The fascination of the persian Gabbeh nomades

In  Loristan, the fars province situated in the south west of Iran, the Gaschgai women, a nomadic tribe oft he bachtiar folk  have traditionaly  all times beeing knotting those rustical rugs.  Handknotted in an horizontal chair these carpets were  made for their own use oft the nomads. The rugs are elaborated with the wool of their own sheeps, they let the wool in ist natural unbleached state. The fat content  of the wool ist unchanged,  they use natural dies to tint the wool in the traditional colours. the thread of  the pile is of wool as well the thread of warp and weft are of wool. The pattern of these rustical rugs are the ancestral pattern, geometric forms like  hexagones and rhombuses, animals of their entourage.

In the festival of Cannes in the year 1996, the iranian film director Mohsen Makmalbaf  presented  his film production named Gabbeh.  It was the beginning of a great  enthousiasm for these nomadic carpet, people of different generations wanted to own such a carpet so that the  demand was still growing. Producers gave order to knot Gabbeh carpets in all european standard sizes. The patterns had become different from the original ones. They were rather plain and got the name Loribaft.

Carpet Galerie.com harbours those original pieces from former times when the the Gaschgai tribes were weaving for their own use, those pieces nowadays are valuable and rare. Depending of the tribe and the geografic  situation , the carpets are denominated, the names of these Gabbehs are Gaschgai or Beuer Ahmad.