Anomaly War Rugs

ID#:2081, Shahyaad Square Mashadi Rug with Police Cars (Called Azadi Square after Islamic revolution This Iranian rug depicts a pair of cars, one dark green and one fluorescent blue in front of the Azadi Square monument. A tree and a tall plant sit on either side of the monument with some text at the top of the rug. Between the two cars sits a fluorescent blue stoplight. The main border is comprised of blue, orange, red, and purple flowers outlined in a dark green on black background. The borders on the top and bottom sides of the rug seem to be 'squished' compared to those on the right and left.

ID#:2069, Rug memorializing Ayatollah Khomeini's return from France, dated with date of Khomeini's return to Iran This colorful Iranian rug depicts Ayatollah Khomeini's return from France, dated with date of Khomeini's return to Iran. Note the French flag on the tail of the plane. The thin main border is comprised of small red, green, blue, and orange squares on a white background with black borders.

ID#:2067, Shahyaad Square Rug with Car This small Iranian rug features rich color and bright accents of flourescent greens and blues. It depicts two cars, one red and one green, in Azadi Square. Two multicolored trees sit to the right and the left of the structure in the center. The border is comprised of white, green, and brown diamond patterns on a red background. There is some fading in the wool of the borders however the bright colors of the main field are unaffected.

ID#:2066, Unusual Rare War Rug with Birds This unusual rug features four large red medallions running down the center. On either side of the medallions sits trucks, helicopters, and at the bottom two large orange and red birds sing towards the sky. Two building-shaped motifs sit at the top of the rug between rows of potted plants. The potted plants below the buildings have a unique bright neon blue center, the only place in the rug with this color. Above the buildings are two bright green dots.

ID#:2056, Yellow War Rug

ID#:2052, Mixed Ten Tank and Car Style Afghan War Rug

ID#:2040, Exhibited in Miami Universit Art Musuem WTC Rug with Flight Numbers

ID#:2023, Three Building War Rug A prominent war rug aficionado and I have been trying to ID this building. I have been convinced that it is specific place. This rug is supple, the wool is soft and shiny. 1980s. Good drawing especially of secondary image weapons. Excellent tanks. UPDATE: Building is perhaps a series of dome-shaped houses in perspective behind elongated yards and trees (the long 'stripes' below the triangular shapes).

ID#:2009, Baba Saqal Design Latif Chel War Rug -NEW PHOTOS & DESCRIPTION Latif Chel. This is a very rare Turkmen rug dating from the early 1980s. Baluchi weight and feel, but medallions are called by Parsons "Baba Saqal".

ID#:1651, Cloudburst Medallion with Helicopters and Special Border Price on request This rug has many beautiful qualities. The border is fantastic. There is a very unusual line of helicopters with pots of flower's on each side. The medallion is totally unique and has hints of Bessarabian kilim. The animals are amazing, but it is the three female figures at the bottom that are really special. The rug is well knotted from excellent smooth wool. The dedication to the border drawing is a testament to the good materials and craft. This rugs drawback is that water damage has produced some bleeding and color runs It would be nice read the illegible English writing, so if you can translate the legible script translate the text, please contact us

ID#:1642, Two Vases with Airplanes Carpet is in new condition. Purchased in 2003

ID#:1466, Lion Rug This older rug shows some wear. Also, knotting is atypical, knots are small and compact, but look oddly pixilated from back. The color blue is exceptional, ant typical of rugs like this with good wool and fine knotting. This rug was woven by the same weaver as rug #883 (sold).

ID#:1461, Post 2001 Style War Rug This is a style of rug which appeared after the boom of interest in war rugs after 2001. This style features a combination of styles found here on warrug.com: 10 Tank style, Car Style, and Rows of Weapons style. I've seem my competition offer these as

ID#:1435, Large Afghan Map Rug Overall condition good. Small ink stain at intersection of Kabul, Kapisa, Parchvan, and Kanerz provinces. This rug could use a wash, dirt areas: border of Baheen and Oruzagan provinces, middle of Oruzagan province.

ID#:1434, Large Farah Very good for rug of its age. Long pile throughout

ID#:1300, Very Early White Field War Rug This early war rug features blue and maroon planes and helicopters alternating with large geometric medallions typical for this sort of rug. The border consists of alternating trucks and helicopters with plain blue and brown guard stripes. A high quality rug, there is some damage and large repairs in the top center of the rug in addition to some heavy wrinkling.

ID#:1142, Detailed World Map Rug with Script This colorful world map rug with its bright orange, red and turquoise features tons of Farsi script which gives the field a textural feel. The countries are drawn in relatively fine detail compared to other world map rugs, however there are some interesting proportions going on with some countries. The bottom of the rug features lines of world maps (but in the color scheme of the rest of the rug, so only orange, turquoise, red, and navy.)

ID#:1133, Large Four Map Rug - This unique rug features not one, but *four* maps showcasing Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other surrounding countries. This map is repeated three times, however for some reason the map in the top left is a mirror image and backwards. Below each map sits an image of an arrangement of different upside-down buildings. Above each map is a small pair of world maps with red oceans. Around each of the maps is a border consisting of the flags of what appears to be random countries, including the UK, USA, Afghanistan, the Netherlands, and others. The top and bottom borders consist of what looks to be faded tan and brown tanks. A thick geometric border surrounds the rug as well as separates the quadrants of the four maps. Probably used as a multi-person prayer rug, the political nature of the imagery on this rug is thought provoking.

ID#:1109, George O'Bannon's Gul i'Birjista Excellent

ID#:1108, World Map Rug This giant world map rug features abstracted depictions of the countries of the world, as well as their flags (including Israel and the United States) along the border. The cloudy blue of the background makes for a good ocean, and the bright contrasting oranges, reds, greens, yellows, and blues help define the countries. The names of the countries are written in Farsi script. The Soviet Union is notably still intact on this rug, probably dating it to before the split in 1991. This rug does not lay flat, but is perfect for hanging on a wall as an art piece. There is an approximately 2in long cut in the lower right side of the rug.

ID#:1096, Early War Runner This long runner features a field of alternating helicopters, rows of grenades, trucks, rifles, and smaller motifs. The dark colors of the motifs blend in slightly with the dark color of the field. The border consists of a large main border filled with helicopters, jets, and guns, while the smaller border is composed of rows of rifles. Small signature figure in bottom right corner in the inner guard stripe, second figure from the bottom. There are some minor areas of moth damage, holes, and repairs in this rug. Some of the orange is bleeding into the light colors of the rug.

ID#:1082, Early Large Format Landscape Afghan War Rug Price on request The condition of this rug is excellent and virtually new despite its age. The array of plants drawn in diverse styles creates a visual rhythm drawing the viewer's eye around the carpet. The designs blends abstract imagery with rhythmic patterning. The colors are classic Taimani with red, blue, burgundy, and an array of marled colors which give depth to the landscape. The simply drawn armor arrayed along a road in a column is common in 1980's war rugs. The architecture in the corners is an interesting accent, and the English characters suggest the rug is from later in the 1980's. The border features white sumac behind the pile medallions which is called gul-i-birjista. Slight bleeding of rust color into blue and white marled sky, otherwise condition is excellent.

ID#:1070, MIG War Rug A very unique rug featuring a detailed profile view of a Soviet aircraft in camouflage. The plane reads '92' on the side with a red star on the back tail fin. Russian (?) letters are written in black above the aircraft. Multicolored geometric figures and flowers fill in the negative space around the plane. The small zigzag of the fringe adds a touch of intricate detail to the rug. Condition note: Jan 2024: return from Kenyon: repair within light blue bomb under plain, and large diamond shaped patch under the wing

ID#:1062, Woman and Bus War Rug The pattern on this rug is an interesting and known pattern. The field is split down the center with an elaborate geometric stripe, and on either side a pattern of alternating seated women and orange busses intermingles with small flowers and other motifs. The colors in this rug are striking, bright neon pinks intermingle with faded abrashed aqua blues, and the bright orange and navy blues fill out the busses and the faces of the figures. The border mirrors the center stripe, with interlocking wave patterns forming the outer border. The bight orange is bleeding into the pale tan background in some places.

ID#:1011, Unusual Three Medallion War Rug with Little Helicopters Very good, especially for age. Full pile, little bit of sarnach, damage on kilim ends, little wear on selvedge in one spot. Basically very good.

ID#:1004, World Map Baluchi Rug with Mir Border This rug features a small very abstracted world map (the design of which is probably copied from an atlas as attributed by the maps on the bottom) captioned in Farsi script. Below the map are rows of tiny world flags. The top and bottom thirds of the field are composed of village scenes with RPGs, rifles, planes, helicopters, and firing tanks running through the roads. Small dated text is visible over the top edge of the map in the road. These scenes are all separated by brightly colored green, red, and orange geometric guard stripes. A succession of different borders and guard stripes containing flowers, abstract and geometic motifs, and smaller shapes forms the outside of the rug. Possibly influenced by the works of Alighiero Boetti.

ID#:980, Beige Field War Rug with Vases of Flowers and Four Helicopters. Excellent, very good wool, full pile, good sheen, minor well done repair in the field. Little bit of sarnach. Densely knotted. Good thick pile, on scale of 1-100, a 95. Price reduced on 1/29/14

ID#:951, Small Tank Saddle Bag A rectangular blue bag in a style that has previously been used as 'saddle bags' for horses, now usually used for motorcycles. The front of the bag shows a tall tank surrounded by multiple thin borders with various geometric patterns. The back includes a large red and green medalion on a blue field surrounded by squished 'Z' shapes. The border is made up of some sort of purple and white flower pattern. Six bushy tassels wrapped in a decorative wool cord, three on each side, keep the sides of the bag closed. Three of these cords are becoming unraveled from their tassels. A multicolored fringe of long wool hangs from the bottom of the bag.

ID#:936, Red, Green and Blue Pillow War Rug **Knots are estimated** The nice blue, red, and green in the border of this pillow add some richness. One of our best pieces. The tanks are very similar to those found in Two Ewer War Rugs. The long red, green, and blue false fringes on either side add some flair, as do the three tassles adorned with white shells in three of the four corners.

ID#:929, 3 Medallion War Rug with Sprouts This unique blue rug features a large medallion in the center with winding green vine-like structures surrounding. Helicopters are interspersed with green, brown, and red 'sprout' shapes throughout the rug, similar to this rug. The border consists of small rectangular medallions. Some damage in the center left side of the rug (old moth damage?).

ID#:925, Motorcycle Torba This vivid motorcycle bag features an image of a motorcycle beneath two helicopters on one side, and a red and green medallion on the other. Waves, swirls, and flowers make up the guard stripes around the composition. Tassles of purple, yellow, green, pink, and red wool thread line the outer edge of the bag.

ID#:892, Saddle Bag War Rug This large red bag is characterized by the two separate rugs that have been sewn together- the 'front' is a typical woolen woven rug pile, while the 'back' is all kilim in a wide stripe pattern. The front of the bag is red with a variety of tanks, hand guns, smaller tanks, grenades, bullets, and helicopters filling the space of the field. In contrast, the main border is made up of yellow, blue, green, and white flowers.

ID#:891, War Torba Unusual bag made with red wool pile for the 'front' and brown, orange, and blue plain weave and weft substitution kilim. 7 dangly orange and brown closure loops are attached at the mouth of the bag, but the loops on the other half of the bag are missing. Large trucks, helicopters, jets, rifles, mines, and various geometric shapes fill the space in the red main field. The border is made up of a pattern of brown triangles and green and grey lines.

ID#:797, Wife of Toopaq Dated 1983 A large rug rich with color, this might have been a multi-person prayer rug accommodating up to 6 people as signified by the six pointed buildings/solidly colored areas. Six colorfully banded medallions are distributed between the rows of pointed shapes. Between the top and bottom row of pointed shapes sits a bird atop a tree, a symbol of good luck. The negative space is filled with small helicopters, rows of tanks, planes, and camels. The two pointed shapes in the center of the rug are filled with various colorful four-legged animals and birds. The main border of tanks is typical of early war rugs. This is contrasted with the two equally sized guard stripes of flowers and shapes.

ID#:750, Red Washed Sofreh (On Loan) Sumac border This unique square red rug features a composition composed of two large red rifles on either side of a long medallion. Poppies grow above and below the medallion with trucks and helicopters on either side of the uppermost flowers. Bullets and symbols fill out the negative space. The rug features two equally sized borders, one with pile that features small medallions and diamonds. The outermost border is sumac and features patterns with stars, chevrons, waves, and other geometric forms.

ID#:318, Camel Medallion Herati Afghan War Rug with Tank Border This newish rug is in very good condition. This is an excellent rug. The wool is soft, fine and dense. It is well knotted. It has a most pleasurable sensation underfoot. The sheen is silky and lustrous. It represents the best kind of Baluchi rug from western Afghanistan. The pattern of this rug is unique and does not fit into any style. The tank border is reminiscent of ""Two Ewer"" rugs or ""Golden Border"" rugs, but the we have never seen this kind of medallion in any Afghan Baluchi rug, war or otherwise. The main camel medallion color is undyed wool, probably camel wool. The smaller square medallions are very unique, and the brown outer portion is again undyed wool. The colors, from the camel to the green centers are beautifully keyed together. The different sized motifs throughout the rug make a strong composition. The large motifs, the camel medallions, contrast well with the small motifs in the field and the medium sized tank motifs on the border. Simply, a great rug.

ID#:298, Afghan Map rug with Sun Rising Over Mountains - No Weapons The condition of this new Afghan rug is perfect. This rug showcases the beautiful Tora Bora mountain region with the sun seen between two peeks and various wildlife and flowers. The colors used are wonderfully vivid and the two shades of blue used next to each other are particularly nice. By all technical means, this has no commonly known ""war"" images of weapons. However, we feel they are important art forms to be included in a war rug collection. This is because these rugs are derived from war rugs, and also because many maps were first charted for reasons either for war, or as a result of war. Territory and border disputes are often the only, and oldest, reasons for war.

ID#:147, Black Tank Border Runner w/ Airplane Burka This rug is one of a pair of war rugs in a runner format from the Soviet era. Both are very beautiful and in good condition given their age. Both rugs have all the best qualities on looks for in war rugs. They have super wool, excellent sheen, interesting and unique patterns, interesting structural elements, and rich colors. The overall condition of this rug is very good, particularly given its Soviet era vintage. The condition issues are: there are a couple spots where a single knot is missing (see pictures), mostly from ""sarnach"" (means ""head of the tread, sarnach are spots where warp of weft threads have been tied to extend there length and there is either a small bump where the knot is or a tuft of foundation thread sticking up through pile.), there is low pile on one end, some of the ornamental fringe is missing (see pictures), and there is minor bleeding on one corner. These issues taken into consideration, this is a super rug. Beautiful wool, well knotted, interesting design, nice structural elements, gorgeous sheen. The color has softened from a blue black to a charcoal and purplish black. It has nice abrash. The white trucks in the border exemplify the beautiful wool used in this war rug. The design is very unusual with the clunky trucks and APCs in the borders and the artistically drawn airplanes on the inner guard stripe. The planes appear to be both fighters and bombers. Some war rugs feature a figure of a woman in a burka. These are mostly seen in the ""Golden Border"" style. This rug has the best example seen with one airplane showing the lattice face piece of the Afghan style burka. It is depicted in a grid of dots where the face is. This type of double imagery shows the craftiness of these Afghan folk artists to illustrate their human position in the world. This rug really demonstrates the benefit of an older rug, as well as how beautiful and older war rug can be.

ID#:138, Black Tank Border w/ Long Fringe and Neon Diamonds This rug is one of a pair of war rugs in a runner format from the Soviet era. Both are very beautiful and in good condition given their age. Both rugs have all the best qualities on looks for in war rugs. They have super wool, excellent sheen, interesting and unique patterns, interesting structural elements, and rich colors. First lets examine the effects of age. One corner has a wear one inch into the kilim skirt. That corner also is missing some of the supplemental fringe, and there is some where between the bands of weft substitution, but the other fringe is in better condition. . This rug has a repiled repair that spans 2 inches by 7 inches in the airplane border. There is also some ""sarnach"" (means ""head of the tread, sarnach are spots where warp of weft threads have been tied to extend there length and there is either a small bump where the knot is or a tuft of foundation thread sticking up through pile.) on the top end where one sees grey specs of weft in the black field. Please see photos. This is an excellent war rug, as is its mate. One particularly unusual feature of this rug is the series of brightly colored diamonds running up the middle of the rug. They definitely are not wool, and when we burn tested them the material had an ash like silk. We have never seen this type of decoration on any war rugs. In addition the burgundy medallion color is beautiful. There is nice abrash in the field color. The wool is the best: soft, lustrous, felt like and strong. The black color is used primarily to represent mourning which accents the weapons in a poignant way. The way the medallions sit on the burgundy pole with the arrow at the top is reminiscent of a tree of life design. This war rug, and its mate, are some of the very nicest.

ID#:77, Prayer with Two Cars and Stinger This prayer war rug is new. The prayer format is defined by the arch at the top center, as well as the house forms in the top corners. The rest of the design is uncommonly organized, with a clutter of urban and rural motifs throughout the field including three cars. At first these three cars appear to be the only modern imagery, but closer examination reveals a stinger missile hidden in the lower field. It may be an example of art imitating life but often Stinger missiles appear hidden in designs. Stinger missiles are the most rare of weapons depicted in war rugs. This could because, according to one account, the US supplied only 500 pieces, so a limited amount of people would have actually seen or used them. Also they were not introduced in Afghanistan until late 1986. Please see the third picture down of this rug to see a similar depiction of a Stinger missile click here. The Stinger in this rug is dissected. The top half is to the left and the bottom half is to the right, on the right side of the red dots. This war rugs condition is excellent. The colors are dark with a predominantly black field. Black is typically used in mourning rugs. Red is combined with blue for a purple effect which is rare. The border's primary color is undyed wool. The back of this war rug has a corduroy feel and texture.

ID#:33, Pickup Truck  Afghan War Rug with Stinger Missile This is a very unusual rug. Composition is unusual but not totally unique. The pickup truck image is unique, particularly with the heavy machine gun mounted in back of truck. Please note the drawing of the second heavy machine gun. I propose this rug is woven by a man. The drawing of second gun could only be done by someone with detailed knowledge of this weapon. The weaver must know and be comfortable with the inner workings of this weapon to be able to depict it in such detail.

ID#:16, Red Cicatu Afghan War Rug (On Loan) Excellent. Beautiful fringe. Thick braided weft brocade on kilim end. Uneven length pile. Lots of abrash in the red ground. This unique rug is allegedly from the estate of a Russian Diplomat and has a great red and blue-grey color scheme. Featuring unique fringe closures and interesting patterns, this rug is different than any seen before by warrug.com. The main motifs appear to be vases with flowers, a common motif in rugs we've seen. However the vases also contain goats. Goats are also visible beside the vase, along with birds, vars, helicopters, and other small figures. A flock of white birds takes up the center of the rug. The border of this rug doesn't seem to have any defined edge, instead a collection of white lines and shapes travels around the outside of the rug. The very edge of the rug shows a blue-grey border with white flowers inside of which are multicolored dots.