About Saraband Rugs & Mir Saraband Rugs
Saraband lies in Iran, between Arak and Borujird, at about 2,000 M altitude. The name "Saraband" may mean, "a cold place", but there is also a river nearby named Sarvand (Shazand?), which could also be the source of the name. For several centuries, and clearly at least the past couple of centuries, rugs and carpets of with overall Boteh designs, have been made there.
Serabend rugs are one of the few industries of Persian rugs manufactured with a predominantly dominant Boteh design, usually filling the field of the rug/carpet. Boteh designs, especially those with large areas of boteh, are not known much before 1800. Saraband rugs and carpets are "fairly course, rustic, rectilinear, with elegant colors (especially a red ground, but also blue and cream)" PRJ Ford, Oriental Carpet Design,
p 55. They are made with an overall Boteh pattern, but the rows alternate the direction that the Botehs face, and a diamond-shaped medallion is sometimes found.
Most carpet sizes are made. The Turkish knot is the usual knot.
Everu, near Hamadan, is another carpet/rug area known for the Boteh design, but the Boteh are oriented in the same direction, and they have a different border from the Saraband. These are also single-wefted, and have a less fine weave than the Saraband, which is double-wefted. Thus, the Everu Boteh design rugs can be easily distinguished from the Saraband. Most of the Everu designs are of the Herati design. Ghom (Qum) is another rug area that uses the overall Boteh designs, and in which, like the Everu, the Boteh rows are oriented in the same direction.
The Saraband designs have been appropriated by Indian weavers, and over the years, these have been developed beyond the
Iranian Serabend designs, with more designs, and almost any imaginable color and size.
Maps on this page are snippets from Google Maps. Thank you for creating a visualization that can be shared and seen around the world.
Photograph Details
Saraband in Iran was difficult to locate on the map and part of this might be the spelling is different being translated to English. I believe the maps provided by Google Maps is the correct region where Saraband is located, that's known for these beautiful allover Boteh Designed rugs.
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The red Saraband rug shown is relatively common to what you find from Saraband. The weave on it is double-wefted like the Mir Saraband, but the weave isn't as fine and has a noticeably blue wefting.
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Mir Saraband Carpets are well known for a fine weave and typically have many small borders with very detailed work.
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The video at the end shows a weaver from India working on a Mir rug. This is a very common and even considered traditional design in India. While the design is similar to the Mir Saraband and Saraband rug, the rugs are very different and easy to distinguish.