Tibetan carpet: millennia-old intangible cultural heritage

With a history of thousands of years, Tibetan carpets represent one of the most famous traditional handicrafts found on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The traditional carpets are among the world’s three most famous alongside handcrafted Oriental and Persian rugs.

In the past, herders in high-altitude regions would carry around Tibetan carpets to keep themselves warm, but nowadays many people will also use them to decorate their houses.

“Tibetan carpets represent a kind of handmade craft. It has a history of many thousands of years in Qinghai Province,” said Yang Yongzhu, a skilled artisan and inheritor of Tibetan carpet weaving techniques working in the Huangzhong District of Xining City, the province’s capital.

In 2006, the region’s traditional Jiaya Tibetan carpet weaving skills were inscribed into the first list of China's national intangible cultural heritage items.

Shengyuan Carpet Group Co., Ltd is a carpet manufacturing company based in Xining City. While embracing the concept of integrating advanced technology into traditional industries, the firm has continued to build on its traditional craftsmanship to produce finely-woven carpets while adopting new machine-weaving techniques to allow for the creation of increasingly delicate and innovative patterns.

The firm’s products are exported to Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America, already covering more than 40 countries and regions. In 2020, its total output value reached 42 million yuan (about 6.6 million US dollars).

Let’s go and explore this millennia-old traditional handicraft together.