Nain, Central Persia
The city of Nain is a small oasis in the center of Iran with over 3000 thousand years of history and about 27,000 inhabitants. Nain is best known for its carpet making, the so-called Nain carpet. In most cases, it is a very tightly knotted rug with a natural, earth tone color. The main colors consist of ivory and sand tones as well as light to dark blue Shades. The design of Nain rugs are very similar to the Isfahan rugs, but uniquely different in color. Depending on the quality, the density of knots are between 200,000 and 1.7 million per m2, with the real ones having at least a density of 500,000 knots per m2. The typical materials are silk and the finest lamb wool as well as high quality camel hair, which gives the carpet a warm, nut-brown tone. It goes without saying that the durability and life of a carpet depends on the number of knots. The Nain rugs are divided into three categories, called 9, 6, 4 La-(lines). This refers to the warp threads thickness . The lower the number, the higher the knots count per m2 . Although there is little water in Nain region, there is a lively agriculture with unique products such as cabbage, turnip, saffron and fine pomegranate which are also used for dyeing the wool (for yellow and gold shades).