The handmade carpet industry is one of the 52 industries on which tourism is based. The places of manufacture are concentrated in the village of Saqqa Abu Shara in Menoufia and the village of Saqqara and Badrashin. The place of sale is in Saqqara in what is known as the Saqqara schools for handmade carpets. Mostly the design is almost unified for the school. On the lower floor are the workshops and at the top is the exhibition. Many educated young people and graduates of language faculties are employed in each of the schools to deal with tourist groups for explanation, translation and sales.
One of the things worthy of pride is that Mubarak found a carpet during his visit to France hanging on the wall in the Elysee Palace, with the legs of Abu Shara written on it, so he decided upon his return to visit the village.
Which was exported every year 3500 square meters and the village is now suffering greatly due to customs on raw materials used in industry, the most important of which are silk lines without any interest from the state in them
This is a great report from A. Farah Hani Tawfiq in one of the oldest schools of handmade carpets in Saqqara.
The products vary between two mountains for flooring or decoration, wool, cotton and silk carpets, which may reach 100 knots per centimetre, as the value of the carpet increases by the number of knots per centimetre.
The carpet is manufactured in four stages, starting with preparing the loom by installing the threads on which the carpet is woven. The second stage comes by choosing the design of the carpet and unloading this drawing into colours on chart paper for workers to walk on during the manufacturing process. There is also the stage of dyeing white silk threads to obtain On the required colours. The last stage is related to preparing the carpet for sale by washing, ironing and wrapping it. All these stages require great capabilities,
The question is, can you imagine the price per square meter of 100 knots silk carpet? How much is it now?