Persian Hamedan Carpet

Hamadan is one of the oldest cities in the world and has been an important commercial and administrative center of Iran for centuries. In the 6th century BC, under the name Ecbatana, it was the capital of the Median Kingdom and later the summer residence of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty. The city lies on a vast 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 former Persia and Mesopotamia, the city was often a target for 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 Turkish dialects prevail. Carpets from more than 600 villages west and north of Hamadan await buyers at the Hamadan bazaar. The population of these villages also includes many Kurds, through whom carpets from Bijar and Sanandaj find their way to the bazaars, causing confusion in determining the origin of a carpet. A few decades ago, each village had a characteristic combination of patterns and colors, allowing merchants from the Hamadan bazaars to quickly identify a genuine Hamadan rug. A characteristic of Hamadan rugs is that they have a single cotton weft thread between two rows of knots; the knots are symmetrical, and the foundation is always made of cotton, with the exception of some very old carpets. Although Baluchi and Bakhtiari nomads also use this construction technique, they differ in the type of wool used. Important carpet-producing areas include Dergazin, Mehriban, Khamseh, and Borchalou, and a single area can contain more than 40 villages. In the 16th century, the Safavid Shah Tahmasp presented a carpet from the Dergazin area to the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, indicating that in addition to traditional rugs, they were also capable of producing finer carpets for royal courts.