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The term "rug" is derived from the Scandinavian word "rugga" related to the old Norwegian word "rogg", which meant a wool covering for the bed or body. For several centuries in Europe, the term rug denoted a rough, heavy woolen fabric characterized by a coarse, napped finish and used as clothing by the poorer classes. [Note: Ad or content links featured on this page are not necessarily affiliated with IICRC (The cleantrust) and should not be considered a recommendation or endorsement by IICRC (The cleantrust)].
Rug weaving is a tradition that spans the centuries and many cultures. While some early peoples may have used animal skins as floor coverings in their caves or huts, after learning to weave, they made floor mats from grasses and other plant material.
Nomadic wanderers of Asia were the first to produce rugs from sheep's wool. Thick coverings to help people endure extreme cold were needed, and it's likely the craft of weaving developed to replace the use of animal skins for warmth.
There are several references to the art of weaving found in ancient scripture and classical writing. Based on evidence of fragments found in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian tombs, we know various forms of flat weaving were likely well-developed more than 4000 years ago. Other evidence suggests that pile weaving existed in the Middle East and other parts of central, northwest, and eastern Asia before 2000 BC.
In 1947, Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko made a major discovery that had a dramatic impact on rug history. He found what is now considered the oldest rug in existence. This earliest known woven pile, called the Pazyryk rug, was discovered frozen in a Scythian burial mound in southern Siberia dating from the 5th century BC. It incorporated the Ghiordes (Turkish) knot and had an average of 200 knots per square inch. This rug resembles later Oriental carpets.
Islamic craft workers developed carpet weaving into a fine art, using small lengths of various colored threads of wool or silk to make knots into specific patterns. The knots created a pile with a richly decorative surface. Some of the finest silk rugs have 1,000 knots per square inch (160 per square centimeter). Sometimes rugs were brocaded with gold and silver. The main areas of rug production in the Muslim world were central Asia, Turkey, Iran, and the Caucasus region of Russia.
In India, the weaving of pile rugs developed before the 12th century A.D. In the Orient, rugs usually were made of pile fabrics knotted by hand, although other weaves were also employed.
Hand Made Rugs
Hand Woven (flat weaves)
These rugs consist of a woven textile comprised of warp and weft yarns, but without pile:
- Dhurrie (Dhurry) - A plain or flat-woven twill tapestry or rug made of cotton or wool usually produced in India.
- Kelim - (Kilim) - A weft-faced plain flat weave, primarily from the mid-east, in which the design is rendered by means of colored areas of discontinuous ground wefts.
- Soumak (soumac, sumak) - A flat weave in which the weft encircles groups of warps, usually horizontally, though it may be vertical with loops staggered across the warps. Soumaks are common in weaves of the near-east and central Asia.
- Navajo (American Indian) Rug – made by American Indian tribes, influenced by early Spanish settlers, in the southwestern United States, particularly in Arizona and New Mexico. These rugs are woven in natural colored wools, usually beige with touches of white, black, red, blue and yellow in geometric designs of symbolic Indian patterns.
Oriental or Hand-Knotted (pile weaves)
An indefinite term originally applied only to hand-knotted pile rugs woven in the near east and Asia. Today, the term includes all hand-knotted pile weaves, regardless of origin. Oriental-design rugs made by machine or any method other than hand-knotting or hand-weaving are not considered authentic Oriental rugs.
People who live in Asia traditionally have created beautiful handmade rugs. Authentic Oriental rugs have pile yarns that are hand-knotted onto a woven backing. These rugs are made in such countries as China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Afganistan and Turkey.
- Nomadic Rugs are woven by nomadic people essentially living in portable houses. These usually contain a limited number of colors and patterns. Wool is the most common material with horsehair and camelhair being used occasionally for the edge and end-finishing. Silk is used at times, but only in a few knots and in a limited area.
- City Rugs are usually intricately designed and woven rugs made in commercial establishments by skilled craftspeople, going through various stages like spinning, dyeing, designing, weaving, finishing, etc. In these rugs, the warps and wefts are usually cotton with wool pile.
- Prayer Rugs are typically 2-4 ft wide and 4-8 ft. long and are the most prized types of rugs by collectors.
Oriental rugs are valuable because they have intricate designs and take a long time to weave. The value of an Oriental rug depends in part on the type of material used to create the rug and on the size and closeness of the rug's weave. Tightly woven Oriental rugs are more expensive because they require the most time to make and are the most durable. Age, condition, and color also contribute to a rug's value. Hand woven rugs do not loose value, in fact they appreciate over time. Two categories of antique rugs are semi-antique (40-80 years old) and antique (over 80 years).
An Oriental rug is not as "perfect" as a mass-produced rug. The size and shape of an Oriental rug may not be exact, and the color in various areas of the rug may differ slightly.
Gun or Hand-tufted Rugs
There are several varieties of hand-made rugs that are not hand-knotted rugs. The easiest to mistake for hand-knotted rugs are the gun or hand-tufted rugs from China and India. Hand-tufted rugs are made using a "gun": a hand-operated tool that punches strands of wool into a canvas stretched on a frame. The design of the rug is drawn on the canvas, and the worker fills in the pattern with the appropriate color wool. When the rug design is fully piled (and this can take as little as three or four days for a 9'x12' carpet), the rug is removed from the frame and a scrim fabric is glued to the back of the rug. It is only the glue on the back of the rug that holds the wool pile in place. The yarn is not knotted over warps as with a real Oriental rug.
Because the tufting process does not produce the fringe that is normal to a hand-woven rug (where the fringe is the end of the warp strings that run from one end of the rug to the other), separate fringe (usually woven as a tape) is often glued or sewn to the ends of a tufted rug.
The tufted rug is handmade, but it is not an Oriental rug because it is not knotted. In deciding to make a tufted rug instead of a real Oriental rug, the maker has chosen the cheapest way of making a piled rug. The tufted rug will rarely wear as well as the hand-knotted rug because the wool is almost certainly of a cheaper grade, and because the inexpensive latex glue used becomes brittle and deteriorates over time. A hand-tufted rug has resale value only equivalent to a machine-made rug of the same size. Tufted Chinese rugs appear in colors and patterns almost identical to hand knotted, pastel Chinese rugs. Hand-tufted Chinese have fringe like hand-knotted Chinese, and from the front look nearly identical to hand-knotted Chinese.
Whereas a 9'x12' hand-knotted Chinese Oriental rug in "90 line" quality (a commonly available weave) might cost about $1,500, a 9'x12' hand-tufted Chinese rug would cost no more than about $700. Tufted rugs from India come in a wide variety of qualities, colors, and patterns, including both floral and geometric Persian designs. From the face they can closely resemble low-to-medium quality hand-knotted rugs.
Other Rug Types
Braided Rug – A rug made of twisted scraps of fabric, rags or yarn, with wool or nylon yarns braided around them. The resulting rope-like cord then is coiled and its edges are stitched together forming a circular or oval shape. The surface yarns usually are made of cotton or wool.
Crewel or Chainstitch Rug – A rug made with stitches consisting of successive loops, the needle passing through each loop in the same relative position, inserted into a cotton or linen cloth backing. Rugs embroidered with chain-stitch are commercially produced in India.
Hooked Rug – A rug made by poking yarn through a course canvas backing to create loop pile in a pattern or design. They originated in New England in the 19th century and are usually made of cotton or wool.
Needlepoint Rug – A rug dating back to the 15th century when embroidery was a favorite occupation of court ladies. The stitching is made with wool on a linen/canvas backing. Depending on the size of the rug, they may be made up of squares, then sewn together. The designs are usually floral or geometric.
Rag Rug – A rug made of scraps of fabric or material cut on the bias and twisted together to make a ribbon, which then is woven on a cotton or linen warp.
Flokati - A hand-woven rug with a thick shaggy pile that dates back over 2000 years. In 1966, a joint effort, the Greek Ministries of Finance, Industry, and Commerce formulated a law which defined the particular specifications a rug needed to meet in order to be classified as a “Flokati.” The law specified that, for a rug to be classified as a “Flokati,” it must be hand-woven in Greece and made of 100% wool (warp, weft, and pile).
Floor cloth - A heavy wool or linen cloth, or canvas, used as a floor covering. The cloth may be painted or stenciled. Using floor cloths was an early American practice.
Machine-Made (Woven) Rugs
Machine-made rug construction falls into two categories: woven (velvet, Axminster, Wilton) and tufted. The fundamental difference between them is that, with woven carpet, the pile and the backing are manufactured simultaneously. Woven rugs are made on a loom with face yarns being intertwined (interlaced) with warp and weft yarns. With tufted rugs, yarn is fed into a primary backing; an anchor coat is applied to hold the tufts in place, and then a secondary backing is added for stability. This process of gluing backing layers together can potentially give rise to delamination problems in tufted carpets installed in high-traffic areas. Generally, woven goods have no secondary backing. A woven rug physically cannot delaminate, as the warp and weft strands holding the pile yarn in place combine to create a 3-dimensional structure.
Rugs Today
Rugs are now more popular than ever, especially with the reintroduction of hard surfaces, such as wood, laminate, stone, and tile in our homes and offices. They come in many shapes and sizes to fit the needs and decorating styles of consumers. Where do they come from? Countries of Origin are mainly in the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, the Far East (China), Europe (Belgium) and the U.S.
Just like any other furnishing, rugs need to be cleaned by a professional on a regular basis. The frequency depends on the use and traffic it receives.
About the IICRC Author
Ruth Travis holds a degree in textiles from the University of Tennessee. She is Director of the WoolSafe Organization in North America, Past-President of the Society of Cleaning and Restoration Technicians (www.scrt.org), Past-President of the IICRC, and Past-Chair of the IICRC Marketing Committees. She also served on the IICRC S100 Carpet Cleaning, S300 Upholstery Cleaning and the S520 Mold Remediation Standard committees.
She owned and operated her own carpet and upholstery cleaning service company for 13 years in Chattanooga, TN. She is a cleantrust-certified Master Textile Cleaner, Master Fire and Smoke Restorer, Journeyman Water Damage Restorer and a Carpet, Laminate and Resilient flooring inspector. Ruth specializes in carpet color correction for major carpet mills and consumers. She is a Clean Trust-approved instructor in color repair, upholstery/fabric cleaning and rug cleaning, and travels throughout the country and abroad teaching other cleaning professionals. See the Ruglady (www.ruglady.info) for more information.
