Origin
Highland and pastoral flocks across Fars, Khorasan, Kurdistan and Azerbaijan.
Properties
- Elastic and resilient
- High dye affinity
- Naturally soil-resistant
- Variable staple length by region
Preparation
Shorn, sorted by staple, washed, carded, then hand- or wheel-spun; often plied before dyeing.
Care & preservation
Keep dry and ventilated, avoid prolonged direct light, and inspect regularly for insect activity.
General guidance only. For valuable or fragile pieces, consult a qualified conservator before cleaning or treatment.
Used in these crafts
A hand-knotted pile textile woven across Iran in city workshops, village looms and pastoral camps, distinguished by regional structure, palette and design vocabulary.
The workshop carpet tradition of Tabriz in East Azerbaijan, characterised by drawn cartoons, a distinctive hook-knife weaving method and a wide range of fineness grades.
A thick, coarsely knotted pile rug woven mainly by pastoral and village weavers of the Zagros, with open fields, few motifs and a directly personal design language.
A patterned Iranian brocade woven with supplementary wefts, historically in silk and wool, associated above all with Yazd and Kerman.
A flat, pileless woven textile made across Iran by interlocking or slit-weaving coloured weft threads over a warp, used as floor covering, storage bag, saddle cover and tent divider depending on region.
A narrow-strip flatwoven textile, usually made in warp-faced bands on a portable loom and then sewn together into a wider cloth, traditionally used as bedding cover, floor spread or door hanging by village and pastoral households.
A hand-embroidered wool textile from Kerman in which coloured silk or wool threads are worked in dense chain and satin stitching over a woollen ground, typically in a limited palette against a natural or dyed field.
A non-woven wool textile made by matting and pressing raw wool fibres with moisture, heat and friction rather than by weaving, traditionally produced across Iran for floor coverings, cloaks and protective mats.