Most Persian city rugs share one plan. A field sits inside a frame of borders; the field holds a medallion at its centre and, often, corner pieces that are quarters of it. Because the plan is symmetrical about both axes, a quarter describes the whole.

Each NAQSHE follows the same plan. The border is built from the outside in: an outer band, guard stripes, the main band, more stripes, and sometimes a minor band. The field is open, filled with a small repeat, or drawn freehand; a medallion and corner pieces may sit on top.

A finely knotted rug is not improvised. A designer paints it first on squared paper, the NAQSHE, where each small square is one knot and each colour one yarn. The weaver reads the chart row by row, tying the colour each square asks for.

For a symmetrical design only a quarter needs drawing: the weaver mirrors it at the loom. That is exactly what the contract does. It draws a quarter (30 × 42 knots at Town), then reads it forwards and backwards, top to bottom and bottom to top, to write the whole NAQSHE. Open any NAQSHE in the gallery and switch to NAQSHE to see its quarter on graph paper, with the heavy line every ten knots that designers use to keep count.

How Persian Rugs Are Made

Traditional Persian rugs are made by tying thousands of small knots onto vertical threads called warps. To create each knot, the weaver wraps a short piece of yarn around two neighbouring warp threads and then cuts it, leaving two small ends sticking upward. These ends are called tufts. After completing each row of knots, the weaver passes horizontal threads, called wefts, across the rug and pushes them down tightly to secure the knots. Finally, the tufts are trimmed to the same height, creating the soft surface of the rug, known as the pile.

You can think of a rug's design as a digital image. Each knot works like a single pixel, and thousands of knots together create the complete pattern.

Different Types of Knots

Persian weavers mainly use two types of knots. The most common is the asymmetrical knot, which opens to one side. This allows the knots to fit closely together, making it easier to create detailed patterns and smooth curves. The symmetrical knot, on the other hand, is commonly used in Turkish rugs and many Persian village and tribal rugs.

The number of knots in a rug can vary significantly. Some village rugs have fewer than 50 knots per square inch, while the finest city-made and silk rugs can have several hundred. The more knots a rug has, the more detailed its design can be, just as a high-resolution digital image can show more detail than a low-resolution one.

At a high knot density, a design containing 60 × 84 knots would produce a physical rug only a few inches long. This is why each NAQSHE should be understood as a map of a rug's design rather than a representation of its actual physical size.

Understanding Raj and Knot Density

Persian weavers measure knot density using a traditional unit called raj. Raj refers to the number of knots in a horizontal row measuring approximately seven centimetres. For example, a rug with raj 30 has about 30 knots across that distance.

Each NAQSHE is assigned one of four weaving styles, selected using its seed, a value that determines how the design is generated. The chosen raj determines the number of knots in the design.

The simplest style is Nomad, with raj 20 and a grid of 40 × 56 knots. Its patterns are large, bold, and blocky, similar to traditional tribal rugs. Village, with raj 25 and a grid of 50 × 70 knots, allows slightly more detail while keeping a relatively simple appearance.

Town uses raj 30 and a grid of 60 × 84 knots, which is also the size of the sample NAQSHE. Finally, Workshop uses raj 40 and a grid of 80 × 112 knots. It provides the greatest level of detail among the four styles and can represent more complicated patterns and curves.

The main difference is that rugs with fewer knots have more angular, stepped designs, while rugs with more knots can display finer details and smoother curves. This explains why traditional tribal rugs often look more geometric, while rugs from city workshops can feature elaborate, flowing patterns covering the entire surface.

Traditional Persian Rug Patterns

Town and Workshop NAQSHE designs can use several traditional Persian patterns instead of the classic design.

One of these is Herati, which features a small flower-like shape called a rosette inside a diamond, surrounded by leaf shapes. The pattern is also known as mahi, the Persian word for fish.

Another is Mina Khani, a repeating arrangement of daisy-like flowers connected by a network of lines called a trellis. This pattern is particularly associated with rugs from Varamin.

The Joshaghan pattern consists of a repeating grid, or lattice, filled with small shrubs drawn in angular, stair-step shapes. These geometric forms give the design a structured appearance.

The Bakhtiari Kheshti pattern, also known as the garden design, divides the rug into separate panels. Each panel resembles a small section of a garden and may contain cypress trees, flowering trees, or other plants.

Another traditional design is boteh, the curved, teardrop-like shape commonly known as paisley. In this pattern, multiple boteh shapes are arranged in repeating rows. Finally, Moharramat uses repeating stripes to create the overall design.

How NAQSHE Represents These Patterns

Although some of these patterns originally come from sophisticated city workshops, NAQSHE does not reproduce them with perfectly smooth curves. Instead, it draws them using small, visible steps, similar to the way a village weaver would create them using individual knots.

Imagine trying to draw a circle on a sheet of graph paper by filling in individual squares. Because each square has straight edges, the circle will appear slightly jagged rather than perfectly round. NAQSHE uses the same principle to represent traditional Persian rug patterns.

In other words, NAQSHE combines the patterns and techniques of traditional Persian rug weaving with a digital grid-based design. The raj determines how many knots are available to create the pattern, the weaving style controls its level of detail, and the traditional motifs give each design its character.

Traditional dyes came from plants and insects. Madder root gives reds; indigo gives blues; weld and other plants give yellows, and greens come from dyeing blue over yellow. Insect dyes such as kermes and cochineal give crimsons. Dark browns and blacks often used an iron mordant that slowly eats the wool, so in old rugs the dark outlines sit lower than the pile around them.

Wool was dyed in small batches, and no two batches match exactly. The bands of shifting colour this leaves across a rug are called abrash, and collectors value them. Some NAQSHE carry an Abrash trait: a stripe drifts into a neighbouring shade partway along, as a new batch of yarn would.

The six palettes are named after this tradition: Madder, Indigo, Saffron, Kermes, Celadon and Charcoal. The names describe the colour of each palette, not the dye: saffron, for one, was too costly and fugitive to dye carpets with.

Persian rugs are often named for where they are made. A few of the best known:

TabrizNorthwest

An old trading city and one of the largest weaving centres; famous for range rather than one look, from medallions to pictorial rugs.

HerizNorthwest

Village rugs with bold, angular medallions drawn from memory, hard-wearing wool and strong reds.

KashanCentral

Fine, dense rugs with a central medallion on a deep red or blue field; its weaving skills are on UNESCO's list.

IsfahanCentral

The Safavid capital. Very fine knotting, often on silk foundations, with balanced floral medallion designs.

NainCentral

A 20th-century centre known for fine rugs in ivory and blue, often highlighted with silk.

KermanSoutheast

Soft, curvilinear designs and a wide, often lighter palette; long made for Western markets.

QashqaiFars, south

Nomadic weavers of the Fars region: geometric medallions, small animals and stars, wool on wool.

NAQSHE

The design drawn on squared paper, one square per knot, that the weaver follows.

Matn

The field: the central area inside the borders.

Toranj

The central medallion.

Lachak

A corner piece: a quarter of the medallion, set into each corner of the field.

Hashieh

The border, usually a main band framed by narrower guard stripes.

Abrash

Variation of colour along a row, from wool dyed in separate batches. Prized as a sign of hand dyeing.

Warp, weft

The lengthwise threads the knots are tied around, and the crosswise threads beaten down between rows.

Selvedge

The overcast long edges of the rug. The fringe is the warp ends at the short edges.

Senneh, Ghiordes

The asymmetrical (Persian) and symmetrical (Turkish) knots.

Raj

Knot density: the knots in a row across about seven centimetres. Here it is 20, 25, 30 or 40, and sets the Knots trait, 40 × 56 to 80 × 112.

Herati, mahi

An all-over field of rosettes in diamonds, each flanked by curved leaves likened to fish.

Mina Khani

An all-over field of daisies joined by a diamond trellis, typical of Varamin.

Kheshti

The garden design: the field divided into panels, like bricks, each with a tree or a plant.

Boteh

A tear-shaped motif with a curled tip, the source of the paisley.

Moharramat

A field of stripes running the length of the rug, each with a small repeating motif.