Terracotta Pazyryk-Pattern Loom-Woven Rug, Günyolu Series

The Pazyryk rug, cut out of a frozen Scythian burial mound in the Altai Mountains and now in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, is the oldest knotted rug that survives; its drawing dates to the fifth century BC.

01How it feels underfoot

This rug carries that drawing on a terracotta ground — a grid of geometric squares in the center, elephants, camels, horses and human figures around the edge — loom-woven in wool and Tencel® on cotton, in four sizes, the most common of them 200 × 290 cm (6'7" × 9'6"), a living-room size. The figures are worked in gray and cream, so they hold their outline against the warm ground without shouting over it, and the grid in the middle does what a grid always does: it slows the eye down before it reaches the animals.

Terracotta is the reason the archaic drawing does not look like a museum copy. Put it in a room built out of plaster, stone and unfinished wood and it looks contemporary; put it under a table where people sit long after the meal and the figures give them something to argue about. Loom-woven around Kütahya and Oushak by workshops staffed largely by women, which means the structure is machine-set and the pattern work and the finishing are not.

02The Wool on the surface

Wool supplies the matt body of the ground and Tencel® supplies the lift in the figures, and the two fibers together are what make a five-thousand-year-old drawing readable at walking speed. Fringes run out along both ends, and each piece carries its own weave number. What is the Pazyryk rug? The Pazyryk is a knotted pile rug found in 1949 in a Scythian burial mound in the Altai Mountains, preserved by ice, and dated to around the fifth century BC.

It is held in the Hermitage Museum. Its border of horses and riders and its gridded center are the source of the pattern on this rug. Which figures appear on this rug? Geometric squares are set in a grid across the center.

03Color that shifts through the day

Around them, in gray and cream, run elephants, camels, horses and human figures. The arrangement follows the logic of the original: a quiet, ordered field enclosed by a procession of living things. Loom-woven in Kütahya and Oushak, in workshops staffed largely by women. Wool and Tencel® in the surface, on a cotton foundation. Terracotta ground; gridded squares at the center and elephants, camels, horses and figures at the edges. The Pazyryk drawing is dated to the fifth century BC and survives in the Hermitage. Four sizes: 170 × 240, 200 × 290, 200 × 300 and 240 × 340 cm. Each piece carries its own weave number and the house tree-of-life figure. Professional cleaning, once every few years for most rooms. Very little furniture survives twenty-five centuries; a pattern does, and this is what it looks like when it is still being walked on. This rug belongs to the Günyolu Series.