The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Carpets And Rugs

Historical

When or where carpet making began no one knows. It is known that weaving in its simplest form is one of the oldest arts practiced by man. Indeed it ranks, as far as age is concerned, with the carving of wood and the molding of clay. So far as we can tell the first weaving must have been of the plain basket type, using grasses, split reeds, palm leaves and other long-fibered vegeta- ble growths.

The invention of spinning, which permitted the conversion of small animal hairs and other soft, fine fibers into long fibrous threads, marked the greatest epoch in the development of weaving, as it opened the door to the very best accomplish- ment known to us today.

With spinning came, as a natural sequence, wool, silk, cotton and linen threads, and then fol- lowed the coloring of these various fibers with the juices of plants, flowers and insects.

The availability of colored threads naturally led to the use of figures for decorative purposes, the logical outcome of which was the development of the art of design. With design, dyeing, spin- ning and weaving, the elements necessary to the production of carpets and rugs as we know them at the present time, it was simply a matter of improvement along each of these various lines.
Although it is not known where the making of carpets originated, it is known that the zenith of its development occurred in the Orient, because it is there that the finest specimens have been found.

It has been claimed by rug experts that the most perfect carpets of which we have any knowledge were made in Babylon and Nineveh, which cities were at the height of their prosperity between 3000 and 538 B. C, the latter date marking the fall of Babylon into the hands of Cyrus, at the head of the Persians.

That part of Asia now occupied by Persia and Asia Minor has been the battleground of the world for thousands of years, and all the races of Asia and most of those of Europe have fought there; first one and then another dominating. Through all these upheavals, the making of rugs and car- pets has persisted, first developing to the pinnacle of achievement, and then, under commercializing methods, declining to its present-day state.