I N T H E P U B LI C DO M AI N : A K H O T A N R U G A T T H E P O W E R H O U S E M U S E U M – TAASA Review December 2013

Christina Sumner T his colourful pile-weave village or workshop medallion rug was made in or near Khotan, an oasis city on the southern border of the Tarim basin in what was once East Turkestan, and is now Xinjiang province in Western China.

Khotan was on the southern route of the ancient Silk Roads and the area is traditionally inhabited by the Turkic language speaking Muslim Uighur people.

Written evidence suggests that carpets were woven in Khotan as early as the 7th century and, by the late 1800s, around 5000 carpets were being exported annually from Khotan and its surrounding villages...