Antique Runners between £0 and £0
A runner is a long, narrow knotted or flat-woven floor piece, made across Persia, the Caucasus, Anatolia and Central Asia for corridors, tent interiors and the sides of rooms, and exported to Europe for halls and stairs.
What Are Antique Runners?
The format is the point: elongated proportion, often under about 1.1m wide and 2.5m or more long. Widths quoted in titles start around 44 to 70cm, and lengths run past 6m, with one matched pair of narrow Hamadan runners given a combined 1,022cm. Proportion, not decoration, is what put these pieces in corridors and on stairs.
The heading is broader than the word suggests. Two in five titles say "rug" and a smaller group say "carpet", so small area rugs, kilims and occasional room-size carpets from the same weaving regions sit alongside true runners, which dealers flag with "narrow", "long rug", "kelleh" or "corridor carpet".
What you'll meet most often is a North-West Persian village or tribal pile runner, roughly 0.7 to 1.0m wide by 2.5 to 4.5m long. Heriz appears in 158 titles on its own, with Hamadan, Karaja, Sarab, Malayer and Bidjar behind it. Caucasian long rugs, Kurdish and tribal weavings, the Baluch and Turkmen group, and flat-weaves make up the rest.
Titles give a weaving region rather than a maker. Dates run from 1750 to 1960, but the mass sits between 1880 and 1930, the 1900s being the single largest decade. Two-thirds of those dates are hedged in the title itself, and 51 listings decline a decade and say only "19th Century".
What Sets Them Apart
Length and genuine narrowness push a piece up. The upper reaches are full of Kurdish and North-West Persian weavings at five and six metres on widths under a metre, while short, small pieces gather at the bottom. A long corridor runner was harder to weave straight and harder to keep, so fewer survive.
Region does most of the rest. Caucasian work, Kuba, Karabagh, Kazak and Shirvan, sits at the top with early Kurdish and the better Heriz group, and generic "Pure Wool Runner" titles sit at the other end. Age moves in the same direction: 1750, 1800 and mid-19th-century pieces appear only near the top, while the 1920s and 1930s fill the lower half.
Two things lift a runner beyond its region. A named design, a Lesghi Star, an Akstafa with peacocks, a garden design, and only a minority of titles name a design at all. And pairs: matched North-West Persian, Ushak, Kerman and Heriz runners all sit well above single equivalents, because a matching second one is what a hall or a staircase needed.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for runners between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
Some runners are cut very narrow: 44cm across on a 379cm length, and 46cm on a 495cm Quchan Kurd kilim.
The Antique Runners between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Runner
- A rug of elongated proportion, typically under about 1.1m wide and 2.5m or more long. The term describes shape rather than origin.
- Long rug
- Trade term for a piece longer than a rug but wider than a corridor runner. It turns up in 76 titles.
- Kilim
- A flat-woven piece with no pile, named in 86 titles. Soumak, palas and embroidered panels sit in the same flat-weave group.
- Ground
- The field colour behind the pattern. Camel, ivory, blue and red grounds all appear in titles.
- Boteh
- The teardrop or paisley motif. Titles name it as an all-over repeat or arranged in stripes.
- Gul
- A repeating octagonal tribal medallion, chiefly Turkmen. Titles specify types such as turreted gul and Memling gul.
Frequently Asked Questions
How wide is a runner usually?
Widths quoted in titles start at about 44 to 70cm at the narrowest and run up to around a metre for the common North-West Persian format.
The word "narrow" appears in 150 titles, used to flag width where it matters. A 44cm width on a 379cm length and a 46cm Quchan Kurd kilim at 495cm are the extremes recorded.
Which weaving regions turn up most?
North-West Persia is the largest single block, roughly a third of titles. Heriz leads it, with Hamadan, Karaja, Sarab, Malayer and Bidjar following.
Caucasian long rugs account for about a tenth, Kurdish and tribal weavings roughly one in ten, and the Baluch and Turkmen group about one in twelve, rising in current stock. Kilims and other flat-weaves make up around one in fifteen.
Are these mostly 19th-century pieces?
No. The dated field runs 1750 to 1960, and the bulk falls between 1880 and 1930, with the 1900s the single largest decade.
Earlier decades thin out fast. The 1870s, 1850s and 1860s appear only in small numbers, and pieces from those years sit near the top of the range.
Why do so many listings say rug or carpet?
The heading collects long, narrow floor pieces, but a large share of titles use "rug" and a smaller group "carpet". Small area rugs, kilims and some room-size carpets from the same weaving regions are listed alongside true runners.
Dealers signal the corridor format with words such as narrow, long rug, kelleh or corridor carpet.
Do runners come in matched pairs?
They do, and pairs are a recurring feature of the archive. North-West Persian, Ushak, Kerman, Donegal and Heriz pairs all appear.
Pairs sit well above single equivalents in the range. One pair of narrow Hamadan runners is given a combined length of 1,022cm.
What unusual types have appeared?
Alongside the Persian and Caucasian mainstream, single oddities turn up and are not repeated: a Kyrgyz piled tent-band fragment called a tegerich, a Nepalese rug, an Xinjiang runner, an American hooked rug and a Tibetan khaden.
A Moroccan kilim woven from sabra cactus silk is another one-off. Around 160 runners are listed a year on Sellingantiques, offered by 58 different dealers, which is what makes room for the outliers.