How to clean a tribal rug?

Vacuum both sides on a low suction setting to remove loose dust. Avoid using modern carpet shampoo or heavy chemical foams. Take it to a specialist hand-washer every few years. They flush the wool with cold water to protect the natural dyes.

What causes colour changes across rugs?

Weavers dyed their wool in small batches. When one batch ran out, the next lot didn't match. This creates horizontal bands of shifting colour called abrash. It is a standard feature of nomadic weaving.

We have inherited quite a large rug from my grandmother and I was just wondering if it is safe to use it in a busy hallway?

High traffic areas wear down wool pile very quickly. Grit gets trapped near the foundation threads and cuts the fibres as people walk over them. Place it in a living room or bedroom where people wear slippers or soft shoes. Use a good underlay to stop it slipping and spreading the strain across the knots. Rotate the piece every six months. This ensures any fading from sunlight or wear from footsteps happens evenly across the whole surface.

The rug we just bought has fringes that are unravelling on one side, so can we just cut them off to make it look neat?

Those fringes are the ends of the warp threads holding the foundation together. Cutting them weakens the structure and will let the knotted pile slide right off the ends. Have a restorer secure the fringe with a simple blanket stitch. They can bind the remaining warp threads safely without altering the main border.

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Antique Qashqai Rugs from the 19th Century

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Woven on horizontal ground looms by nomadic tribes in the Zagros Mountains of southwest Iran, antique Qashqai rugs are functional floor coverings characterised by deep madder reds and dense geometric medallions.