Your complete guide to Amazigh rugs

The Amazigh people have lived in Morocco for more than five millennia. This is the case for the weaving of carpets, which also dates back several millennia.  The Amazigh carpet is part of the culture of this people whose manufacture is made by hand by women and is characterized by patterns and meanings that are part of a very ancient tradition. In this set of articles, in the form of a complete guide to Amazigh carpets, we will present everything you need to become professionals in Berber rugs. In other terms, these articles give you all you need to know about Moroccan and Berber rugs.

The manufacture is done by a hand-spun fabric that the Amazigh women created by bearing the name of the tribe concerned. These are natural fibers by which they create coats, carpets and several fabrics.

The origin of Amazigh carpets is the Middle Atlas and the plains around the red city of Marrakech. According to historians, the origin of Berber carpets dates back to the second century BC. 

The creation of these carpets is a traditional rural art practiced by nomadic or semi-nomadic Amazigh women in their rare hours of leisure to dedicate them to domestic use as mattresses or blankets for example. We can go further than that and consider that the Moroccan carpet is a work of art and a tool for Amazigh women to express their creativity.

Among the Amazighs, a carpet is a precious good and of which they are more proud. 

In those days, the loom was considered a revered and feared creature. It is dead when it is empty, it starts to be more alive than the threads stretched. 

Men are forbidden to use it. When the time comes to remove the carpet from the loom, the women begin to sing because for them it is death and a necessity to mourn.

In the weaving of carpets, the Amazighs use a specific knot called the Berber knot. 

A major characteristic of Berber carpets is that they are never made on model but according to the desire of the woman who makes them.

In the carpets there are certainly lines represented evoking symbols found in Amazigh art. For example, a zigzag line VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV means the phallic symbolism of the snake. Other symbols that you will certainly find in Berber carpets, for example the lattice, the diamond, the X succession that signify both femininity, mating and procreation. 

Recently, the Moroccan Berber carpet has become famous, especially the carpet of Beni Ouarain. This can be illustrated by the copies that the decoration brands make and sell.

That's why many experts of the Amazigh carpet share the thoughts of Timothy Wealon :

"I don't see them as a passing trend, but rather as a decorative element that will always be present in the interior design

So you will find different articles, a complete guide to Amazigh carpets, a complete guide to traditional Moroccan Rugs, to understand and know all the information about this unique work of art.