Exceptional Antique Turkish Anatolian Bergama Kilim. The designs around the edge are inversions of the larger patterns in the field of the rug.  

Condition: Some fading. Commensurate with age and wear. 

Provenance: Bought over 100 years ago in Greece. 

Size: 104 x 143 in. 

#8000 . 

Bergama Anatolian rugs come from the Bergama district of the Izmir Province of northwest Turkey, near the Aegean Sea. The ancient city of Pergamon was one of the most powerful and richest places in Anatolia due to its strategic location between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, a traditional stopping place for Greek travelers at the height of the Hellenistic period. The modern city of Bergama rests roughly on top of its ruins, and for hundreds of years the area attracted thousands of artisans and merchants on their way to Constantinople long before that city fell to Sultan Mehmen II in 1453. The history of rug weaving in the Bergama district, both hand-knotted pile rugs and flat-woven pileless kilims, dates back to approximately the 11th Century, and the district includes around 80 villages which each produce their unique patterns on woven rugs. The term Bergama is actually used as a catch-all in the rug trade for the various local antique rugs from Bergama and surrounding areas, due to the close similarities between all but a few of the rug patterns.

Some fading. Commensurate with age and wear.