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From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

The Pazyryk Carpet is the earliest surviving pile carpet in the world. Dating from the 5th-4th century BC, it was excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1949 from a Siberian burial ground where it had been preserved in perma frost in the Pazyryk valley of the Altai Mountains in Siberian Russia south of the modern city of Novosibirsk.

The origin of this carpet is attributed to either the Iranian Scythians or the Persian Achaemenids. This carpet is 6'6" x 6' (200 x 183 cm) and has approximately 360,000 knots/m².

Today the rug is in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.