Investigation of Varieties, Methods and Geography of Persian Carpet Production During the First Five Centuries of the Hegira, Based on the Written Sources

Hand woven carpets have a relatively short lifespan and durability due to the properties of the materials used in them. This issue has caused the archeological and historical studies and researches related to this product plenty of problems. This inadequacy in evaluation of carpet history in Islamic Iran is most tangible in the first five centuries of the Hegira. In this research, with the aim of identifying the condition of Iranian carpet weaving in the first five centuries of the Hegira, due to the diversity of hand wovencarpet types as well as the geography of production regions, written sources(historical and literary) have been used. This article uses historical method and library sources. The research results express that despite the rarity of works related to the handwoven carpets of the mentioned period, the names of many contemporary carpets, like: rugs, short-napped coarse carpet, coarse woolen cloth, felt carpet, mat, pileless carpet and so on, are traceable in written sources. Also regions of Deylaman, Khorasan, Azerbaijan, Pars, Iraq and, Transoxiana are the most prominent centers which carpet weaving had been common in them.