Help identify this rug?

[Ntark Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ntark]

Around 30 by 60 inches. Got any ideas when and where it's from?

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Taking a guess here but it looks like a tribal Persian prayer rug. It looks like goat hair on the border.

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

Hi Ntark,

Someone official here might encourage you to use your actual name, but that's above my pay grade.

Your piece is a Baluchi prayer rug from the E. Iran/W. Afghanistan border region, from the second half of the 20th-century. Some participants here are much more knowledgeable than I in attributing this sort of work to a more specific source. It is a convention in the rug trade to call something like this "Baluchi," but in general the actual Baluchi people live further south than where this was made. In this region the ethnic mix is complex, and it's hard to pin down exactly who made this, IMO. The main border is associated with the Timuri, who were part of the Chahar Aimaq tribal federation, and is commonly seen in "Dokhtari Qazi" prayer rugs woven about a century before your rug was made. Here is a detail showing the border on my 3rd-quarter 19th-c. Dokhtari Qazi prayer rug. The elements in the field of your piece might be derived from the little shrubs you can see in the field of this one, seen on the right side of this image. So, maybe your rug was woven by Timuri women, but by the time your rug was made, a lot of weaving was done in workshops, mainly for export, and they would weave whatever someone ordered.



Regards,

Paul

[Chuck Wagner Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Chuck Wagner]

Hi and welcome to TurkoTek,

Please use your full name, we don't allow the use of pseudonyms.

Also, it should be noted that the severe fading of the red and purple suggests a more recent and inexpensive manufacture.

Regards
Chuck Wagner