Multicolor Pazyryk-Pattern Handwoven Wool Rug, Şahzade Series

The oldest knotted rug anyone has found was cut out of frozen ground in the Altai mountains in 1949 and now sits in the Hermitage; it is roughly two and a half thousand years old, and its borders carry a file of horsemen and a file of deer.

01The memory of a region

This rug is drawn in that tradition — handwoven wool in mixed color, made in Afghanistan, 176 × 238 cm (5'9" × 7'10"). One piece. The Pazyryk rug was excavated by Sergei Rudenko from a burial mound that had filled with ice, which is why it survived at all when every other rug of its era rotted.

02Reading the motif

Its field is a grid of star-shaped rosettes and its two main borders are processional: riders in one, grazing deer in the other. Any modern rug in the Pazyryk manner takes that vocabulary rather than the object — the rosette grid, the animal bands, the tight square proportion — and works it at a scale a living room can carry. Handwoven in Afghanistan, with wool, cotton and synthetic yarn all on the label. A pattern with figurative borders is read from the edges inward rather than from the middle out, so the piece wants its short ends clear of furniture; push a sofa over one border and half the design goes under it.

It is also the rug in this group most likely to be asked about by visitors, which is either a feature or a nuisance depending on temperament. Washing by a professional. Handwoven in Afghanistan; wool, cotton and synthetic yarn all declared. Drawn after the Pazyryk rug — rosette grid, processional animal borders. 176 × 238 cm (5'9" × 7'10"), 4.2 square meters. The original is in the Hermitage and dates to roughly the fifth to third century BC. Keep the short ends clear; the borders carry the design. Professional washing. One piece. What is the Pazyryk pattern? It takes its name from the Pazyryk rug, excavated from a frozen burial mound in the Altai mountains in 1949 and now held in the Hermitage.

03Knot by knot, by hand

Dated to roughly the fifth to third century BC, the piece is the oldest surviving knotted pile rug in the world. How closely does this rug follow the original? It follows the vocabulary rather than the object. The rosette grid and the animal borders of the Pazyryk rug are the source, reworked at modern scale and in a modern palette, so it is a design in that tradition rather than a reproduction of the piece in the Hermitage. Everything else woven in the same century as the original has been dust for two thousand years, and the drawing is still in production. This rug belongs to the Şahzade Series.