Rose Red and Navy Four-Panel Kilim, Hand-Woven Wool

Material: 100 percent hand-spun wool, flat-woven with soumak embroidered banding. No pile.

Care instructions

• Always use a rug pad underneath — a flatweave slips easily without one.
• Vacuum gently with the beater bar off, working along the bands rather than across them.
• Turn the kilim over every year — it is reversible and wears evenly if used both sides.
• Blot spills immediately, working from the outside in.
• Have the kilim professionally cleaned when needed — never machine wash.

The cross dividing this field into four panels is the oldest layout in Central Asian weaving. Its origin is domestic rather than decorative: pieces of this shape once hung across the entrance of a yurt, and the cross marked where the opening fell. Weavers went on using the format long after the tents were gone, and it remains one of the few Afghan designs that is immediately recognisable across the whole region. Each of the four panels here is finely striped in navy and ivory, so the cross reads as bright red against them, and around it the borders build outward ring by ring in orange, lilac and green. It is a busier rug than most and rewards being looked at closely rather than glanced at.