What is a Kilim?
A kilim is a type of woven rug which is characterized by bright, bold designs. Kilims are made in Turkey and many parts of the Middle East, and they are frequently offered for sale in Middle Eastern markets and carpet stores. It is also possible to find kilims in antique shops and in Western stores which specialize in imported textiles and carpeting. Like many textiles, the kilim is designed to be used, rather than purely ornamental. As a result, few kilims more than around 100 years old survive, as wear grinds down the weaving and the threads slowly rot away. In a few instances, unique circumstances have preserved a kilim; one of the oldest known such examples is from around the fifth century CE. This rug suggests that the history of the kilim is quite ancient, and that Middle Eastern people have been weaving kilims for thousands of years. To make a kilim, the weaver stretches cotton or linen warp threads on a loom and then weaves brightly colored weft threads to create a pattern. The
A kilim is not a rug. “Kilim” is a Turkish word that actually refers to the way something is made, that is to the weaving technique. “Tapestry weave” and “flatweaving” are the closest terms to “kilim” we have in English. A kilim is always a weft faced fabric consisting of interlacing warps and wefts. The rectangular panels Westerners mistakenly call “kilim rugs” function in the tribal world as floor spreads to seat guests, tent and cottage hangings, dust covers on the bedding and luggage piles and loaded camels, covers to wrap bread, and as eating mats for guests. Kilim fabric also has been used for clothing and storage bags. In Anatolian tribal life the kilim is not only a multipurpose artifact of great utilitarian value but also an object of artistry.
A “Kilim” (sometimes called “gelim”) is a flat-woven Oriental rug, made much like Navajo rugs, without pile. They don’t generally last as long in floor use as the thicker knotted pile carpet (perhaps an average of about 35 years compared to 50-80 years of use) nor do they cost as much. Many collectors value kilims because often they retain the oldest and most traditional designs and colors. Check out our kilims here.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines kilim as “a pileless hand-woven reversible rug or covering made in Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran and Western Turkistan. From this definition another question arises: Are all kilims reversible? The answer is no. Kilims are also made in other regions like the Balkans or North Africa. So, how can the concept of a kilim be defined? The best definition could read as follows: “kilim: a word of Turkish origin which denotes a pileless textile of multiple uses produced by one of several flat weaving techniques that have a common or closely related heritage and are taken into practice in the geographical areas of Turkey (Anatolia and Thrace), Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, North Africa, the Balkans and the Caucasus”. Having solved the matter of a definition then a clarification should be made between a kilim rug and a carpet or pile rug. The design of a kilim is made by interweaving the colored wefts and warps–creating what is known as a fl
