The discovery of the Pazyryk carpet and an even earlier fragment in tombs in Siberia revealed that

the manufacture of knotted-pile carpets is of far greater antiquity than had previously been
supposed.
The oldest previously known pile carpets were manufactured in Anatolia in the 13-14th centuries.
No Persian pile carpet can definitely be said to survive from before the 16th century.

The famous jeweled garden carpet of Ḵ osrow I at Ctesiphon was almost certainly not a pile carpet
but a flat weave or an embroidery (bahar-e kesra); a pile carpet of the size described would
probably have weighed more than two tons.

BAHAR-E KESRA “The spring of Ḵ osrow”, “Winter carpet”, or  “Spring garden”, a huge, late
Sasanian royal carpet. The carpet measured 60 cubits square (ca. 27 m x 27 m), that may have
covered the floor of the great audience hall at the winter capital of Madaen. Representations of
paths and streams were embroidered on it with gems against a ground of gold. Its border was
embroidered with emeralds to represent a cultivated green field in which were flowering spring
plants with fruit embroidered with different colored gems on stalks of gold with gold and silver
flowers and silk foliage. It was used as a place to drink, as if in gardens, when the winter winds
blew. When one sat on it in winter, it was as if it was spring. When Madaen fell to the Muslims in
16/637 this carpet was too heavy for the Persians to carry away so it was taken with the other
booty. Omar cut it up and divided it among the Muslims. 

Oriental carpets were not regularly imported into Europe before the end of the 7th/13th century.
Most of the carpets depicted are thought to be Turkish, however, not Persian; it was generally
quicker, easier, and cheaper to import carpets into western Europe from Anatolia than from
Persia as, especially during the Safavid period, the Ottoman empire, which controlled the
traditional overland routes from Persia to the west, was periodically at war with the Persian state. 

Oriental carpets and rugs purchased by Europeans were, of course, often too valuable to be laid
on the floor, as had been the practice in the Orient since earliest times.

Of an estimated total of between 1,500 and 2,000 surviving Safavid carpets only five are dated.

In general, however, trade between Persia and the Indies was more reliable and more profitable
than trade between Persia and Europe; Persian exports could be shipped to Europe via the
overland route through Ottoman territory but only when the Ottomans and the Safavids were not
at war. Safavid foreign trade was almost exclusively in the hands of Armenians.

Safavids thus transformed a simple rural craft into a courtly art, carpets did continue to be
produced by nomadic tribes and in smaller urban workshops. This production continued after the
overthrow of the Safavids by the Afghans in 1722 and the consequent decline of the luxury carpet
industry, which had depended in large part on royal patronage.

With the establishment of the Qajar dynasty in 1797, the carpet industry began to flourish once
more. The number of Persian carpets exported, however, remained small; it may have been the
fortuitous conjunction of two factors, Persia’s need for an export commodity to substitute for silk
and strong European demand, that produced a boom in Persian carpets at the end of the 19th
century.

Unfortunately, in an effort to keep up with European demand, Persian carpet manufacturers

made the nearly fatal mistake of introducing the use of chemical dyes, the Persian government
banned their use.

Ardabil carpet
The foundation is of silk with wool pile of a knot density at 300–350 knots per square inch (47–54
knots per cm2). The size of the London carpet is 10.5 m × 5.3 m, which gives it about 26 million
knots in total.

Completed during the rule of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I in the mid-16th century, probably
in Tabriz, the carpets are considered some of the best of the classical Iranian (Persian) school of
carpet creation. They were first placed in a mosque in Ardabil, but they had become heavily worn
in Iran and were sold in 1890 to a British carpet broker who restored one of the carpets using the
other and then resold the restored one to the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Sheep wool is important. In different parts of Persia different kinds of sheep are raised,
depending on the prevailing climate and available pasturage. In colder areas, for example, the
sheep produce a finer, long-staple wool fiber; that of Khorasan is particularly fine. In warmer
Kerman, however, a shorter, springier fiber is produced; it is particularly durable and has a sheen.
In Fārs local wool is used by the Qashqai is soft, lustrous, and absorbs dyes very well…

 Camel’s hair is used for less expensive carpets.

Goat hair, mixed with coarse wool from sheep, is often used for the warps of tribal carpets,
especially those woven for domestic use.

In the past silk was used in the warps and pile of finer carpets. In central Persia, particularly
Kashan, Nain, and Qom, carpets were woven entirely of silk; particularly noteworthy are the silk
barjasta (relief) carpets, with only the patterns knotted in pile on a plain-weave foundation,
which were made in Kashan.

Gold-wrapped thread, which contributed to the luxury of court carpets is only rarely used today,
though it does occur in the form of brocading.