The term Armenian carpet (; haykakan gorg) designates, but is not limited to, tufted rugs or knotted carpets woven in Armenia or by Armenians from pre-Christian times to the present. It also includes a number of flat woven textiles. The term covers a large variety of types and sub-varieties. Due to their intrinsic fragility, almost nothing survives—neither carpets nor fragments—from antiquity until the late medieval period.
Traditionally, since ancient times the carpets were used in Armenia to cover floors, decorate interior walls, sofas, chairs, beds and tables.N. Marr, Armgiz, 1939, Yerevan, p. 197 - in Russian Up to present the carpets often serve as entrance veils, decoration for church altars and vestry. Starting to develop in Armenia as a part of everyday life, carpet weaving was a must in every Armenian family, with the carpet making and rug making being mostly a woman's occupation."Armenians. The End of the 19th - Beginning of the 20th century" at Russian Ethnographic Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia Armenian carpets are unique "texts" composed of the ornaments where sacred symbols reflect the beliefs and religious notions of the ancient ancestors of the Armenians that reached us from the depth of centuries. The Armenian carpet and rug weavers preserved strictly the traditions. The imitation and presentation of one and the same ornament-ideogram in the unlimited number of the variations of styles and colors contain the basis for the creation of any new Armenian carpet. In this relation, the characteristic trait of Armenian carpets is the triumph of the variability of ornaments that is increased by the wide gamut of natural colors and tints.
Etymology of word "carpet" in the Armenian and other languages
The Armenian words for carpet are "karpet" ()Армянско-русский словарь, Издательство АН Армянской ССР, Ереван, 1987, стр. 345 or "gorg" ().Армянско-русский словарь, Издательство АН Армянской ССР, Ереван, 1987, стр. 167 Though both words in Armenian are synonymous, word "karpet" is mostly used for non-pile rugs and "gorg" is for a pile carpet.
Two of the most frequently used terms to designate woven woolen floor coverings emanate directly from the Armenian experience: carpet and kali/khali. The term "kapert" (), formed of root "kap" () that means "knot",Armenian-English, English-Armenian DictionaryАрмянско-русский словарь, Издательство АН Армянской ССР, Ереван, 1987, стр. 337 later to become "karpet" () in colloquial Armenian, is used in the 5th-century Armenian translation of the Bible (Matthew 9:16 and Mark 2:21).Matthew 9:16. Ոշ ոք արկանէ կապերտ անթափ `ի վերայ հնացեակ ձորձոյ., Mark 2:21. Ոշ ոք կապերտ նոր անթափ արկանէ...etc., Hovhann Zohrapian, Scriptures of the Old and New Testments (critical edition in Armenian), Venice, 1805, pp. 654, 671. It is assumed that the word "carpet" entered into French () and English () in the 13th century (through Medieval Latin carpita, meaning "thick woolen cloth") "carpet" in "Online Etymology Dictionary", "carpet - late 13th century, "coarse cloth;" mid-14th century, "tablecloth, bedspread;" from O.Fr. carpite "heavy decorated cloth," from M.L. carpita "thick woolen cloth," pp. of L. carpere "to card, pluck," probably so called because it was made from unraveled, shreded, "plucked" fabric; from PIE *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest" (see harvest). Meaning shifted 15th century to floor coverings. From 16th-19th centuries often with a tinge of contempt, when used of men (e.g. carpet-knight, 1570s) by association with luxury, ladies' boudoirs, and drawing rooms. On the carpet "summoned for reprimand" is 1900, U.S. colloquial (but cf. carpet (v.) "call (someone) to be reprimanded," 1823, British servants' slang). To sweep (something) under the carpet in the figurative sense is first recorded 1963. The verb meaning "to cover with a carpet" is from the 1620s. Related: Carpeted; carpeting". as a consequence of the trade in rugs through the port cities of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia. Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, a Florentine merchant stationed in Cyprus, reported in his La pratica della mercatura that from 1274 to 1330, carpets (kaperts) were imported from the Armenian cities of Ayas and Sis to Florence.Pegoletti, La pratica della mercatura, edited by Allan Evans. Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936
Armenian word "gorg" () is first mentioned in written sources in the 13th century. This word ("gorg") is in the inscription that was cut out in the stone wall of Kaptavan Church in Artsakh (Karabagh) and is dated by 1242—1243 AD.Голоссарий. КарпетKh. Hakobyan, "Medieval Art of Artsakh", Yerevan, Armenian SSR, "Parberakan, 1990, p. 84, Grigor Kapantsyan, professor of Armenian Studies, considered that Armenian "gorg" () is a derivative of Hittite-Armenian vocabulary, where it existed in the forms of "koork" and "koorkas". Edgar H. Sturtevant, an expert in Hittite studies, explains the etymology of word "koork"/"koorkas" as "horse cloth".Sturtevant, Edgar H. (1931). Hittite glossary: words of known or conjectured meaning, with Sumerian ideograms and Accadian words common in Hittite texts. Language, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 3-82., Language Monograph No. 9.
As for the Persian "qali", which entered into Turkish as "qali" or as "khali" in Anatolia Ottoman Turkish and Armenian,James W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon, Constantinople, 1921, p. 1423 it derives from the city of Theodosiopolis-Karin-Erzerum, known to the Arabs as Qali-qala from the Armenian "Karnoy k‘aghak", the "city of Karin". The name "Erzerum" itself, as is well known, is of Armenian origin from the usage Artzen ar-Rum. This latter term came into being after the destruction of the important Armenian commercial center of Artzen, 15 kilometers east of Theodosiopolos-Karin, by the Seljuks in 1041 after which the inhabitants fled to Karin, then in Rum, that is in Byzantine territory, renaming it Artzen in Rum or Arzerum/Erzerum/Erzurum.Halil Inalcik, "Erzurum", The Encyclopedia of Islam, Leiden-London, 1965, p.712
Label of Armenian Carpet in the Western world The designation "Armenian Carpet" in the English language has existed since the 1850s. It appeared in Western scholarly works in the latter part of the 19th century as attested in the writings of the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl, who mentioned an Armenian carpet created in 1202.
History
The art of the Armenian carpet and rug weaving has its roots in ancient times. However, due to the fragile nature of carpets very few examples have survived. Only one specimen has been discovered from the ancient (pre-Christian) period and relatively few specimens are in existence from the early medieval period which can be found in private collections as well as various museums throughout the world.
"The complex history of Armenian weaving and needlework was acted out in the Near East, a vast, ancient, and ethnically diverse region. Few are the people who, like the Armenians, can boast of a continuous and consistent record of fine textile production from the 1st millennium BC to the present. Armenians today are blessed by the diversity and richness of a textile heritage passed on by thirty centuries of diligent practice; yet they are burdened by the pressure to keep alive a tradition nearly destroyed in the Armenian genocide of 1915, and subverted by a technology that condemns handmade fabrics to museums and lets machines produce perfect, but lifeless cloth". Dickran Kouymjian, "Armenia Textiles: An Overview", The catalogue of an exhibition entitled "Trames de memoire d'Armenie: broderies et tapis sur les chemins de l'exil de 1900-1940" on Armenian refugees in the textile industry in southern France after the 1915 genocide to be held at the Museon Arlaten in Arles, France from June through December 2007 as part of the Year of Armenia in France
Early history
Various rug fragments have been excavated in Armenia dating back to the 7th century BC or earlier. Complete rugs, or nearly complete rugs of this period have not yet been found. The oldest, single, surviving knotted carpet in existence is the Pazyryk carpet, excavated from a frozen tomb in Siberia, dated from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Although claimed by many cultures, this square tufted carpet, almost perfectly intact, is considered by many experts to be of Caucasian, specifically Armenian, origin. The rug is woven using the Armenian double knot, and the red filaments color was made from Armenian cochineal.Ashkhunj Poghosyan, On origin of Pazyryk rug, Yerevan, 2013 (PDF) pp. 1-21 , pp. 22-37 USSR conference to exchange experiences leading restorers and researchers. The study, preservation and restoration of ethnographic objects. Theses of reports, Riga, 16–21 November 1987. pp. 17-18 Л.С. Гавриленко, Р.Б. Румянцева, Д.Н. Глебовская, Применение тонкослойной хромотографии и электронной спектроскопии для анализа красителей древних тканей. Исследование, консервация и реставрация этнографических предметов. Тезисы докладов, СССР, Рига, 1987, стр. 17-18.В ковре нити темно-синего и голубого цвета окрашены индиго по карминоносным червецам, нити красного цвета - аналогичными червецами типа араратской кошенили. The eminent authority of ancient carpets, Ulrich Schurmann, says of it, "From all the evidence available I am convinced that the Pazyryk rug was a funeral accessory and most likely a masterpiece of Armenian workmanship". Ulrich Schurmann, The Pazyryk. Its Use and Origin, Munich, 1982, p.46 Gantzhorn concurs with this thesis. At the ruins of Persepolis in Iran where various nations are depicted as bearing tribute, the horse design from the Pazyryk carpet is the same as the relief depicting part of the Armenian delegation.Volkmar Gantzhorn, "Oriental Carpets", 1998, The historian Herodotus writing in the 5th century BC also informs us that the inhabitants of the Caucasus wove beautiful rugs with brilliant colors which would never fade.The Nine Books of the Histories of Herodotus. Thomas Gaisford, Peter Laurent, London, 1846, CLIO I p.99
Christian period Apart from the Pazyryk carpet, after Armenia declared itself as the first Christian state in 301 AD, carpet making took on a decidedly Christian art form and identity. By the Middle Ages, Armenia was a major exporter of carpets to as far away places as China. In many Medieval Chinese artworks for example, carpets were depicted in which the designs were typically that of Armenian carpets with some even depicting clear Christian crosses. The art of the Armenian carpet during this period evolved alongside Armenian church architecture, Armenian cross-stones and illuminated manuscript art, with typical rug motifs using the same elements of these designs. The cruciform with its variations would eventually come to dominate Armenian carpet designs.
Armenian genocide
The period of the Armenian genocide from 1894 to 1923 saw a demographic change in the hitherto Armenian tradition of rug and carpet making in Anatolia (Western Armenia as well as Turkey). Even though carpets from this region had established the commercial name of "Turkish Carpet" there is evidence to suggest that the majority of weavers in the Ottoman Empire were Armenians. However, after 1923, carpet making in the newly established Turkish republic was erroneously declared a "historically Turkish craft" as is claimed, for example, by the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum where many Armenian carpets are depicted as "Turkish or Islamic art".