BIJAR CARPET

floor covering handwoven by Kurds in the vicinity of the village of Bijar in western Iran. The carpets are known for their weight, sturdiness, and remarkable stiffness and resistance to folding. Woven on a woolen foundation, in the Ghiordes knot, these carpets are said to be double warped. This refers to the way the warps are strung closely together, and alternate weft shoots are pulled so tight that the warp lies on two levels, one almost precisely behind the other. This is also a Kerman characteristic and may have been borrowed from that centre. Many Bijar carpets have clumsy medallion decorative schemes in which the medallion and corners are ornamented but the balance of the field remains a solid red. Other examples show repeat patterns, including the ubiquitous herati, in which a diamond lattice peeps through a tangle of roses. From Bijar come a remarkable number of vagirehs, weavers' samples, used as models for large carpets, that show portions of several patterns and borders.