What Was The Coolest Carpet Ever Made?

The type of carpet you choose for your business is often a reflection of your priorities as a company, and can sometimes have an impact on perception, reputation and sales.

A worn, uneven, ill-fitting carpet can give off the wrong impression, whilst a set of luxury carpet tiles shows that you care about presentation in all areas of the business. It is so often the case that you see the true measure of a company through the details which they prioritise most.

Thankfully, tiled carpets are built to last, look fantastic and are easy to both clean and replace, ensuring that the floor always looks its best without costing you a fortune.

Rather oddly, whilst a lot of the aspects that make carpet tiles easy to install and maintain, such as the adhesives, hard-wearing fibres and underlay, are relatively new, several of the secrets to why modern carpets last so much longer can be traced back thousands of years.

The oldest surviving carpet is, figuratively and literally, the coolest carpet ever made. Here is why.

The Eternal Carpet Of Pazyryk

Carpets have existed for thousands of years, but part of the problem with tracing that history is that natural fibres tend to fall apart over the years, being ripped apart by microbes, insects and the environment.

This made the Pazyryk Carpet an almost miraculous find, as it revealed a lot of secrets to creating vivid, striking carpet designs as well as what you can do to ensure that they endure extreme conditions.

It is over 2500 years old and was found in a Scythian burial site in the Siberian mountains close to modern-day Kazakhstan.

It is believed to have survived in part due to a failed robbery of the tomb, which caused it to flood, flash-freeze and preserve everything inside a block of ice.

Even if keeping carpets frozen is impractical, colder conditions tend to benefit carpets, as lower humidity can prevent the growth of mould and damp, so long as the carpet is thoroughly dried when it is cleaned. Moisture is the biggest factor in carpet longevity rather than temperature itself.

The frozen temperatures meant that when the Pazyryk site was rediscovered in 1929 and fully extracted in 1949, the textiles were preserved in a way that was otherwise impossible and provided an astonishing example of the intricate skill of historical carpetmakers.

The Search For Quality

The quality of the pile itself, featuring a carpet density of 360,000 knots per square metre, is astonishing, and possibly part of the reason why it endured so well with remarkably minimal damage.

The quality and detail, featuring bright red dyes that proved very difficult to replicate before the invention of modern synthetic dyes and its varied designs evoke the types of patterns that are possible through more creative uses of carpet tiles and modern production techniques.

So astonishing was the quality of its craft that it has led to a decades-long historical debate regarding its origin.

The Pazyryk Valley was in the middle of a major trade route, so it could have originated practically anywhere between China and Central Asia. 

As the Scythians were a somewhat nomadic group who travelled throughout much of Eastern Europe and Western Russia on horseback, it is believed that they did not make the carpet themselves but may have bought it, traded it or raided it.

Other textiles and artefacts originating from China and India highlight how far the Scythians had travelled.

Historians have narrowed it down to either Ancient Armenia or Persia, but arguments still rage about which due to what appear to be inconsistencies with details.

The techniques, which use a double knot and a type of cochineal dye characteristic of Armenian carpet making, have led many historians to believe it was made in the region before making its way north to Siberia.

However, another claim is that due to the types of design and the horses depicted on the carpet, it is more likely to be Persian in origin and made in what is now Iran.

There are other theories that it was part of a trade agreement, was made by Armenian carpetmakers for the Achaemenid Empire or even that the Scythians copied a Persian design using Armenian techniques and materials, although the latter seems particularly unlikely.

Eternal Brightness

Dyes fade in the light, so the preservation of the colours of the carpet still surprises historians, and highlights the importance of using techniques to preserve colours and avoid them wearing out over time.

Alternatively, having a supply of tiles can help replace any fading pieces of carpet before that becomes an issue.