Miscellaneous silk rugs

The Turkoman silk  rugs are   generally  twice   the size  of the  usual   sheep's  wool   or   camel's  hair   rugs. They  are very fine, and often two  hundred dollars is -paid for a rug of this kind eight feet square.

Rugs made of raw silk are exported from Samar­kand, and silk rugs of old Persian designs are copied and woven at Cassarea. Some weavers of the modern silk rug, however, do not have recourse to established designs; they give play to their imagination, as do the weavers of wool rugs. Other weavers copy chiefly designs from chintz, and still others work from designs introduced from Europe.

Mrs. Bishop tells us that silk produced at Resht is brought to Kashan to be spun and dyed. Then it is sent to Sultanabad to be woven into rugs. It is next returned to Resht to have the pile cut by the sharp in­struments used for cutting the velvet pile. After the rugs are finished, they are sent to Teheran to be sold.