Yalameh Rugs

Yalameh rugs come from Luri and Khamseh weavers on the border between Isfahan and Fars provinces, and they are one of the few tribal traditions that is easy to identify from the design alone. The field carries a column of diamond medallions, each one stepped, hooked and locked into the next, repeated up the length of the rug with small animals and stylised flowers filling the ground between them.

The colour is why people buy them. Yalameh weavers use highland wool that takes natural dye unusually deeply, and they put saturated madder red, indigo and a dark green directly against ivory without softening the transition. On a good example the reds shift in tone from one end to the other, the sign of separate dye lots rather than a factory batch.

Construction is tribal: a wool or cotton foundation, a medium-coarse knot, and a thick, springy pile that stands up to traffic and to children. Sizes run small to mid, because these are rugs woven on portable looms rather than in workshops.