In the general market are found over fifty different kinds of rugs, most of which are named after the towns or districts in which they are made, from which they are marketed, or after the people who make them. There is generally also some slight difference in the weave, the material, the color, the design or the finish, which gives each class its distinguishing, technical character. Of late years, however, there has been such an intermingling of races and transmission of ideas from one country to another, that even the expert is often unable to identify a rug with the place in which it was made.

There is occasionally a dealer who has many of his own names which he uses to the extinction of all others and some of the names used in Western countries would not be recognized in the countries from which the rugs come. Under such circumstances classification becomes rather difficult and it is not to be wondered at that authorities sometimes disagree. Importers and dealers in Oriental rugs would find it greatly to their advantage if they had a strict rug nomenclature based on facts and if they discountenanced everything in the trade which tended towards charlatanism or inspired distrust in the minds of buyers.

In the classification to follow we will consider rugs from a geographical stand-point.

To begin, we will consider them in the following order: 1st, Persian; 2nd, Turkish; 3rd, Caucasian; 4th, Turkoman; 5th, Beluchistan; and 6th, Chinese.

No reference will be made to Indian rugs for the reason that, outside of the fact that they are made in India, they can nowadays hardly claim a right to be classed as Oriental products, inasmuch as they are wholly modern creations made merely upon a trade basis, often by machinery, and after designs furnished by American and European designers.

(a) After the village of Serab.
(b) Mountains.
(c) A Kurdish product, named after a city.
(d) More commonly called Sarakhs, after the city by that name, which is situated on the border line between Persia and Turkestan and within a few miles of Afghanistan. They are so called because the people who make them formerly came from this district.
(e) A corruption of the Persian word "roules," which means a pearl.
(f) A province.
(g) A district. Joshaghan is the English way of spelling it and Djoshaghan the French way of spelling it.

(h) A corruption of the word "Sarawan," the name of a district in Persia just south of Feraghan. The name has no connection whatever with the "Saraband Dance."
(i) Terms used for the different grades of rugs from the Sultanabad district.
(j) Laristan is a province in the Kirman district just south of Niris.
(k) Named after the city of Herat, which is not situated in Khorasan at all, but is across the Persian border in Afghanistan. They take this name for two reasons: first, because they are woven by people who formerly lived in Herat, but who, owing to political disturbances, settled in Khorasan; and second, because they are marketed at Herat.

(a) A corruption of the word "Laodicea."
(b) The word "Yuruk" means mountaineer.
(c) A corruption of the word "Milassa."

(a) Should be Kubistan or Kuban, as they are made at Kuba.
(b) Named after a tribe of people who inhabit the mountains north of Daghestan.
(c) A corruption of the word "Shemakha."
(d) Sometimes called Kashmir from the resemblance of the under side to that of Cashmere shawls.
(e) A province.
(f) Named after a tribe of Turkomans who live in the vicinity of Elizabethpol. Sometimes called Ganja, after the ancient name of Elizabethpol.
(g) Named after a tribe of Nomads inhabiting the hills around Lake Goktcha.

(a) Made by the Tekke-Turkomans who inhabit the plains to the west of the Oxus.

(b) The name of a tribe of Turkomans who inhabit the western end of Turkestan.
(c) Although these rugs are made in a region far distant from Turkestan, they are so similar to the Turkoman class that they are classified as such by several authorities.
Genghis, of the Caucasian class, being made by a tribe of Turkomans in the Caucasus and resembling closely the Turkoman productions, are classified as such by several prominent writers.