Rugs: The Original Green Product

Rugs have a primal appeal. In fact, I have seen the calming influence that rugs can have on a family that has moved to a new city as they lay out their rugs and place the furniture around them. Wool rugs date back to the earliest days of civilization when hunters became herders. Rather than constantly hunting for food and hides for warmth, peoples around the world domesticated animals. Shearing the sheep, they were able to make pile fabrics for clothing and eventually for rugs. This took place about 10,000 years ago and rugs have changed little since.

The oldest known rug is 2,500 years old and is on display in St Petersburg, Russia. It was found in 1949 held captive by Siberian ice in the tomb of a nomad king buried in 500 BC. A very fine rug, (shown at left, below), it was made exactly the same way rugs are made today. There’s a replica of this rug, which is known as the Pazyryk rug, on the wall at Fine Rugs of Charleston.

Pazyryk Rug: The oldest known rug is 2500 years old. At left is the rug as kit appears today in the Hermitage Museum. On the right is the rug as it would have appeared when new in 500 BC.

A wool hand knotted rug is sustainable and ‘green’ by definition! It is sheep’s wool, cotton, vegetable dyes, a wood-fired dye vat, daylight weaving, river washed and finally it is sun dried. Every part and process that it takes to make a rug is sustainable, renewable and, (unless it becomes frozen in ice), completely bio-degradable.

The sheep live on to be sheared for more rugs the next year. The cotton plants that were harvested for the warp and fill threads are replanted from the seeds captured in the cotton gin. The trees that were cut for firewood to heat the fires for dying the wool grow anew. The natural vegetable dyes are collected the same way they have been for thousands of years. Most weaving is done outside the homes of the weavers in the daylight. Many rugs are still washed in nearby rivers and left to dry in the bright sunlight.

In full disclosure, though, rugs for export to the west will often be made indoors and washed in buildings that use softeners, moth proofing and aroma enhancers in the water. Also, some rugs are dyed using petrochemicals, but there is a growing move back to the natural dyes.

While I know that rugs are bought and prized for their decorative beauty it is very comforting to call to mind that the rugs we sell are enhancing homes without damaging our increasingly fragile environment.