What’s a Rug Worth?

In 3,300 BCE, Otzi the iceman was murdered high on a mountain between Italy and Austria and was buried in a glacier until 1991. When he was killed, the area between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea (Georgia/Armenia/Azerbaijan) was being settled by diverse ethnic groups gradually leaving areas of the world which had become arid. Nomadic groups flowed through the Caucasus region, settling near water or in the mountains near rivers and streams. The world was changing, as Otzi might have foretold: nomadic migrating peoples needed transportable durable textiles for bedding, bundling, shelter, and storage. The method, style, and texture of the rugs made in the Caucasus region in the early days created their durability and longevity, as the rugs were non pile (flatwoven). If Otzi could have visited the region between Europe and Asia, which would have been a long walk as he was discovered in the mountainside between Italy and Austria, he would have met the artists who originated C’s style of rug.

C had been gifted such a rug (a Caucasian Soumak rug): she wanted to know what she had and if she should insure it.

In my book, which almost became a best seller(!) No Thanks Mom – The Top Ten Objects Your Kids Do Not Want, one of the top ten is Persian-style rugs. The market has a great deal of influence upon value, and even though the story I will tell of the amazing history of the Caucasian rug is ancient and rich, mid to late 30-year-olds do not want eyebright colors and the dizzying geometries of a Caucasian rug. So C’s rug is not worth much in the market, even though looking at photos I can tell it is pre-1925 and made with hand woven wool and natural (non-chemical) dyes. It should be worth more than it is, and 30 years ago was worth more than it is today. So no, C, I would not insure it as it will not be worth more than $800 replacement value, and less if you use a standard of value called fair market value (the most common price paid in the relevant market). 

Now that we have gotten the bad news delivered, I will cheer C up with the history of the ancient era during which her rug was invented and the first patterns laid down, which was the 4th millennium BCE (4,000 BC to 3,001 BC), the Bronze Age.

Even before cuneiform writing was fully developed, C, your rug pattern and method of weaving was being practiced. Weaving, the potter’s wheel, and linen-making were developing in this era in the city states of Sumer, in the Caucasus, and Egypt. At this time, the world began to practice animal husbandry and agriculture, even as the rugs woven in the Caucasus were made for individual tribes, who were nomadic. The population of the world doubled in the 4th millennium (over 1,000 years). Proto-cuneiform writing was introduced in Mesopotamia, even as the weavers in the Caucuses were developing patterns in their rugs that echoed animals, nature, the cosmos, with each tribe making their own shapes. As weavers wove, in other parts of the world mathematics were invented, so was astronomy and astrology, a kind of civil law, the sailboat, and the wheel (also the potter’s wheel: in Iran, not far from the weavers in the Caucasus, the first pots were being thrown). All over the world ethnic peoples practiced art for no reason except to picture their world in a symbolic (some say religious) fashion: as the first Caucasian rug was woven, an artist in Spain was painting the walls of his/her cave shelter with animals and shaman figures and handprints too. So although C’s rug is not a huge treasure in the market, it is a reminder of the dawn of the applied arts.

Jumping to the 19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century when C’s rug came off the loom, Russia took over the Caucasus and the Russian traders made certain regions in the Caucasus major exporters of the style of rug: Kuba, Shirvan, Kazak, Dagestan, Karabagh, using the old symbols executed in geometric forms in hand-spun wool and natural dyes. After 1925, this changed, and the growing popularity of Caucasian flat weaves, highly colorful rugs, meant that mass production began with mechanical spinning of the wool and chemical dyes, and less individualistic patterns and symbols.

C, I can say that there is a great difference between value and worth.