Ashgabat Carpet Museum

Turkmen carpets are world-renowned. They are mentioned in the Avesta, the sacred text of Zoroastrianism, the religion of Zarathustra. In his *Book of the Marvels of the World*, Marco Polo wrote that Turkmen carpets were the finest and most beautiful in the world. Homer and Herodotus sang their praises, and they appear in many paintings by Italian Renaissance artists. The finest and most magnificent works by Turkmen women carpet weavers are exhibited in museums around the world and are also held in private collections.

In 1994, a unique carpet museum opened in Ashgabat, the homeland of these carpets. The Ashgabat Carpet Museum is a treasure trove of Central Asian applied arts, with more than 2,000 exhibits, including carpets dating from the 17th century, as well as unique double-sided and relief carpets. Some exhibits have a density of more than one million knots per square metre—an immense amount of work has gone into these masterpieces.

One of the museum’s most valuable exhibits is the giant carpet *Turkmen Kalby* (“Turkmen Soul”), handwoven in 1941–1942. It covers an area of 193.5 m². Fifty years later, two even larger carpets were woven in honour of Turkmenistan’s president, Niyazov. The *Turkmenbashi* carpet (266 square metres) is held at the National Museum of Turkmenistan, while the second, *The President* (294 m²), is in the Rukhyet Palace.

In 2001, a unique giant carpet titled *The Golden Age of Great Saparmurat Turkmenbashi* was made from Saraja yarn with silk thread. It covers an area of 301 square metres and weighs 1.2 tonnes. Forty women carpet weavers made it by hand, and each square metre contains more than 304,000 knots. This carpet is the pride of the Ashgabat Carpet Museum’s collection. It is considered the largest handwoven item and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.