I strongly believe that the first carpetware was brought to Caucasian Area by ancient nomad Turkic tribes. Below, there is a map which shows the movement of ancient Turkic tribes from the north to different parts of today’s Azerbaijan. The places where Zeyve type of carpets have been made come across at the same places where these tribes moved through and settled. The simple pattern has been used by ancient Turks (Huns, Khazars etc.) for different purposes. The “arrow”s around the gel (medallion) was used by ancient Turks as a migration sign (movement from one place to another place), it is also existed in Orkhon-Yenisei alphabet of ancient Turks, this letter was called ok (this word still exists in all modern Turkic languages, including Azeri, and means “arrow”) and it was used for the sound “K”.

The main places where Zeyve type of carpets have been woven:
1)Jamjamly – Shirvan Area (Gobustan Region)
2)Zeyve Village – between Kuba and Devechi towns.
3)Goycha – western Azerbaijan. Around the lake Goycha (today’s Sevan) --- In this area, Turkic Qara Qoyunlu (Black sheep) tribe was settled. The rugs that were made in this area was called Qara qoyunlu. In 1920th the area was taken from Azerbaijan and given to Armenia by Communist Regime. And last Azeri Turks was expelled from this area by Armenian terrorists in 1988-89. After this date the area was completely armenized.
4)Ganja (calls also Gadim Ganja (Ancient Ganja)) –one of the biggest cities of Azerbaijan.

The simplest ‘Zeyve’ design is in Qara-Qoyunlu and Ganja carpets. And then comes Jamjamly. The most complicated one is in Zeyve Village carpets.
 

Letif Kerimov’s opinions: Since he was honoured art worker of Azerbaijan, people’s artist of the republic (in soviet time this rank was considered as a great thing, and it still like that), USSR State Prize Laureate, Doctor of Arts and he grew up in a carpet maker family I trust his works, and He was also the head of the Department of Decorative-Applied Arts of the Institute of Architecture and Art of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.
He thinks the history of angular “Zeyve” medallion goes back to medieval ages. He mentioned in his book that the same pattern is used in the western coasts of Black Sea too, (this area was settled by western Huns since the beginning of era)
He met with old carpet makers of these areas, where this type of carpets have been made, according to them the people call these carpets “Gadim Zeyve” (ancient Zeyve), this again proves that the history of this carpet is quite old. He also mentions that the old carpet makers of Shirvan Area calls this carpet “Jamly Zeyva”, which shows the connection between Jamjamly and Zeyva…
About Lezgi star…I rather would say that this small ethnic group (Lezgi) was influenced by North Azerbaijan carpet making school, instead of saying that all these areas of Azerbaijan (which most of them even has no closeness to the area where Lezgi people live) was influenced by Lezgis.

Vugar Dadashov