Tracing to the Source of Qinghai Tibetan Carpets
Carpets are a world product with long history. Originally, carpets were made of animal hair and used for flooring, sitting, lying and resisting cold and damp. With practical value and decoration use, carpets insulate heat and noise, keep warm, with good flexibility and comfortable touch. They are good for interior decoration, bringing kind of noble, luxurious, beautiful and sightly atmosphere.

Use of the carpet can be traced back to 3000 years before in Babylon Kingdom, Sumeier Kingdom and Assyria Kingdom in Middle East. While in China, early back in Xihan Dynasty, over 1800 years ago, we had classified carpets as ‘rug’ and ‘felt’ according to different technics of warm mat (carpet), which was also recorded in ancient books. As per Shuo Wen ‘kneading hair into pieces makes felt’, while in "Origin of Substance", it says ‘rugs are wool mats woven with colorful flowers’. In other words, felts are made of sheep wool or cattle hair, which were watered, heated up and then extruded into pieces and finally used for flooring. Rugs are kind of textile made of
wool, hemp, silk and cotton, etc.

With its special geographical environment and long history, Qing-Tibet plateau gestates deep and profound Tibetan culture, and Tibetan carpet, as a national traditional handicraft with centuries-old developing history, takes a very important position in Chinese handmade carpet industry for its special technics and styles. Using famous ‘Xining Wool’ as the raw material, Qinghai Tibetan carpets are a kind of high-class adornment. They are multicoloured and show varied designs which make them enjoyable. Qinghai lies in the northeast of Qing-Tibet plateau where most Tibetan people live. Tracing back to Bronze Age of thousands of years ago, people started making Tibetan carpets there.

In 1959, lots of aba including woolen rope, woolen cloth and a relic of colorized woolen mat and spinning wheels in 10 century BC were unearthed in Taliha site in Dulan county, Haixi state, Qinghai province.
Among those, the colorized woolen mat, although experienced through 3000 years, still show visible stripe patterns woven of yellow, brown, red and blue color wool. This mat is the earliest piece by today and is also the rudiment of Qinghai Tibetan carpets. This is to indicate that 3000 years before, Qiang people who dispersedly live Qing-Tibet Plateau had mastered the technics of wool spinning and dyeing and they were capable of weaving colorized woolen mat with geometrical designs, ie, weaving carpet.

Meanwhile, it indicates that Qinghai is the origin of Tibetan Carpets. Qinghai Tibetan carpets were developed a lot in Qing dynasty. In the middle of Qing dynasty, many lama traveled to the capital city with carpets, royalty and nobility also purchased carpets in large quantity. Therefore, Tibetan carpets entered Beijing and got much attention from the emperor and all levels of governors. As per the recordation, this started in Tongzhi 10th age (1971), when
Tibetan lama went to Beijing for sightseeing, then stayed at the Baoguo temple at Zhangyimen street in Beijing. They recruited poor people and established the first civilian carpet workshop in Beijing and Tianjin area--- Carpet Institute.

With time passing by, Tibetan carpet technics gradually developed in the Qing-Tibet plateau, from ‘horseback rag’ to ‘horseback mat’ and to ‘Kadian’, then Tibet carpet came into being, which is one of four main series of Chinese carpets. Villagers Ma Dequan and Yang Xinchun from Jiaya village, Tibetan town, Huangzhong county, Qinghai province learned carpet weaving technics and ran in the family.

In 1913, there was one vocational school of carpet, weaving backhorse mats and carpets together with the villagers. All the village women were capable of twisting yarn and weaving carpets and their products are fancy and exquisite. Sometimes the yearly sale could reach over 6000 pcs in Huangzhong county and Weiwu, Gansu, etc. With the interflow of commodities and trade development, Tibetan carpet technics went around in nearby provinces and areas, such as Tibet and Gansu, etc. In the end of 1960s, some Tibetan people in Qing-Tibet plateau moved to live in Nepal and brought Tibetan carpet technics for living. Ever since then, Tibetan carpets got developed in Nepal. Till today, their raw materials for carpet are mainly Tibetan wool and Chinese dyestuff.

As per carpet use, Tibetan carpets are mainly divided into two kinds, one for temple and another for civilian. Temple carpets include Zen carpets, Streamer carpets, Column carpets, Tapestry carpets, Religious Dancing carpets and Curtain carpets, etc. This kind of carpet is practical and can convey the Buddhism information. Therefore, temple carpets are very rarefied in designs and color combination. Their designs include dragon, Buddha, eight lucky treasures, emery pestle and so on, which contain abundant Buddhism information. Civilian carpets feature more of their practicability. Kadian and carpets for indoor use, saddle carpets and cushion for nomad are all necessities for living in plateau. These Tibetan carpets mainly use bright colors and floral designs, and also Buddhism symbols and silk patterns. Nobility mostly use designs like tiger skin, lion skin, dragon & phoenix and flowers, while pauper mostly use floral and grass designs.