Oriental Kashan-Style Rug. Label on back side reads "Made in the People's Republic of China." 

Size: 23 x 33 in. 

#5103 . 

An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in “Oriental countries” for home use, local sale, and export. “Orient” is an archaic term referring to the Eastern part of the Eurasian supercontinent in relation to Europe, and is the antonym of the term “Occident,” which was used to refer to the Western world. The term is still commonly in use, however, for certain research, sale, and service purposes, particularly of antiquities and items traditionally associated with the region, like spices, rugs, and medicine. Oriental carpets can be pile woven or flat woven without pile, using various materials such as silk, wool, cotton, jute, and animal hair. Examples range in size from pillows to large, room-sized carpets, and include carrier bags, floor coverings, decorations for animals, Islamic prayer rugs (Jai’namaz), Jewish Torah ark covers (parochet), and Christian altar covers. Since the High Middle Ages, oriental rugs have been an integral part of their cultures of origin, as well as of the European and, later on, the North American culture. Geographically, oriental rugs are made in an area referred to as the “Rug Belt,” which stretches from Morocco across North Africa, the Middle East, and into Central Asia and northern India. It includes countries such as China, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Turkey, Iran, the Maghreb in the west, the Caucasus in the north, and India and Pakistan in the south. People from different cultures, countries, racial groups, and religious faiths are involved in the production of oriental rugs, indicating the wide spread of the form during the earliest establishment of trade routes. Since many of these countries lie in an area which today is referred to as the Islamic world, oriental rugs are sometimes also called “Islamic Carpets,” but the blanket term “oriental rug” has become used mainly for convenience. The carpets from Iran are particularly sought after, and known by the blanket term “Persian carpets” or “Persian rugs,” despite the dozens of the tribes that each have an individual style and motif they incorporate into their works.