Zakatala Rug from the Mark Carol Collection

This is an outstanding exampleof a Zakatala Rug. It is in the collection of Dr. Mark Carol M.D. and I was lucky enough to be able to borrow this rug for my talk at the Textile Museum in Washington DC. This rug fits prominiently into a video series shot on that talk: Barry O'Connell at the Textile Museum INTRO Zakatala is a area of norther Azerbaijan. I suspect that this rug may be the prodict of Armenians in Zakatala.

One question that arises with Zakatala rugs is how do we know it is a Zakatala as opposed to a Kazak rug or some other Caucasian rug? Zakatala rugs have a certain look but the most important identifier that I know of is the back. Look for dark brown wefts with a soft handle. The weave is consistant, the back is flat and the number of wefts is consistant. As a group Zakatala rugs have a softer duller wool that lacks the high gloss of Kazak rugs.http://baluch-rugs.com