Excellent condition, full pile rug

The Kurds, an Iranian tribe which is believed to have inhabited the Azerbaijan area since before the age of Christ, today number an estimated 10 to 13 million. They not only inhabit the 140,000 square mile region of Western Iran, Eastern Turkey and Iraq known as Kurdistan, 
but also the mountains of Persian Azerbaijan and the Soviet Caucasus further to the North, as well as the Khurasan district of Northeast Iran. The Kurdish lifestyle of today is tremendously varied: from the nomadic mountain shepherd, to the village farmer who yields small crops of wheat and barley, to the flannel-suited urban businessman. Yet in each setting, the Kurdish women continue to hand-knot rugs as their ancestors have done for many generation before them, creating antique rugs that vividly portray the tremendous diversity, adaptability and spirit of independence of the Kurdish people.
To a remarkable extent, Kurdish rug-makers have always readily adapted the antique carpet patterns of the neighboring weaving traditions into their own carpets. This is clearly seen in the nomadic and village pieces of the Kurds of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. The Kurds of “the Northwest,” as they are called, adopted the prevalent Caucasian carpet designs of Kazak and Karabagh such as the diagonally striped field, and the crenellated fence and stylized dragon borders, yet their antique rugs are always distinguishable from those of the Turkic groups in both their extreme spontaneity and unusually wide selection of colors including a liberal use of pink, lime to forest green, powder and sky blue, orange and yellow. In fact, in many antique Kurdish rugs of the Northwest, color becomes the dominant element even over design, and the definition of the pattern is virtually obscured in a blazon of color. The effect, undeniably Kurdish, makes their antique carpets masterful examples to be studied by the modern abstract artist.
Yet, these Persian carpets are woven by the most elemental of peoples. 
The Kurdish mountain weaver, almost always a woman, lives with her family in a black goat-hair tent which can be easily transported to the high mountain pastures for the brief summers and into the valleys below for the extended winters. Using a primitive, portable loom, she is a master not only at weaving wool into a stylized representation of the magnificent natural landscape in which she lives, but also at performing numerous other processes of rug making as well. She gathers plants and roots which grow locally to brew a virtually endless array of colors. 
She washes, cards and separates the wool from her family’s own sheep, setting aside much of it to be pressed into felt and choosing only the best to be woven into carpets. Then, as she goes about her daily chores, she endlessly spins the wool into yarn using a simple drop spindle, for often the process of spinning is even more lengthy than that of the knotting itself.