Oriental Rugs Glossary

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Shirvan

Shirvan is located in West Caucasia in Azerbaijan. Technically speaking Shirvan is a general term for rugs made South West of Kuba and East of Genje. The Shirvan is by quality and also quantity a major provenance of Caucasian rugs. He is characterized by a tight and very accurately led geometric design, by the luminosity of its colors and by the unusual fineness of the weaving which also facilitates the imaging of persons and animal figures. Also the warp (and therefore the fringes) is almost always of brown wool. There is no uniform Shirvan design, the variation is too wide. There are three Shirvan provenances which due to their own characteristic and structure can be recognized easier: Akstafa (in the Western part of Shirvan), Bijow (rare and hardly known) and Marasali (known especially for its prayer rugs).