Vintage Baluch Wool Prayer Rug, Tree of Life, Natural Dye
Vintage Baluch Wool Prayer Rug, Tree of Life, Natural Dye
Including taxes and shipping
- 146 x 94 cm (4 ft 9 in x 3 ft 1 in), 1.4 sqm
- Wool pile on wool foundation, hand-knotted
- Woven in Afghanistan
- Free worldwide shipping with tracking
- 30-day returns
- Lifetime warranty*
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Vintage hand-knotted Baluch prayer rug, about 50 years old. Size 146 × 94 cm. 100% wool, wool foundation, natural dyes. Nomadic Baluch weavers of Baluchistan.
What the wool is
Baluch wool is strong, dry, and dense, camp wool, spun by hand, dyed with plants. It is made to be knelt on and walked on, not to look like a factory plush.
What the design is in the real world
A prayer rug in tree-of-life form. Madder-red field. A dark navy tree down the center: stacked diamonds, hooks, paired rising shapes. Around it, small stars, latch-hooks, animal-like figures, flock, watchfulness, a guarded camp. The ivory-and-brown border is the compound wall around the tent. A compact rug for prayer, bedside, or wall.
What the design is in the inner world
The tree is the path between earth and heaven. The lower part is ground and flock. The middle is the living house. The top is sky. The paired rising shapes are read as arms or hands lifted in prayer, a body turned upward asking for mercy and protection. Red is life. Navy is night and depth.
Why it mattered to weavers and the culture
Baluch families wove their signs into small rugs they could roll and carry. The tree and the hooks are a portable shrine: protection on the move. Finishing the border so it holds the prayer is the weaver’s closing word.
One of a kind. Free worldwide shipping.
Description
What the wool is
Baluch wool is strong, dry, and dense, camp wool, spun by hand, dyed with plants. It is made to be knelt on and walked on, not to look like a factory plush.
What the design is in the real world
A prayer rug in tree-of-life form. Madder-red field. A dark navy tree down the center: stacked diamonds, hooks, paired rising shapes. Around it, small stars, latch-hooks, animal-like figures, flock, watchfulness, a guarded camp. The ivory-and-brown border is the compound wall around the tent. A compact rug for prayer, bedside, or wall.
What the design is in the inner world
The tree is the path between earth and heaven. The lower part is ground and flock. The middle is the living house. The top is sky. The paired rising shapes are read as arms or hands lifted in prayer, a body turned upward asking for mercy and protection. Red is life. Navy is night and depth.
Why it mattered to weavers and the culture
Baluch families wove their signs into small rugs they could roll and carry. The tree and the hooks are a portable shrine: protection on the move. Finishing the border so it holds the prayer is the weaver’s closing word.
Material
Wool
Hand-spun sheep’s wool is springy and warm. It holds dye inside the fibre, recovers after it is walked on, and wears slowly, over decades rather than years.
The foundation, the grid of threads the rug is woven on, is wool too, so the whole rug moves and ages as one.
Specifications
- Size
- 94 × 146 cm (3 ft 1 in × 4 ft 9 in)
- Area
- 1.4 m²
- Shape
- Rectangular
- Pile
- Wool
- Foundation
- Wool
Foundation
The warp and weft: the grid of threads the pile is knotted onto. A cotton foundation keeps a rug flat and square; a wool one moves with the pile.
- Weave
- Hand-Knotted
Weave
Hand-knotted rugs have a pile made of individual knots tied by hand around the warp. Flatweaves such as kilims are woven with no pile, so they are thinner and often reversible.
- Age
- About 50 years
- Condition
- Good
- Made in
- Afghanistan
- Design
- Baluch Tree of Life Prayer
- Colours
- Red / Rust, Blue / Navy
- Rug ID
- 3
