Heriz is not one place. It is a district of villages in northwestern Iran, east of Tabriz, and each has its own drawing habits. Once you know what to look for, a rug will tell you roughly where in that district it came from, which is a large part of why two rugs both honestly labelled Heriz can look so different.
The shared vocabulary
What the district has in common is a large angular medallion, a palette built on rust and madder red with indigo and ivory, and wool from local flocks grazing on mineral-rich highland pasture. That wool is the reason Heriz rugs wear the way they do. It is coarse by Tabriz standards and unusually resilient, which is exactly what you want under a dining table.
“Two rugs can both be honestly labelled Heriz and still be answers to entirely different questions.”
Where they diverge
Rugs from the villages closer to Tabriz tend toward finer knotting and more curvilinear corner spandrels — the influence of the city workshops is visible. Further out, the drawing gets bolder and more geometric, the medallion squarer, the secondary ornament sparser. Neither is better. They are answers to different questions.
Serapi, as a term, describes the older and finer end of this production — generally pre-1900, with a more open field and a softer palette. It is a quality designation more than a place, which is worth knowing before paying a premium for the word.
