Kelim - Oriental carpet art in the barn

The designation Kilim describes the weaving technique itself. Kilim weaving is common in North Africa, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Daghestan, Chechnya, and more. In Norway and in the rest of the world, these techniques are also widespread.

This simple, basic weaving technique has been around for thousands of years. In Persia, now Iran, we know that many villages wove carpets with their own, local ornaments that became their distinguishing marks as early as 1,000 years ago, and they have existed up to our time.

Kilim weaving is the handicraft that originally belonged among nomads and village people, less in the cities, and is alive in our time. From these cultures also came carpets made with other weaving techniques and different varieties, with changing names, Soumak, Pallas, Jajim, reversed Soumak, Smetting, Kroting and others that we do not have good names for in this country.

Various shapes were traditionally woven for special purposes, namakdans-salt bags, khurdjins-transport bags, sofrehs-tablecloths, ru-korsi- heating blankets, ru-aspi- horse blankets, ribbons to decorate tents and animals with, dasdans for covering the bedsheets in the tents, barband- transport ribbon, yolami- tent ribbon, mafrash– coffin-shaped cloth sacks, qashokdan bag for spoons, dja-namaz– prayer rugs, chanteh- small bags for the Qur'an, tobacco and mouthpieces for hookahs, fire steel and similar things, qab-tir-e-kaman-holsters for bows/later rifles, qab-e-kheichi, scissor cases, carpet formats woven for the unmarried girls' bridal coffins, and more.

The exhibition will show a rich selection of antique varieties made with hand-spun and plant-dyed wool, all in very good condition. Most of the rugs will be for sale, a few for display only.

If you are a larger group, we recommend taking a look at our suggested tours with group discounts.