Persian carpet Ardabil / Persian carpet Ardabil

The city of Ardabil is located at an altitude of 1,200 meters above sea level in northwestern Iran in Ardabil Province. The name comes from the Zoroastrian word Artavil, which means holy city. The city is mentioned in the Zoroastrian holy book Avesta, which states that Zoroaster was born on the Aras River and wrote his writings in the Salaban Mountains. One of the main attractions of Ardabil is the tomb of the Safi ruler Aldin Ardabili, who died in 1334. In his time, he was the leader of the Sufis, who followed him in the practice of mystical Sufism. One of his successors, Shah Ismail, reunited Iran after several centuries of foreign rule and introduced Shiism as the state religion. He was the founder of the Safavid dynasty, during whose time Iran once again flourished in the arts. Ismail’s son Shah Tahmasp enlarged the shrine with a tomb in 1530, and at this time the famous Ardabil carpets were also made for this space. According to two British travelers, the carpets were still in place in 1843, but 30 years later an earthquake severely damaged the tomb and they were sold to raise money for its restoration. They were bought by a British company and, since they were damaged, some parts of one carpet were used in the restoration of the other, which was noticeable in the fact that one carpet was missing its frame. In 1892, the larger carpet was put up for auction in London, where the designer William Morris was impressed by it, who convinced the museum management to buy it for 2,000 pounds at the time. The smaller one was sold to an American collector and is now in a museum in Los Angeles. Today, Ardabil and the surrounding villages are an important center for the production and sale of carpets. In terms of workmanship, colors, and patterns, they can be considered Caucasian carpets, especially those that imitate the Kazakh style. They usually have two woven threads between two rows of knots on a cotton base, a symmetrical knot, geometric patterns, and the colors are calm and harmonious. However, carpets from the wider area of ​​Ardabil province can be very different from each other, as peoples such as Afshars, Kurds, Baharluys, Shahsavans live there, each with its own tradition in carpet making. Shahsavans are a kind of tribal union that was founded under the leadership of Shah Abbas in the seventeenth century to defend the borders of Iran together with his army. Those who have not yet settled down still spend the summer in the mountains along the Caspian Sea, and in the winter they migrate to the plateaus south of Tehran and east of Hamadan.