About Moroccan Tribal Rugs

Moroccan rugs provide designers with timeless, unique, and functional works of art for the modern home. Each rug is a primitive abstraction that is completely original to the weaver of the rug.
When you buy a Moroccan rug, you not only own a beautiful floor covering, but also a little bit of history.

Zaiane Tribal Rugs

Known for their beautifully detailed weavings, settled in the area South of Meknes, they are one of the largest producers of textiles of the Middle Atlas Berbers. As these tribes live in a warmer climate than other tribes, their flat weave textiles are more like blankets than rugs.
Because of the tribes' relative isolation in rural, mountainous areas, these textiles have preserved the ancient techniques and protective symbolism of their distant ancestors, they are hand- woven with great skill and the patterns used have at times symbolic meanings; patterns that would dispel misfortune show the 'evil eye', other symbols refer to love and fertility

Handled down from mother to daughter, in the High Atlas Mountain region, it is also a way to express their daily preoccupations and superstitions, the designs not only heal and protect, but also tell the history of the tribe or the story of the weaver's life.

 
Taznakht Tribal Rugs

Today’s Moroccan women weavers continue to use these ancient methods expertly. The brightness and warmth saffron and yellows colors enlivened by a predominance of orange.
They still make an orange from henna, an indigo blue, a madder red, and a natural green is characteristic of the Glaoua rugs and Taznakht.
Other natural dyes include reddish-purple from madder root, dried figs and pomegranate for black, tea for brown and sepia, the yellow comes from a locally-available plant whereas the black wool is un-dyed as it comes from black-haired goats indigenous to the region.
The weaver then begins a painstaking job that will take months if not years, to complete. Using their design as a complete reference, the weaver builds the rug from thousands of individually tied knots made with the help of a loom.

Hand-woven Moroccan pile carpets from the Taznakht tribe of the High Atlas mountains in the South of Morocco are characterized by rich warm colors. Their weaving has been famous for the quality of the wool used, for their striking colors(produced by natural organic dyes)and from its high sheen and its softness.

Beni Ouarain Rugs

Soft and plush Moroccan Beni Ouarain tribal rug are woven exclusively with an ivory background with abstract geometric motifs of high quality un-dyed natural wool.
Although Morocco’s color-saturated decoration and dress have long inspired artists such as Matisse, the rugs from the northeastern, altitudinous colder climate present a more subtle tradition. Woven from un-dyed, natural wool, the field is cream and the decoration is picked out in delicate lines of brown.

The seventeen tribes of the Beni Ouarain Confederation of the far northwestern part of the Middle-Atlas Mountains have long produced these wonderful white and black rugs. These very thick soft wool piled rugs were produce as sleeping mats and covers. The thick pile and flexible foundations were perfect protection against the cold climate of the Middle Atlas Mountains.