It is difficult to identify the origin of Persian carpets, and it is said to be 3000 to 4000 years ago .However, it seems that at first it was not the pile weave that we see today, but something like hardened animal hair. Since carpets were practical items and they were not made of hard materials like stone, there are very few of them remaining today. Today, the oldest known carpet in the world is the Pazyryk Carpet , which is housed in the Hermitage Museum in Russia .

What is a Pazyryk carpet?

Image/design drawing creation This carpet, which is believed to have been produced in the 5th century BC, about 2,500 years ago, was excavated in 1949 from the tomb of the Scythian king in the Pazyryk Valley, in the Altai Mountains of Southern Siberia, by the excavation team led by Soviet archaeologist Sergei Rudenko. it was done. It is called Pazyryk carpet after the place name .
This splendid carpet of wool and camel’s wool with wool pile was part of the hoard of the Scythian kings. In ancient times, the corpses of people of high status were buried with all their belongings during their lifetimes, with the hope that they would be guaranteed a safe passage to the afterlife and the same status there in this world. Such graves became the target of robbery for the purpose of buried gold, and this grave was also robbed, but the carpet was left behind. It was excavated frozen after being protected from rot and decay.
The Pazyryk carpet is now preserved in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Betersburg, Russia. This Pazyryk carpet is about 1.8 x 2m in size and has 5 rows of border patterns, with a deer, a horseman and an equestrian figure in the center. The design is similar to the pattern of the Achaemenid dynasty, the first unified empire of Persia, and the color scheme (blue, green, yellow) used in details with red as the base color is in line with the style of Persian carpets. Based on these points, it was presumed that it was made in Persia, but recent archaeological findings suggest that it was made in Central Asia.