpet may use a plotted cartoon, while weaving from memory is documented for Fars traditions; neither approach is a quality certificate. Finishing can significantly alter the appearance after the rug comes off the loom.

Ask a workshop what work was completed by whom, what fibres are in pile and foundation, and how the object was finished. Progress photographs help document a new commission but do not identify a historic rug.

The steps here are educational; identification, conservation and valuation of an individual object require appropriate independent expertise.