Old Belouch wide runner rug

Ideal for adding warmth and visual interest to your home this characterful old Belouch wide runner rug will create comfort and texture to wherever you unroll it. 

This wide runner rug displays an intriguing design of rows of stylised trees or vases along with sweet small floral and animal emblems. The colour scheme of this wide Belouch runner rug is particularly appealing. It features a mature scheme of a charcoal-black background with detail shades of teal, terracotta and beige. 

Where you can use this old Belouch wide runner rug in your home

An excellent choice for use in a period property, the elongated format of this runner rug makes it a great option for use in hallways and wide corridors. Although this is an old runner (in the region of 30-40 years old), it still has plenty of life left in it. 

It was handmade with a woollen pile, which is both hard-wearing and luxurious. The pile is still a good thickness at approximately 7mm. 

The extra width of this Afghan Belouch runner is a handy option for use in other rooms. It is the sort of size that would look well at the foot of a bed. Padding across it bare-foot, you would really feel the plushness of it's woollen pile. 

Equally, this is a visually interesting rug to look at, so if the room allows, you could position it in a living room. Maybe running it behind a sofa or in front of an inglenook.  

Find out some more about this old wide runner rug

This wide-width tribal runner was handwoven by the Belouch tribe. The Belouch inhabit vast areas of land in western Afghanistan. The conditions of this area are harsh: ranging from scorching heat to biting cold. This is an arid landscape where trees hardly grow, the ones that do are revered. This probably explains the tree and floral depictions in this old Belouch runner. 

Discover some more about how this long Belouch rug was made

This Belouch runner rug was handmade by ancient weaving techniques. These rug making methods have been passed down through the generations, as have the interesting rug designs that spellbind our eyes. 

The woollen pile that we find so desirable, was handcrafted by a meticulous carpet weaving method known as hand-knotting. This is a time-consuming way of making rugs, but is steeped in tradition and the finished article is a long-lasting creation of beauty and uniqueness. 

On a hand-knotted rug such as this Afghan runner, each coloured tuft of pile is formed for a knot tied by hand onto pairs of woollen warp threads. The warp threads are the long strands of yarn upon which the rug is created. Handmade rugs will always have warp threads, and these can be of wool, cotton or silk fibres. Traditionally woollen warps indicate a tribal or nomadic origin. You can decipher what the warp threads are made from by examining the fringes of the rug, as the fringes are in fact the excess of the warps protruding at each end. 

This tribal runner-rug would have been woven by one weaver on a flat loom. She tied the knots in rows, knotting from one side of the loom to the other. Following this sequence of knotting by inserting weft threads between the warps and compacting these against the row of knots. These processes are repeated over and over. All of the different coloured knots contained in this weaving work together to form the pattern of the runner. 

Key details:

• Country of origin: Afghanistan
• Size: 278×112cm / 9’2″x3’8″ 
• Thickness: 7mm
• Pile: Wool, hand-knotted
• Warp: Wool
• Age: In the region of 30-40 years old
• Condition: Clean and full pile