Oriental carpets: symmetrical knots

Patterns knotted with a symmetrical knot tend to be geometric and bold and powerful because of the bulky nature of the knot. If you look at carpet books published about twenty years ago you may find that the symmetrical knot was called a turkish knot. The problem with that name is that it implies that Turkish knots were only used in Turkish carpets and that's not true. Turkish knots like these were used in European carpets, Turkish carpets of course, some Central Asian carpets, some Persian carpets and some Chinese carpets. So the name symmetrical is better and it is called symmetrical because those threads used to tie the knot go in front of two warp threads, round the back of them and then the ends of the knot come out between the two warp threads and it is symmetrical when you look at it.