Rug No. has found its new home.
Every rug we sell is one of a kind, so that piece is gone. Here are others in the same spirit, or tell Rug Finder what you are looking for.
Gharajeh Rugs
Gharajeh (Karaja) lies near Heriz in northwest Persia and is best known for its geometric runners and stacked-medallion designs, woven mostly on deep red and burgundy fields with indigo and ivory in the drawing. The weave is sturdy and made for daily traffic. Most of ours are runners, with a group of small mats beside them, each a vintage piece without a twin.
Gharajeh: stacked medallions from the Heriz country
Gharajeh, sometimes written Karaja, is a village weaving tradition in the Heriz region of northwest Persia. Its signature is immediately recognizable: a column of two or three different medallions stacked one above the other down a long narrow field, each drawn geometrically and separated by clear ground.
Like its Heriz neighbors, a Gharajeh is built firm and solid, in hard-wearing local wool on a cotton foundation.
How to spot a Gharajeh
- Field: stacked medallions in a vertical column, alternating in form.
- Color: madder red and burgundy fields, with indigo, ivory and camel in the drawing.
- Weave: firm, hard-wearing village construction.
- Sizes: mostly runners, plus a good number of small mats.
Hallways and landings
The stacked medallion structure was made for long narrow spaces, which makes Gharajeh one of the best origins to look at for a hallway or a landing. The repeating vertical rhythm draws the eye down a corridor in a way a single medallion never can.
How a Gharajeh wears
Robustly. These are working carpets and they take traffic well, softening in color rather than wearing thin. The geometry stays clear.
Common Gharajeh questions
Is Gharajeh the same as Heriz?
They come from the same region and share construction. Heriz is usually a single large geometric medallion; Gharajeh is the stacked, multiple-medallion format, and tends to appear in narrower pieces.
Why is it spelled several ways?
Gharajeh, Karaja and Qaradja all describe the same village weaving.
Measuring a hallway for a Gharajeh runner
Of all rug shapes, runners are the ones people mismeasure most often. Take the full length of floor you want covered, then come in a little at each end so the Gharajeh stops short of the doorways instead of running under them. Leave a few inches of bare floor along each side; a runner pressed against both baseboards looks like fitted carpet and loses its pattern. If the corridor is longer than any one rug, two Gharajeh runners laid end to end with a small gap between them look deliberate.
Looking after a hallway Gharajeh
A runner in a busy corridor needs a little help. A rug pad is essential: it stops the runner creeping, adds comfort and absorbs a surprising amount of the wear that would otherwise reach the wool. Turn the Gharajeh end for end every six months or so, because hallway wear lands in one strip instead of spreading out, and vacuum without a beater bar.
Reading the photographs
On a runner, the ends take the most punishment, so look at those photographs carefully. Before listing, every Gharajeh here was professionally washed and cleaned by specialists we have trusted for years, and its condition was checked from end to end.
Picking the right Gharajeh
Measure your hallway before anything else, then look at how clearly the stacked medallions are drawn. No two Gharajehs here share a layout.
Gharajeh sits inside the wider Heriz weaving district. To see the whole district in one place, including Heriz and Gorevan, browse Heriz rugs.