Region
Kurdistan-wide
Kilim weaving — flat-woven pile-less rugs — is among the oldest and most identity-laden of Kurdish crafts. Women weave the kilim on a horizontal wooden loom inherited from their grandmothers, using locally-spun sheep's wool dyed with plant pigments: walnut for brown, madder for red, saffron for yellow, indigo for blue. Every motif means something the village can read: the 'eye' wards off envy, the 'diamond' brings fertility, the 'comb' stands for marriage, the 'scorpion' drives away evil. Each Kurdish village has its own visual vocabulary. The weaving is a collective women's work, taking months; the village gathers in 'kilim circles' around the loom, and a girl's coming of age is marked when her mother grants her the first kilim that bears her name.