Azerbaijan Carpets

Carpet weaving is one of the oldest and most wide-spread types of folk art in Azerbaijan. Predecessors of Azerbaijani carpets were first mentioned in the works of the filth century BC Greek scholar Xenophon. Arab, Persian historians and later European travellers who visited Azerbaijan in the mediaeval era noted the beauty of our carpets. Beginning in the nineteenth century, detailed information on Azerbaijani carpets has featured in books dedicated to Oriental arts, published in European countries. In terms of ornament and compositional characteristics, the Azerbaijani art of carpet-weaving is divided into seven schools: Guba, Baku (Absheron), Shirvan, Ganja, Gazakh, Karabakh and Tabriz. Nowadays the rare examples of ancient Azerbaijani carpets are exhibited famous museums and galleries around the world – New York’s Metropolitan Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Hermitage (St. Petersburg), the Louvre (Paris), the Vatican and others. This was why in 2010, the Azerbaijani carpet was included by UNESCO on the representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.