Hamadani Carpet

The rugs of the Hamadan Region are only now being recognised for their rightful place in the pantheon of Persian rugs. They tend to be commercial but at the same time less driven by western design influences that many areas of Iran.
When it comes to Hamadan it is more like a country than a region. Trying to deal with Hamadan rugs as a whole is very similar to dealing with Turkish rugs and certainly more complex than the rugs of Afghanistan. Leslie Stroh of Rug News once told me that there were 1500 distinct rug weaving villages in Hamadan each of which produced at least two styles of rug. One of the reasons for the variety is the history of the people of the region. When Hamadan history comes up everyone seems to want to start back in the days of Ectabana and Queen Esther (Hadassah) and her uncle Mordechai. I want to start a little more recently. In the 1720s (1138 AH) Nadir Shah pushed the Turks out of the Hamadan region. With the Persian victory many of the Sunni tribes and villagers retreated to Turkish controlled lands.

From: Oriental Rug Notes by Barry O'Connell