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Gabbeh or gabba () carpets are a traditional variety of
/ref> The gabbeh is usually crafted by women. Gabbeh carpets are much thicker and coarser than other Persian carpets; sometimes they can be as much as one inch or 2.5 cm in depth. In fact, they are more a variety of
Gabbeh Rugs: The Persian Gabbeh Rug
from Emmett Eilant's blog {{Rugs and carpets Persian rugs and carpets Persian handicrafts Persian words and phrases Oriental rugs and carpets
Gabbeh or gabba () carpets are a traditional variety of Persian carpet
A Persian carpet ( ), Persian rug ( ),Savory, R., ''Carpets'',(Encyclopaedia Iranica); accessed 30 January 2007. or Iranian carpet is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in Iran (histo ...
. Gabbeh is known as gava in Kurdish and Luri and is also called khersak () in Bakhtiari, literally meaning a "bear's cub". Traditionally a sleeping rug, a gabbeh is a hand-woven pile rug of coarse quality and medium size (90 x 150 cm, 3 by 5 ft, or larger) characterized by an abstract design that relies upon open fields of color and a playfulness with geometry. This type of rug is popular among the populations of the Zagros Mountains
The Zagros Mountains are a mountain range in Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. The mountain range has a total length of . The Zagros range begins in northwestern Iran and roughly follows Iran's western border while covering much of s ...
of Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
, including Kurdish, Luri and Qashqai people.Gabba, Encyclopedia Iranica, by JEAN-PIERRE DIGARD and CAROL BIER/ref> The gabbeh is usually crafted by women. Gabbeh carpets are much thicker and coarser than other Persian carpets; sometimes they can be as much as one inch or 2.5 cm in depth. In fact, they are more a variety of
kilim
A kilim ( ; ; ) is a flat tapestry-weaving, woven carpet or rug traditionally produced in countries of the former Persian Empire, including Iran and Turkey, but also in the Balkans and the Turkic countries.
Kilims can be purely decorative ...
than carpet
A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of Pile (textile), pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fiber, synthetic fibres such as polyprop ...
. The word "gabbeh" comes from the Persian گبه, meaning raw, natural, uncut. This is a rough and primitive carpet.
Gabbeh patterns are of a very basic kind with only a limited number of decorative, mostly rectangular objects resembling mainly animals. In gabbeh usually bright colors, such as yellow and red, are used. Although large fields of solid color are used in gabbeh designs, the color is variegated (the color varies throughout the rug, with the appearance of differently colored zones).
Gabbehs are made of natural, handspun wool yarn and all the colors are created with natural plant dye. Due to its relative ease of production (less precise pattern, small number of knots per square centimeter, etc.) a gabbeh is one of the less expensive varieties of Persian carpet.
In the 1980s, after the Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli had experimented with vegetally dyed gabbehs, Gholamreza Zollanvari began producing the rugs in larger quantities, employing Qashgayi and Luri weavers. Increased production by the Zollanvari family, including their introduction of new patterns, exerted considerable influence on European rug markets.
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External links
Gabbeh Rugs: The Persian Gabbeh Rug
from Emmett Eilant's blog {{Rugs and carpets Persian rugs and carpets Persian handicrafts Persian words and phrases Oriental rugs and carpets