Floorcovering: rugs

A pile rug to form a floor covering, comfortable, warm and as portable as his tent must have seemed an epoch-making discovery to the shepherd, and in time it proved to be so for the world.

Once the knotted rug had been invented its supreme efficiency for its purpose made it obvious that its use would spread far and wide, but that use also ensured that but few specimens could, in the nature of things, survive the ages.

The marvel is that there are so many lovely rugs, centuries old, to be seen today and it seems likely that we owe their existence to the facts that they were much in demand for use in sacred buildings where they would be treated with care and also that they were frequently used as hangings.