Kindly help identify this rug. size. 10.9ft by 7.3ft.

Dear Sharafi and Co. Thank you. What would your comnents be on this piece?

Sorry; I had attached a photo of another rug with the comment above; which somehow did not get attached. I will resend when I am near my computer.

I agree with the other specialists. However, I do think it could be a little older. Also, although the rug has extremely low supported market value, it does have a high decorative value. This worn, distressed and tattered look needs to be accounted for in valuation today. You may be able to pick up a rug like this for very little. However, if it is cleaned and serviced properly it would be a much different story.

size 13.6 ft by 11.8ft

It can be Agra; i suspect the red in centre and dark green in larger border to be silk. I base my claim on the fact that i was told this rug has silk in it and that it has a very smooth silky feeling to it; although it has not been cleaned in ages. I dont have any close up photos at the moment. Will check later.

Thank you RugPro, I did not want flood the topics so posting under same thread; i will start new thread for each new rug that i post from now.

These and other rugs were mostly in rooms of palaces which my family had at Darband(princely state of Amb-family has a history of rule in that region for 400 yrs) an area which came under the Tarbela Reservoir(largest earth filled dam in the world) in 1970. Afterwards these were moved to a summer home my family has a bit up north, at a place called Shergarh. Upto 1973 all elders of our family; grandfather, grandmother all had passed away. My father being in boarding school at the time and aged 14 was eldest son. All property was taken by government as custodian until my father and his siblings would reach 18. This position stayed till 1987. During this period our homes suffered from mismanagement and thieving. These rugs were discovered by my father; folded and piled up in a store in the 200 yr old fort at Shergarh in late 1980s. He noticed there condition wasnt good so left them there as they were kept. Since 2010 I developed interest in rescuing these. And have been trying to restore them ever since. The cost of restoration is not cheap so i try to put together atleast one every year.

Thank you for the background. That's quite interesting because it puts everything in context. The rugs have a history.

While the photos are of good resolution, they are not of the detail we need to perhaps say one way or the other regarding material content. As you may have seen in other areas of the forum, there are serious limitations to estimating the actual material content. If you suspect there may be silk, there are methods of extracting a knot and testing. In briefly looking at the images provided, the rug appears to be quite old, perhaps 1880. It's not improbable it could be older, but we have to be relatively conservative. The red may be of another material than wool, however, common to Agra made carpets are cotton pile rugs, which can feel similar to silk. It is also possible the wool is quite fine and feels like silk. Most probably, the difference felt is due to the recess of what appears to me to possibly be wool. The red dye perhaps had a mordant or other acidic element that has eaten away at the wool at a different rate than the adjacent greens, golds, beige, etc. So this would explain some of the recess. Some stronger deterioration in some areas over other may be a combination of UV exposure with patterned wear, or perhaps other.