Antique Bijar 4' x 6' 10"

Antique rugs are very desirable, extremely well made, and are usually sized 5 x 7 and under.  

Bijar, a town located in the county of Bijar, is located in the Kurdistan province of Iran. The town has the highest elevation in Iran and is located 120 miles north-northwest of Hamadan, on the old route from this city to Tabriz, and is a center of an important and internationally renowned carpet industry. Mentioned in the 15th century (9th century, Persian calendar) as a village belonging to the property of Shah Esmail, the first Safavid ruler, Bijar developed to the size of a town only in the 19th century (13th century, Persian calendar). During World War I, it was besieged and occupied by Russian, British, and Turkish troops. While its population before 1914 was said to be about 20,000 people, destructions of the war and a great famine in 1918 reduced it considerably. In 1976 its population was 17,224 inhabitants, predominantly Kurds.

Bijar is famous as one of the leading carpet weaving areas of Iran. According to A. C. Edwards, in The Persian Carpet: A Survey of the Carpet-Weaving Industry of Persia, the weaving area comprises the town itself and about forty villages within a radius of thirty miles. Here, as elsewhere, carpet manufacturing is mainly a cottage industry and there are no factories. The district of Bijar comprises a relatively small area in a rough, mountainous country (several peaks well over 2,000 m) traversed by the rivers in which, due to severe winters, grain growing and animal husbandry (sheep) are beside carpet weaving the main occupations of the villagers. The total population of the district was 111,510 in 1976, with 36.8 percent of the total labor force (34,991 persons) employed in agriculture, and 44.1 percent in carpet weaving. ~ Encyclopaedia Iranica