Persian Hamedan Carpet / Persian carpet Hamedan

Hamadan is one of the world’s oldest cities and has been a significant commercial and administrative center in Iran for centuries. In the 6th century BC, under the name Ecbatana, it served as the capital of the Median kingdom and later as the summer residence for the Persian Achaemenid dynasty. The city is situated on an extensive plateau at an altitude of 1,800 meters at the foot of Mount Alvand, resulting in a climate with mild summers and cold winters. Due to its strategically important location between ancient Persia and Mesopotamia, the city was frequently targeted by various armies. It was conquered by Alexander the Great, and later, in the eleventh century, the Seljuks occupied the entire Hamadan region and neighboring Azerbaijan. Despite the cultural influence of Turkic-Altaic peoples throughout the area, Persian (Farsi) is still spoken in Hamadan today, unlike the surrounding countryside where a Turkish dialect predominates. Carpets from over 600 villages west and north of Hamadan await buyers at the Hamadan bazaar. The population of these villages also includes numerous Kurds, through whom carpets from Bijar and Sanandaj also find their way to the bazaars, which can lead to confusion in determining a carpet’s origin. Decades ago, each village had a distinctive combination of patterns and colors in its carpets, allowing traders from Hamadan bazaars to quickly identify an authentic Hamadan. Characteristic of Hamadan carpets is a single transverse cotton weft thread between two rows of knots; the knots are symmetrical, and the basic structure is always cotton, with the exception of some very old carpets. While Baluchi and Bakhtiari nomads also use this weaving technique, they differ in the type of wool used. Important carpet-making areas include Dergazin, Mehriban, Khamseh, and Borchalou, with some areas encompassing more than 40 villages. In the 16th century, Safavid Shah Tahmasp gifted a carpet from the Dergazin area to the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, indicating that in addition to traditional carpets, finer court carpets were also produced there.