Market Scene : On a Magic Carpet Buy in Old Damascus : The thrill and anguish of bargaining for a Bokhara or a Persian floral is a specialty of the Middle East.

“Perhaps you’d like some tea,” suggested David, setting the hook.

The early rounds were over.

The customer had entered, as casually as possible, the emporium of Oriental goods and antiques run by David and his brothers just off the Azem Palace Square in the Old City of Damascus. He had edged around the main floor, fingering some brass work, glancing at inlaid boxes--displaying, he hoped, vague disinterest.

Then, he ducked into the darkened room at the corner of the shop.

This was it. The arena.

The lights flicked on, and David stood in the doorway.

“Oh, are you interested in a carpet?” he ventured. “You’re in luck. We have some very fine ones right now. The tourists have not been coming to Damascus recently. This is the time to buy.”

“Just looking,” answered the customer.

“Fine, fine,” said David, reaching to the top of one of the towering piles, pulling down a Caucasian carpet and flopping it open on the floor. “Please, take a seat, take a look.”

He rolled out the merchandise, one on top of the other, commenting on the merits of each: deep red Bokharas, rough but charming Afghan tribals, classic Persian florals. Any positive answer brought forth more carpets in the same style, and as interest was focused, the offer of tea was made.

“Sure, thanks,” responded the customer, and within moments one of the younger brothers brought in a glass of the warm, sweet brew.

The niceties completed, the field narrowed, it had come to the point of no or yes, and how much?

Bargaining for carpets follows informal variations. The customer asks the price. The seller names it. At that point, the customer may coolly take a sip of tea, ask to see another carpet or look stricken and stagger for the door.

If he stays in the game, he makes a low counteroffer, and the merchant responds with a cut in his price. This is the moment of decision. No offense is taken if the bargaining breaks off at this point, but if the customer comes back with a second counter, the assumption is that a deal will be made, that it’s now only a matter of narrowing the difference on price.

This day, David made his sale. The carpet, a dusty old Persian Shiraz, was folded and wrapped in butcher paper. The customer was assured that he’d made a very fine deal and walked to the door, package in hand. “Come again,” said David, smiling.

Hard bargaining, the thrill and anguish of it, is a speciality of the Middle East, where many of the carpets are made, although the same game is played in carpet showrooms in Europe, Asia and the United States. Every large Middle Eastern city has a range of dealers, from the small, stuffy shops in the souks, the colorful Arab bazaars, to glass-fronted stores in air-conditioned malls near the big hotels.

In cities such as Damascus and Tehran, there are hundreds dealing in traditional rugs, and serious souk shoppers are led up corkscrew staircases for a look a the best--and most expensive--stuff. Prices can range from around $100 to many thousands.

In Cairo, the chichi shops of fashionable Zamalek are selling plump cushions, in the Turkish style, made of carpet remnants. Other popular haunts are the old souks in Aleppo, Syria, and Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf.

Istanbul is regarded as the finest feast in carpetdom, serving up prayer rugs that measure about 3 feet by 5 feet to full-sized carpets, which can go 12 feet by 16 feet, as well as long, narrow runners for hallways.

“Price is not the question,” say the dealers. “The question is whether you like this carpet.”

But for the beginning buyer, tourist or expatriate living in the Middle East, price is a nagging question. None gets through the day of purchase without feeling a wrench in the stomach and a certainty that he’s been had and that the merchants are doubled with laughter behind the closed shop door. There is no cure but to prepare harder for the next outing and assure yourself that you do indeed “like this carpet.”

Certainly, the price is flexible. A dealer in the Arab Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem set a price of $1,500 on a murky-colored Beluch. A snorted response sent the man back to his stock. “Ah,” he said. “We have several like that. You can have it for $700.”

Hand-knotted Persian carpets remain the prize items on the market, as they have since the 16th Century when the shahs of what is now Iran established carpet-making schools and manufacturing centers. They created a classic style for the designs of Asiatic tribesmen, who developed carpet-making techniques for floor and wall coverings of their nomadic tents.

Fine rugs are still made in Iran, although experts say the quality of the work was diminished at the time of the last shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The shah instituted a child labor law prohibiting the employment of young girls, whose tiny fingers tied the tightest knots.

As with any work of art--which handmade carpets are--there is no conclusive answer as to which is best, no guide for the inexperienced purchaser but to buy what one likes, so long as it is in good condition. But there are some magical names, head-turners, which like all carpet names are drawn from the city or region of origin. When the man says Esfahan, Qom (both Iranian cities) or Kashmir, take a look, but get a grip on your wallet.

With few exceptions, Oriental carpets are made on a backing of woven wool, or wool and cotton, and sometimes with silk or camel or goat hair. As the weaving progresses, the carpet maker builds a fleecelike pile into the material by knotting loops of wool, silk or some other material along the long, warp threads. One of two traditional knots are used, the Turkish or the Persian. The loose ends of the knotted loops are later scissored to create a level pile.

If the origin of a carpet is not clear from the colors, size and design, experts flip the carpet over to look at the weave, and some can spot the very village of the maker, it is said.

A tighter knot--the more knots per square inch--is cited by some experts as a measure of superiority. A tight knot makes a firm, almost stiff rug, and the classic Persians, which draw the highest auction prices, have high knot counts. These rugs should wear better, and the tighter knots permit a more intricate, curvilinear design--the so-called florals. But many buyers favor the more informal look of the geometric designs of village artisans, sensing a freer, less-schooled expression in the nomadic tradition.

Another measure of quality is the color in the carpet, more precisely the combination of colors and how they work into the design. Before the introduction of chemical dyes in this century, variety was limited by the availability of natural dyes, which were derived from plants, like the red of the madder root, or from insects and other animals, like cochineal red, produced from the dried body of a wood louse. Most traditional carpets run heavy to deep reds and blues.

The introduction of the synthetic dyes, now widely used, has alarmed some traditionalists. “I don’t know what’s gotten into these Afghan tribesmen,” said a dealer in Pakistan. “They’re using synthetics, and the most garish shade of orange.” The Afghans, drawing on life experience, and also working new motifs into their carpets, like helicopters and rockets.

Age is also a factor in price. “This is an old piece,” the dealer will whisper, though perhaps as an excuse for the worn spots or ragged fringe. Nevertheless, moneyed collectors are looking for something with more than a few decades on it, even though modern copies of the same design may be superior by every measure except the calendar.

In Dubai, according to a traveler, merchants take new Persian carpets out to the street and let city buses roll across them for a little tenderizing.

It is the combination of design, color, workmanship and perhaps age that attracts the informed buyer and, of course the right price. But many Westerners, to the dismay of the traditionalists, come into the shops with swatches of their couch upholstery, looking for a match. And with the Santa Fe look in vogue, dealers are hard-pressed to come up with something pastel.

Changing tastes are but one of the swings in the trade. Another has been the post-World War II emergence of Pakistan, India and Eastern Europe as major producers of copies of classic Persian and Chinese designs. Most dealers now stock Pakistani carpets but not always without a sniff.

“You know what they call these things?” said Hagop Kouyoumdjian, a dealer in Nicosia, Cyprus, rubbing the plush, velvety pile of a Pakistani Bokhara. “They call them Pakistani blankets.”

Hagop--”Call me Jack”--and his brother, Vahe--Armenians, like many Oriental carpet dealers in Europe and the United States--say the current hot tickets are the bright-colored kilims . These are woven, not knotted, and have no pile. The price is right, usually a quarter or less of the knotted rugs. Machine-made carpets of synthetic wool are also popular for their price.

The Kouyoumdjian brothers have adjusted to the market although they personally favor the old styles. They no longer make the trip to Tehran to increase their stock, since the Iranian government has largely taken over the carpet trade.

Many of the carpets reaching Nicosia come from traveling Iranian or Soviet tourists, who are forbidden to leave their countries with much hard currency but often tuck away a rug or two for sale on the outside. In Damascus, a dealer was selling Iranian kilims smudged black with rubber from the spare tire of the bus in which they were smuggled out.

“The handmade Persians will last for 50 years or more and increase in value,” Vahe Kouyoumdjian said, offering his visitor a cup of sweetened coffee, the Cypriot variant on tea. “Machine stuff you toss after 30 years.”

He waxed on with the verities of knotted rugs: “Every carpet has a story. It reflects the taste of the maker. Look at the harmony of the colors!”

A British authority, P. R. J. Ford, observed: “Just as every great composer can be said to have composed ‘by hand,’ so it is the creative hand of the weaver that provides the key to the carpet’s expressive power. . . . The desert nomad, struggling to create out of sheep’s wool and goat hair the flowers in the garden that he can never have, speaks to us through his carpet.”

Ford’s eloquence is not above the humblest carpet dealer in the Middle East or Asia. “Now this you must have,” insisted a dealer in Karachi, Pakistan, over a cold Coke on a hot day. “The man who made this, and his sons and their sons, have been blessed by Allah.”

Oriental Carpets: The Art and the Deal

Are they carpets or rugs?

American usage favors rugs for any handmade floor covering, whereas carpets are the machine-made, wall-to-wall stuff. In Europe and the Middle East, rugs refer to smaller pieces, usually those made for a Muslim’s daily prayers, and carpets are larger.

What is an Oriental rug?

Oriental rugs can be defined as a handwoven rug of natural fiber made in geographical areas that include the Near East, Middle East, Far East, and the Balkans. True Oriental rugs also share a common characteristic--the manner in which they are made.

How is an Oriental rug made?

A foundation of parallel threads (called warps) is stretched from one end of the loom to the other. The number of warp threads per square inch helps determine the fineness of the carpet. The more warp threads per square inch, the more intricate the design of the carpet can be.

The weaver begins the rug by interlacing a yarn (called the weft) perpendicular to the warp threads, alternating over and under each warp thread. The weft is then beaten down with a comb. Flat-weave rugs are woven entirely in this manner. In hand-knotted rugs, the weaver ties knots around the warp threads all the way across the rug, the weft thread is woven across the top of the knots and pounded down. Then another row is begun.

Oriental Carpets: The Art and the Deal

Warp threads

Weft threads

Turkish knots

Persian knots