Kashan Bazaar and World Famous Carpet Weaving
Explore the historic bazaar of Kashan and the carpet weaving tradition that has made Kashan carpets among the most prized in the world, where the distinctive medallion designs, fine knotting, and exceptional dyes of Persian carpet craft have been refined over five centuries.
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Grand Bazaar Entry
Enter the Kashan Grand Bazaar through its historic portal where the covered lanes of the market stretch ahead, the bazaar established in the Seljuk period and expanded through the Safavid and Qajar eras creating one of Iran's most complete examples of traditional bazaar architecture.
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Carpet Weaving Workshop
Visit a carpet weaving workshop where weavers work at vertical looms tying individual knots from hand-spun wool or silk onto the warp threads, the labor intensity of Persian carpet production — thousands of knots per square meter requiring months or years of work — explaining the extraordinary value of fine Kashan carpets.
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Design Cartoon Workshop
See the design cartoon workshop where the pattern for a new carpet is drawn on graph paper at the exact scale of the finished piece, each square representing one knot, the mathematical precision required to translate the flowing arabesque and floral designs of Persian carpet art into the grid of individual knots.
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Natural Dye Workshop
Visit a natural dye workshop where the traditional dyeing of wool and silk uses plant-based colorants — madder root for red, weld for yellow, indigo for blue, and pomegranate rind for various mordanted colors — producing the rich complex palette that distinguishes traditional Kashan carpets from those using synthetic dyes.
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Carpet Museum
Visit the Kashan carpet museum where historic examples spanning five centuries of production show the evolution of Kashan's signature style — the central medallion, the surrounding arabesque field, the multiple borders — from the Safavid period masterpieces to the finest 20th-century production.
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Carpet Merchant Meeting
Meet a carpet merchant in the bazaar where the complex knowledge required to evaluate Persian carpets — knot count, wool quality, dye authenticity, design attribution, age, and regional origin — is explained, the evaluation process for a single carpet requiring expertise accumulated over decades of experience.